workington

A recent visit to Borough, Park, home of Workington AFC for the match against Bamber Bridge, gave me the opportunity to have a good look around this old and wonderful former Football League Ground. There are plans afoot for a new stadium to be built in the town to be shared by both the Football club and Workington Town Rugby League club. Many will no doubt welcome this and would call Borough Park an ageing, decaying relic. To me it oozes character and it was easy to imagine a time when this old Stadium rocked to the noise of thousands of fans.

The East Terrace (above) has a roof that covers just the top few steps

The Stadium once roared to the sound of 21,000 fans as Workington Reds hosted Manchester United in the 1958 FA cup. This match was just one month before the Tragedy of The Munich Air Disaster when 8 of the Busby Babes lost their lives. Such huge crowds were however a rarity,as Workington consistently struggled at the bottom end of the regionalised 3^rd Division North

The expansive west terrace that extends and sweeps around both corners of the pitch

The clubs heyday was perhaps in the early to mid 60’s when they twice reached The League Cup quarter finals, losing to West Ham and Chelsea respectively. They also won promotion during this period from the newly created 4^th division up to the 3^rd division. The football league record crowd at the ground was over 18,000 in 1964 for a local derby with Carlisle Utd.

Sadly for Workington, those days are long gone as they soon fell back to the 4^th Division and languished there, applying for re-election on numerous occasions before finally losing their Football League status in 1977, to be replaced by Wimbledon. By this time the club were struggling to attract crowds of 1,000 and a return to League Football was never likely and now the days look numbered for Borough Park. The capacity now stands at 3,101.

The Old main stand was erected in 1937, and boasted 1,000 seats, but by 1988 it had become so dilapidated that the seating area was removed and a steep roof fitted leaving us with the unusual looking structure we see today. Pictured below.

The main Stand as it is today, minus the seats.

The building still houses changing rooms and The Clubhouse

Despite the removal of the top half of the main stand, the rest of the ground has barely changed since the late 1950’s. There is a large open Terrace behind one goal and opposite the main stand is the covered Terrace that straddles the half way line. This now contains several hundred seats.

So, quite soon Borough Park in Workington may well join many other “gone but not forgotten” football grounds. For me this will be a great shame as we slowly but surely lose the old terraces and stands. Next time, I will be looking at the Local rivals of “The Reds,” and looking at an old ground I have visited on many occasions, Holker Street, home of Barrow AFC.