Which grounds are these? 5 pictures of virtually unrecognisable old football grounds including Woolwich Arsenal and Crystal Palace.

If you think Selhurst Park is old fashioned, you should check out these pictures of the former Crystal Palace ground.

Keen historian Mike Floate has written Football Grounds of the Early 1900s with tales and vintage images from football grounds of yesteryear.

Mike, from Crockenhill, said he was inspired to write the book because it is the kind of thing he would like to read.

He added: “Fast approaching the age of 60 I have seen grounds change from the classic Leitch-designed Selhurst Park, where I saw my first game in 1964, with terracing giving way to mud banks at the top, to the current all-seater stadia."

To celebrate the book's publication, Mike has shared some of the images and facts about some of London's old ground.

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Arsenal's old Manor Ground in Woolwich

Woolwich Arsenal was the first club in the South to fully embrace professionalism and the first to join the Football League.

Their stadium was developed into a good ground for the time, with covered stands on both sides of the pitch.

History may not have been fair to the Manor Ground, with poor attendances being cited as a reason for moving to Highbury. Photographers were regular visitors to the ground and their images show the ground with large crowds.

Passions ran high and the club had to play elsewhere more than once following crowd trouble resulting in ground closures.

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Chelsea, a long time pre-Mourinho

The newly-established Chelsea team was built around their captain, William ‘Fatty’ Foulke, one of the first celebrity footballers.

Foulke can be seen in this photo and is deserving of his place in the history of the game.

Reports from the time suggest that Chelsea employed small boys behind the goal to make Foulke look even larger than in real life as forwards bore down on goal. One such boy – the first ball boy – can be seen below.

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The Crystal Palace Stadium

The history of the Crystal Palace ground is superbly documented in To the Palace for the Cup by Bevan, Hibberd and Gilbert (1999).

They explain that the Crystal Palace Company developed an old fountain into a sports ground to enable the FA to be able to stage the Cup Final in London again having seen two finals played in Lancashire.

A pavilion was flanked by two stands with cover for 3,000 spectators. The first final was watched by a crowd of 42,560.

This image shows the ground as originally developed, with the Crystal Palace in the background.

The ground was an inspiring, modern venue when first built, and a suitable home for the final tie to be played on.

History has not been so kind to the ground with claims that most spectators had a poor view. I would disagree, only some were disadvantaged.

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Fulham's Craven Cottage 110 years ago.

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Craven Cottage today

Fulham F.C. had a number of grounds, detailed in The Book of Football, before settling at Craven Cottage.

The article says ‘the grandstand is 120 yards in length, the terracing quite perfect, and that the eastern end, not fully shown in the photograph, rises over eighty tiers in height, and when packed with spectators presents a spectacle imposing to a degree.

The ground has the additional advantage of placing the spectators close to the field of play.’ No mention is made of the short-lived wooden stand condemned as dangerous even in the early 1900s.

I recently watched a game at Craven Cottage from broadly the same position as this image is taken from and the view is all but identical 110 years on.

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QPR's National Athletic Ground

The only club to have two grounds feature in this book, QPR are seen playing at the Kensal Rise Athletic Stadium, originally known as the National Athletic Ground.

By 1908 the ground was home to Hendon F.C. and appears to have survived until cleared for the houses of Liddell Gardens & Whitmore Gardens to be built in 1921.

Tim Grose’s website UK Running Track Directory reports that the ground opened on 26th May 1890 and had a grandstand with a capacity of 1000. This image is a very rare example of photos taken at the ground. I have only seen one other taken there, and that is on the opposite page in the book.

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Tottenham take on Millwall

The rise of professional football is well covered in The Book of Football, with Luton, Woolwich Arsenal, Millwall and Southampton’s achievements all well detailed.

The FA Cup win by Tottenham Hotspur as a Southern League side was a most significant step in the development of clubs in the South.

Photographers who took the photos at White Hart Lane in subsequent seasons give us a good impression of the ground but rarely took photos at the ends and so the main stand is not often shown.

It hardly seems possible that the current Premier League ground could have grown from the ground we see here.

  • Mike Floate’s Football Grounds of the Early 1900s is available on Amazon, at footballgroundsfrenzy2.com or by sending a cheque for £11 to Newlands Photographic, 71 Stones Cross Road, Crockenhill, Swanley, Kent, BR8 8LT.