Cambridge United F.C. - Stadium

Stadium

Cambridge United currently play their home matches at the Abbey Stadium, which has been their home since 1932. Since 2009 the ground has also been known as The R. Costings Abbey Stadium through a sponsorship deal. The stadium currently has a capacity of 9,617, of which 4,376 are seated.

Before opening the Abbey with a victory over Cambridge University Press in a friendly on 31 August 1932, United had played matches at a number of venues around the city. When playing under the Abbey United name, games were played on Midsummer Common until the outbreak of World War I. When the war ended, the club moved to Stourbridge Common and, after promotion to the Cambridgeshire League Division One in 1923, moved once again to land just off Newmarket Road in Cambridge. This ground, affectionately known as the 'Celery Trenches' due to the poor state of the pitch, was christened with a 1–0 league victory over Histon Institute and became United's home for a decade. While based at the Trenches, the club established its offices at the 'Dog & Pheasant' pub on Newmarket Road, which it used as an away dressing room on matchdays, as well as a store for equipment including the pitch's goalposts. However, the Cambridgeshire FA were unhappy with the state of the pitch at this new home, and the club moved to Parker's Piece at the start of the 1930–31 season. Despite the special significance of Parker's Piece in the history of football, it being the first place where the Cambridge Rules were played out, the lack of spectator capacity and disruption caused during games meant this move was not a successful one.

In January 2006, John Howard announced plans to move out of the Abbey Stadium to a new purpose built stadium in Milton. This was supported by Cambridgeshire Horizons. These were criticised by fans as risking the club's identity by moving out of the city and, despite Howard describing them as crucial to the club's future, little else was heard of them publicly. Subsequently a new community stadium, that would also include conference facilities, was ruled out by a Planning Inspector's report which described it as unsuitable development in the green belt and in October 2009, Cambridge United announced its intentions to redevelop the Abbey Stadium with chairman.

The Stadium was sold by Bideawhile to Grosvenor Estates in June 2010. Soon after, the new landlords, in combination with the club and supporters group Cambridge Fans United, announced that they had signed a Memorandum of Understanding to positively work together to achieve the relocation of the club to a new stadium. In January 2011, plans for a new community stadium were unveiled at an open meeting, including potential new locations both within the city and outside it.

In September 2011, Grosvenor Estates announced that they, in partnership with property firm Wrenbridge had managed to cut down the potential sites to just two, both on greenbelt land. This was later cut to one, Trumpington Meadows, to the South West of the city. They revealed they plan for the new community stadium to be a 8,000 seated and terraced stadium to be built within a new Cambridge Sporting Village incorporating housing and retail development with the stadium as the focal point.