In the top tiers of many
professional sports, it is a requirement for
stadiums to have floodlights to allow games to be scheduled outside daylight hours. Evening or night matches may suit spectators who have work or other commitments earlier in the day, and enable television broadcasts during lucrative
primetime hours. Some sports grounds which do not have permanent floodlights installed may make use of portable temporary ones instead. Many larger floodlights (see bottom picture) will have gantries for bulb changing and maintenance. These will usually be able to accommodate one or two maintenance workers.
Polo The first sport to play under floodlights was
polo, on 18 July 1878.
Ranelagh Club hosted a match in
Fulham,
London,
England against
the Hurlingham Club.
Australian rules football match under electric lights at the
Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1879 In August 1879, two matches of
Australian rules football were staged at the
Melbourne Cricket Ground under electric lights. The first was between two "scratch" teams composed of military personnel. The following week, two of the city's leading football clubs, rivals
Carlton and
Melbourne, played another night match. On both occasions, the lights failed to illuminate the whole ground, and the spectators struggled to make sense of the action in the murky conditions.
Cricket cricket ground in Nottingham
Cricket was first played under floodlights on 11 August 1952, during an
exhibition game at
Highbury stadium in England. International
day/night cricket, played under floodlights, began in 1979. Since then, many cricket stadiums have installed floodlights and use them for both domestic and international matches. Traditional cricket floodlights are mounted at the top of a tall pole, to elevate them out of the
fielder's eyeline when the ball is hit high into the air. However, some cricket stadiums have lower-mounted floodlights, particularly if the stadium is shared with other sports.
Gaelic games Noel Walsh's advocacy was pivotal in the spread of floodlights in
Gaelic games. When chairman of the
Munster Council, Walsh had a pilot project for floodlights at
Austin Stack Park in
Tralee which "became a template for every county and club ground in the country".
Association football field at the
Headingley Stadium in
Leeds, UK. This is a common style of floodlights at older football and rugby grounds in England and
Scotland. (Note the two gantries near the light for servicing)
Bramall Lane was the first stadium to host floodlit association football matches, dating as far back as 1878, when there were experimental matches at the
Sheffield stadium during the dark winter afternoons. With no
national grid, lights were powered by
batteries and
dynamoes, and were unreliable.
Blackburn and
Darwen also hosted floodlit matches in 1878, and in October of the same year
3rd Lanark RV played an exhibition match against
Scottish Cup holders
Vale of Leven at
the first Cathkin Park, with press reports suggesting the lighting from a
Gramme machine was not successful in illuminating the whole field. Subsequent tests over the next month using three
Siemens dynamos at
the first Hampden Park,
Rugby Park in
Kilmarnock and at
Powderhall Stadium in
Edinburgh produced mixed results, in part due to technical issues and weather conditions.
Nottingham Forest played a floodlit match against
Notts Rangers at the
Gregory Ground, Lenton, Nottingham on 25 March 1889. This match was illuminated by 14
Wells Lights which was a portable illumation system powered by paraffin Each light had 4,000
candlepower. These lights were placed around the ground and 'illuminated the playing arena well enough for the spectators to follow most, if not all, the points of play' according to the Nottingham Evening Post on 26 March 1889. A women's football match in 1921 used floodlights, when
Preston North End's ground was covered in thick fog and the spectators couldn't see the game. In 1929 the
Providence Clamdiggers football club hosted the
Bethlehem Steel "under the rays of powerful flood lights, an innovation in soccer" at their
Providence, Rhode Island stadium. On 10 May 1933,
Sunderland A.F.C. played a friendly match in Paris against
RC Paris under floodlights. The floodlights were fixed to overhead wires strung above and across the pitch. A fresh white coloured ball was introduced after about every 20 minutes and the goalposts were painted yellow. In the 1930s,
Herbert Chapman installed lights into the new West Stand at
Highbury but the Football League refused to sanction their use. This situation lasted until the 1950s, when the popularity of floodlit friendlies became such that the League relented. In September 1949,
South Liverpool's Holly Park ground hosted the first game in England under "permanent" floodlights: a friendly against a Nigerian XI. In 1950,
Southampton's stadium,
The Dell, became the first ground in England to have permanent floodlighting installed. The first game played under the lights there was on 31 October 1950, in a friendly against
Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic, followed a year later by the first "official" match under floodlights, a
Football Combination (reserve team) match against
Tottenham Hotspur on 1 October 1951.
Swindon Town became the first League side to install floodlights at
The County Ground. Their first match being a friendly against Bristol City on Monday 2 April 1951. Arsenal followed five months later with the first match under the Highbury lights taking place on Wednesday 19 September 1951. The first international game under floodlights of an England game at
Wembley was 30 November 1955 against Spain, England winning 4–1. The first floodlit
Football League match took place at
Fratton Park,
Portsmouth on 22 February 1956 between
Portsmouth and
Newcastle United. Many clubs have taken their floodlights down and replaced them with new ones along the roof line of the stands. This previously had not been possible as many grounds comprised open terraces and roof lines on covered stands were too low.
Elland Road,
Old Trafford and
Anfield were the first major grounds to do this in the early 1990s.
Deepdale, The
Galpharm Stadium and the
JJB Stadium have since been built with traditional floodlights on pylons.
Rugby league The first rugby league match to be played under floodlights was on 14 December 1932 when Wigan met Leeds in an exhibition match played at
White City Stadium in London (8pm kick off). Leeds won 18–9 in front of a crowd of over 10,000 spectators. The venture was such a success that the owners of the White City Ground took over the "Wigan Highfield" club and moved them to play Rugby League games at the ground under floodlights the following season, with most of their matches kicking off on Wednesday Nights at 8pm. That venture only lasted one season before the club moved back up north. The first floodlit match for rugby league played in the heartlands was on 31 October 1951 at
Odsal Stadium,
Bradford when
Bradford Northern played
New Zealand in front of 29,072. For a club to play in the
Super League they must have a ground with floodlights adequate for playing a professional game.
Winter sports , Austria Winter sports, such as skiing and snowboarding, can be held on a floodlit piste.
Motorsports A number of permanent motor racing circuits are floodlit to allow night races to be held. These include
Yas Marina Circuit,
Losail International Circuit, and
Bahrain International Circuit. ==See also==