The main stand at Elm Park

[Jerry St Clair]

I recently bought a book called Engineering Archie by Simon Inglis. A rather fascinating and detailed look at the football stands built by Archibald Leitch during the early 20th century (amongst others he built the Shelf at White Hart Lane, the Trinity Road stand at Villa Park and the South Stand at Ibrox. As well as individual stands he built the whole ground at Highbury, Old Trafford and, er, The Den).

At the end of the book there's one tantalising sentence that says it is thought Leitch was involved in the building of the Main Stand at Elm Park. But doesn't go into any further detail. Has anyone done any previous research on this or can shed any light?

[Dirk Gently]

There has been a small amount of discussion about Archie Leitch in the Craven Cottage thread in "The Team."

All I know is the the main stand at Elm Park was built by the London firm of Humprey's in 1926 - and, incidentally, the opening was delayed by the General Strike!

In Simon Inglis's "bible" The Football Ground of Britain he makes no mention of Leitch in connection with Elm Park, and previously Simon has suggested that Elm Park was a very poor copy of Leitch's work, so I was surprised to see the possible link suggested.

[Jerry St Clair]

it seems Inglis has now softened his view. I can't remember the actual quote but it was along the lines that the Main Stand at Elm Park bore the hallmarks of a Leitch construction and was built by Humphries who were known to work with with Archie. However, there's little evidence to show he was actually involved in it's construction.

[readingbedding]

Inglis' comments about Elm Park were brutally honest, something along the lines of the most characterless ground that he had visited in the League.

Looking back, I was a bit disappointed, but he wasn't a Reading fan so why would he feel at home.

This was in the 80's.

[Behindu]

Wasn't the critical comment from thre first edition of Inglis' book and by the second edition he had changed his mind a bit...

He came and gave a talk at the club once and was incredibly interesting and very knowledgeable.

I would think that if STAR were able to arrange a repeat of this there would be quite a lot of interest.....

[The 17 Bus]

Wasn't the critical comment from thre first edition of Inglis' book and by the second edition he had changed his mind a bit...

He came and gave a talk at the club once and was incredibly interesting and very knowledgeable.

I would think that if STAR were able to arrange a repeat of this there would be quite a lot of interest.....

Does he talks on stadium expansions?

[Behindu]

Wasn't the critical comment from thre first edition of Inglis' book and by the second edition he had changed his mind a bit...

He came and gave a talk at the club once and was incredibly interesting and very knowledgeable.

I would think that if STAR were able to arrange a repeat of this there would be quite a lot of interest.....

Does he talks on stadium expansions?

I'm sure he would, if the demand was there.

[Jerry St Clair]

I'm sure he would, if the demand was there.

[Dai Brainbocs]

He did a brilliant talk at Reading Museum a few years ago, highly recommended.

To be fair, I think his take on Elm Park cut both ways - that it was characterless but in the sense of having nothing either particularly good or bad about it.

Somerton Park, where I spent my football-watching youth, had bags of "character" but looking back it was a death trap.

[Dirk Gently]

In the third edition (1996) Simon says :

In the 1983 edition of this book, I described Elm Park as the least interesting ground in the League. Not much has changed except for it appearing brighter, and perhaps moderately appealing as a post-Taylor relic, in the run-up to its 100th birthday.

So his view hasn't mellowed much by then, except for the rarity value of old grounds.

[Dirk Gently]

If you're interested in such things, can I suggest you look at Simon's web page http://www.playedinbritain.co.uk/playedinbritain-.html

Lots of great stuff there.

[Whistle]

There's nothing about the main stand at EP that looks like any Leitch work I know of.

It was probably done on the cheap - I think it was mainly benches rather than tip up seats to start with.

[readingbedding]

There's nothing about the main stand at EP that looks like any Leitch work I know of.

It was probably done on the cheap - I think it was mainly benches rather than tip up seats to start with.

I only saw about 2 matches from the Stand at Elm Park.

One was when I was really young and the other a couple of years before it closed.

Always found it strange that people preferred to sit rather than lean on a terracing with your mates bawling away.

It was a proper novelty sitting down watching a match, now it's the other way round.

[Mad Dog's Ghost]

Used to have a freebie season ticket in 'A' stand (before it became an 'away' section) through my junior sunday side and loved it. The only other people in there were very senior supporters who all seemed to smoke pipes or cigars. I like Simon Inglis's work but his assessment of Elm Park was very harsh. No other terrace shaped quite like the Tilehurst End, Southbank offered a good view, shelter (and atmosphere, on its day/evening) and the Norfolk Road Stand was a 20s(?) classic, again with good views and decent capacity.

And in its later days, it had proper floodlights on damn great pylons which you could see from miles. You don't get 'em like that any more.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

I like Simon Inglis's work but his assessment of Elm Park was very harsh. No other terrace shaped quite like the Tilehurst End, Southbank offered a good view, shelter (and atmosphere, on its day/evening) and the Norfolk Road Stand was a 20s(?) classic, again with good views and decent capacity.

And in its later days, it had proper floodlights on damn great pylons which you could see from miles. You don't get 'em like that any more.

I always though it was the main stand that let elm park down. It was small and dull, and out of scale with the rest of the ground. Given the size of the terraces, Elm Park should have had a stand with at least 5000 seats.

Had the cameras been stuck on the other side of the ground, facing the southbank, it would have looked a lot better on TV.

[Mad Dog's Ghost]

It still held over 3,000 though ... until the embarrassing 'executive' boxes were added. They were awful.

[Winchester Royal]

It still held over 3,000 though ... until the embarrassing 'executive' boxes were added. They were awful.

After the Taylor report, they had to remove the last 8(?) rows of seats because the stand wouldn't have been able to be evacuated quickly enough.

[Dirk Gently]

It still held over 3,000 though ... until the embarrassing 'executive' boxes were added. They were awful.

Yes, but the money they brought in probably kept the club alive in the mid-80s.

[Jerry St Clair]

After the Taylor report, they had to remove the last 8(?) rows of seats because the stand wouldn't have been able to be evacuated quickly enough.

That was actually after the Bradford fire. They just roped the back rows off (before replacing them with exec boxes).

[RoyalBlue]

Used to have a freebie season ticket in 'A' stand (before it became an 'away' section) through my junior sunday side and loved it. The only other people in there were very senior supporters who all seemed to smoke pipes or cigars. I like Simon Inglis's work but his assessment of Elm Park was very harsh. No other terrace shaped quite like the Tilehurst End, Southbank offered a good view, shelter (and atmosphere, on its day/evening) and the Norfolk Road Stand was a 20s(?) classic, again with good views and decent capacity.

And in its later days, it had proper floodlights on damn great pylons which you could see from miles. You don't get 'em like that any more.

Fully agree with your assessment and not that of Simon Inglis. I am now looking up at an oil painting on my wall, which shows those very same floodlights cutting through the dark night and illuminating the Norfolk Road stand (complete with post Valley Parade fire exit) on a typical winter's midweek match. Maybe we are just blind romantics but I thought Elm Park had fantastic character and atmosphere on those sort of evenings.

Who else can remember the 'old gits' of the centre section offering match officials free cups of tea and other fluids as a reward for their performances when they left the pitch at half-time? They seemed to think that if they threw the fluid in the direction of the officials they would be able to catch it!