Those We Have Lost: the lost football grounds of England and their former stadiums

England is full of supermarkets, housing estates and retail parks that used to be football grounds. Those We Have Lost is about the lost football grounds behind them: the slopes, the corrugated roofs, the floodlights you could see from the station, and the clubs that left them, willingly or otherwise.

The lost football grounds of England

Fellows Park in Walsall was ramshackle and loved, and was knocked down for a supermarket after the club moved to Bescot. Huish in Yeovil had one of the most famous sloping pitches in England and a giantkilling folklore to match. Richmond Road was Kingstonian's home for nearly seventy years before it was sold for housing, and Southbury Road in Enfield went from non-league glory to slow decline to nothing at all.

The lost football grounds in this series went for a handful of reasons. Some went because the land was worth more than the club. Some went because nobody could afford to make them safe.

What stands on the former sites

Every profile ends where the ground used to be. A former stadium rarely leaves much behind: a street name, a plaque if the club is lucky, a gate kept for sentiment. The pieces on these lost football grounds record what was there before the bulldozers, which is more than most of the developers who replaced these former grounds bothered to do.

Questions and answers

Which lost football grounds are covered?

So far Fellows Park in Walsall, Huish in Yeovil, Richmond Road in Kingston and Southbury Road in Enfield, each a former home of a club that moved, merged or sold up.

Why have so many former football grounds in England disappeared?

Most went for the same reasons: the land under a town-centre ground was worth more than the club, safety rules after the 1980s made old terraces expensive to keep, and new out-of-town stadiums were easier to build than to fix the old ones.

What happened to Fellows Park?

Walsall left Fellows Park for the Bescot Stadium in 1990 and the old ground was demolished for a supermarket. Those We Have Lost: Fellows Park has the full story.

Which ground had the famous sloping pitch?

Huish, Yeovil Town's home for around seventy years, was known for its sloping pitch and the club's giantkilling FA Cup runs. Those We Have Lost: Huish tells the story.