Ground
Hastings United's current home ground is The Pilot Field, where the club have been based since 1985. The club used the ground as Hastings & St. Leonards, but were forced to move in 1948 after the council granted use of the stadium to the newly formed Hastings United. Hastings & St. Leonards relocated to The Firs, next door, and spent a short spell playing on municipal pitches. The Pilot Field has a capacity of 4,050 and has a main stand to the side of the pitch which seats and covers spectators. There is also a club bar near the main entrance to the ground which hosts various events in the function room, which is available for hire. The ground's record attendance is 4,888 v Nottingham Forest, for a friendly which took place in 1996.
Due to the increasing ground maintenance cost and ageing main stand, club chairman Dave Walters has expressed his interest in working with the council to build a new stadium as part of a new sports complex, which would involve selling off The Pilot Field and the neighbouring Firs football ground, currently lying derelict. However, there has been a lack of progress regarding the proposals. More recently, the club have been trying to raise funds to replace their current floodlights, which has involved fund-raising schemes and a grant from the Football Stadia Improvement Fund
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Famous quotes containing the word ground:
“To people off alone, as we were, there is something stirring about finding evidences of human labour and care in the soil of an empty country. It comes to you as a sort of message, makes you feel differently about the ground you walk over every day.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“When we dream about those who are long since forgotten or dead, it is a sign that we have undergone a radical transformation and that the ground on which we live has been completely dug up: then the dead rise up, and our antiquity becomes modernity.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)