Location | Edinburgh, Scotland |
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Coordinates | 55°57′25″N3°09′32″W / 55.9570°N 3.158874°W |
Closed | 1967 |
Tenants | |
Old Meadowbank was a multi-purpose sports facility located in the Meadowbank area of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was mainly used as a football stadium by Leith Athletic between the 1930s and 1950s and as a motorcycle speedway track. The stadium was demolished in the late 1960s and provided part of the site for Meadowbank Sports Centre, which was used for the Commonwealth Games in 1970 and 1986.
Leith Athletic played at Old Meadowbank from the 1930s until their demise in 1955. [1] In the early 1950s it was the location of a football match played under temporary floodlights against an invitation XI including the Edinburgh born Jimmy Logie, then playing for Arsenal. This was prior to the two senior clubs in Edinburgh, Hearts and Hibernian, themselves installing permanent floodlights.
Old Meadowbank was a motorcycle speedway track that ran from 1948 to 1954 and 1960 to 1967. The stadium was located between what is the new Meadowbank Stadium and the Meadowbank Velodrome, roughly perpendicular to where the 5-aside football pitch at Meadowbank sits today. Old Meadowbank was home to speedway team the Edinburgh Monarchs. [2] The sport stopped in 1954, when the post-war entertainment tax started to make the sport unprofitable. Whilst the Monarchs of this era achieved little as a team, they did introduce Aussie Jack Young to UK speedway. Young won the World Championship in 1951 as a Monarchs rider.
Meadowbank was also the track where the 1955 and 1962 World Champion Peter Craven of England lost his life in a freak accident on 20 September 1963. While taking evasive action to avoid hitting fallen race leader George Hunter who had suffered engine failure, Craven hit the fence. Craven suffered serious head injuries in the crash and was rushed to hospital where his family remained at his bedside, he died four days later.
The entertainment tax was later scrapped, and the sport was reintroduced to Edinburgh in 1960. The track was used for training purposes for a spell in the late 1950s and 1959 an Edinburgh Students Charites meeting was staged at the track. The Monarchs of the 1960s were founder members of the Provincial League (1960–1964) and founder members of the British league in 1965. The Monarchs were forced to leave Old Meadowbank in 1967 to allow the stadium to be re-developed for the 1970 Commonwealth Games. Speedway was not incorporated in the new stadium as the Government of the day would not fund stadiums which would be used by professional sports.
The displaced Monarchs raced at Cliftonhill in Coatbridge for two seasons before they closed down when the promotion sold the licence to a consortium who re-opened Wembley Stadium for speedway. Speedway was revived in Edinburgh at Powderhall Stadium which operated 1977 to 1995. The Monarchs are now based at the Armadale Stadium, on the eastern outskirts of Armadale in West Lothian.
Easter Road is a football stadium located in the Leith area of Edinburgh, Scotland, which is the home ground of Scottish Premiership club Hibernian (Hibs). The stadium currently has an all-seated capacity of 20,421, which makes it the fifth-largest football stadium in Scotland. Easter Road is also known by Hibs fans as "The Holy Ground" or "The Leith San Siro". The venue has also been used to stage international matches, Scottish League Cup semi-finals and was briefly the home ground of the Edinburgh professional rugby union team.
Holker Street is a sports stadium in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England. As well as being a football ground, it has also been used for motorcycle speedway. It once had some leisure centre facilities, including four squash courts, which have now been demolished. Its owners, and tenants for the majority of its history, are Barrow A.F.C., who have played at the ground since 1909. Despite its current capacity being just over 6,000, some 16,874 crammed the stadium in 1954 when Barrow played Swansea Town in the FA Cup third round.
Edinburgh City Football Club is a semi-professional senior Scottish football club which plays in Scottish League Two, the fourth tier of the Scottish Professional Football League. The club play at Meadowbank Stadium, returning to the rebuilt arena in 2022 after five years at Ainslie Park.
Leith Athletic Football Club is a football club based in the Leith area of Edinburgh, Scotland. They compete in the East of Scotland Football League, First Division. First team matches are played at Meadowbank Stadium.
Meadowbank Stadium is a multi-purpose sports facility located in the Meadowbank area of Edinburgh, Scotland. Built on the site of the earlier New Meadowbank and Old Meadowbank sports venues, it was originally built to host the 1970 Commonwealth Games. It also hosted the Games in 1986, becoming the first venue to host the Games twice. It is the current home of Scottish League Two side Edinburgh City.
Meadowbank is a suburb of Edinburgh in Scotland. It is best known for Meadowbank Stadium, a multi-purpose sports facility that opened as an international sports stadium in 1970. The stadium closed in 2017 and was redeveloped as a local sports and athletics facility that was officially opened on 4 November 2022.
Powderhall is an area lying between Broughton Road and Warriston Road in the north of Edinburgh, the Scottish capital. Until recently it was best known for Powderhall Stadium, a greyhound racing track, which has now closed. The stadium also played host to motorcycle speedway racing from 1977 to 1995, as home to the Edinburgh Monarchs, who have since relocated to Armadale. The Powderhall Sprint, first held in 1870, was a professional footrace with handicapping of the runners. It continues, since 1999, as the New Year Sprint and is now held at Musselburgh Racecourse.
St Mirren Park, more commonly known as Love Street, was a football stadium located on Love Street in Paisley, Scotland. At one time the stadium was capable of accommodating almost 50,000 spectators, however in its final years it had an all-seated capacity of 10,800. Until its closure in 2009, it was the home ground of St Mirren F.C.
Cliftonhill Stadium, commonly known as Cliftonhill and currently 'The Reigart Stadium' for sponsorship purposes, is a football stadium in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is the home ground of former Scottish Professional Football League team Albion Rovers F.C., who have played at the ground since 1919.
Peter Theodore Craven was an English motorcycle racer. He was a finalist in each FIM Speedway World Championship from 1954 to 1963 and he won the title twice. He was British Champion in 1962 and 1963.
Central Park is a multi-use stadium in Cowdenbeath, Fife, Scotland, used for football and stock car racing. It is situated in the centre of the town, just off the High Street, and has a capacity of 4,309. The pitch size is 107 x 66 yards. Central Park has been the home ground of Lowland League team Cowdenbeath F.C. since it opened in 1917. Stock car racing has taken place at the ground since 1970, and takes place on a tarmac racetrack surrounding the football pitch. Central Park was also previously a venue for greyhound racing between 1928 and 1965.
The Edinburgh Monarchs are a Scottish speedway team based in Armadale. They compete in the SGB Championship, racing on Friday nights during the speedway season. The club is run by a board of directors, chaired by Alex Harkess and also runs a National Development League team called the Monarchs Academy.
The sport of speedway in the United Kingdom has changed little since the first meetings in the 1920s. It has three domestic leagues, its own Speedway Grand Prix, and an annual entry into the Speedway World Cup / Speedway of Nations.
Jack Ellis Young was an Australian motorcycle speedway rider who won the Speedway World Championship in 1951 and 1952. He also won the London Riders' Championship 1953 and 1954 and was a nine time South Australian Champion between 1948 and 1964.
Armadale Stadium is a motorcycle speedway and former greyhound racing stadium situated in the town of Armadale, West Lothian in Scotland. Stock car racing has also been held at the venue.
Powderhall Stadium, formerly the Powderhall Grounds, was a multi-sports facility overlooking the Water of Leith on Beaverhall Road, in the Powderhall (Broughton) area of northern Edinburgh, Scotland. It opened in January 1870 at the height of professional pedestrianism and was modelled on the stadium at Stamford Bridge in London. It hosted professional sprint races, track and field athletics, including the Scottish Amateur Athletics Championships on a number of occasions, professional football, international rugby, cycling, and dog races as well as boxing, quoits and pigeon shooting. For 100 years it hosted the Powderhall Sprint, the most famous professional sprint handicap in the world. With the decline of pedestrianism as a spectator sport in the 1920s it was converted to a greyhound stadium, hosting the Scottish Grand National for over sixty five years, and it also hosted professional speedway. The stadium finally closed in 1995 and the site is now a housing estate.
The Marine Gardens was an entertainment complex located in the Portobello area of Edinburgh, Scotland. Opened in 1909 as a pleasure garden and amusement park on the shores of the Firth of Forth, most of its original attractions apart from the ballroom were removed following military use of the site during the First World War. The complex also included a stadium which was used during the interwar period for football, greyhound racing and speedway. It was the home venue of Scottish Football League teams Leith Athletic (1928–1936) and Edinburgh City. The Marine Gardens closed down permanently in 1939 after again being taken over by the military, with the area being redeveloped after the Second World War.
George Hunter was a motorcycle speedway rider. He earned 28 caps for the Scotland national speedway team, 17 international caps for the England national speedway team and 16 caps for the Great Britain team.
Volunteer Park is a football ground in Armadale, West Lothian, Scotland. It is the home ground of Armadale Thistle, and was used by several of the town's previous clubs, including Armadale F.C., who played Scottish Football League matches there between 1921 and 1933. The ground also hosted greyhound racing during the 1930s.
New Meadowbank was an athletics and football ground in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was the home ground of Leith Athletic during the 1946–47 season. The site was later used to build the modern Meadowbank Stadium.