Stadium
Northampton Saints have played at Franklin's Gardens since 1880, when the club was born. Franklin's Gardens is a purpose-built rugby stadium near the town centre. It is about 1,250m from the railway station and about 2,000m from the bus station. The stadium holds 13,591 people. The stadium also has 40 corporate boxes. Each can hold from 8 to 24 people. The four stands are: Tetleys Stand; Burrda South Stand; Church's Stand; and Sturtridge Pavilion. It is also a multi-functional conference centre as well as the only UK Guinness Premiership ground with its own cenotaph. The Northampton board recently announced they would be applying to increase capacity to 17,000 with the redevelopment of the North Stand. It was intended this would be funded by a £40 million investment by supermarket chain Asda, who would build a new store on the land currently used as training pitches. Northampton Saints had an unbeaten home record that stretched from March 2007 to March 2009, much of this record was set during the Saints' 2007/08 promotion from the RFU Championship (previously National Division One). During the 2008/09 Guinness Premiership regular season the Saints only lost at Franklin's Gardens on one occasion, to the Newcastle Falcons.
The average attendance at the Gardens this season is 13,428.
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Famous quotes containing the word stadium:
“It’s no accident that of all the monuments left of the Greco- Roman culture the biggest is the ballpark, the Colosseum, the Yankee Stadium of ancient times.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“In their eyes I have seen
the pin men of madness in marathon trim
race round the track of the stadium pupil.”
—Patricia K. Page (b. 1916)