Old Trafford (football)
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(2001)
Old Trafford football stadium (given the nickname The Theatre of Dreams by Bobby Charlton) is the home of Manchester United F.C., one of the most famous football clubs in the world. Located in the borough of Trafford in Greater Manchester, it has been United's home since 1910. The stadium was bombed in 1941, forcing the club to temporarily share Manchester City's home ground, Maine Road, until the rebuilding of Old Trafford was completed in 1949.
Until the new Wembley Stadium is completed Old Trafford will have the largest ground capacity of any English football stadium, holding just over 68,000 spectators. Planning permission has been granted to expand this to around 76,000 by the 2006-07 season. Currently, the only larger football ground in the United Kingdom is the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. Old Trafford is by far the largest club ground in Britain and is all-seater, which is a legal requirement of all higher league British club grounds and new stadia developments since the Taylor Report in the early 1990s. It frequently hosted F.A. Cup semi-final matches (as long as Manchester United were not involved), and occasionally hosted England international fixtures whilst Wembley was under reconstruction. It also hosted Template:Wc matches and the Champions League final in 2003.
Since 1998, when rugby league adopted play-offs and a Grand Final to determine the Super League champions, Old Trafford has staged the Grand Final.
The football stadium is close to the Old Trafford cricket ground.
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The Stretford End is the West stand of the stadium. It is where the diehard fans have been historically situated, in the past the noise were compared to that of a jumbo jet. However, nowadays Old Trafford is critcised for not creating a big enough atmosphere on a regular basis, this is perhaps typified by the seating arrangments where the family section, the least vocally heard, is situated on the first tier of the stretford end.