Vale Park

At 525 feet above sea level, it is the eleventh-highest ground in the country and second-highest in the English Football League. The pitch is clay underneath the grass, rather than sand. These two factors make the pitch vulnerable to freezing temperatures. It is an extremely dry pitch, which often makes passing football quite difficult. There is also a coal seam under the pitch, and numerous mine shafts dotted around the local area, including many under the park opposite the ground. The Vale Park pitch is one of the widest in the Football League. The pitch was originally laid over a filled-in marl hole and does not have a subsoil structure so is liable to flooding as it lacks proper drainage; a complete re-laying of the pitch would be needed to fix the issue). Denis Dawson was head groundsman from 1966 to 1975; he succeeded Len Parton and was followed by Graham Mainwaring. He was succeeded by Steve Alderson, who oversaw extensive pitch renovations financed by the Shanahan family. ==History==

–2010. Following the club being informed that they would be evicted from the Old Recreation Ground by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, plans for a new stadium in a new area began. In 1944, Hamil Road – the site of a former clay pit – was chosen, a site opposite Burslem Park, where the club had played its football in the early years of its existence. plans which included an 80,000 capacity with room for 1,000 parked cars. The first match was a 1–0 victory over Newport County on 24 August 1950 in front of 30,196 rain-soaked spectators. Vale Park initially had problems with drainage, causing many games of the 1950–51 season to be postponed. In summer 1951, 578 seats were installed on the Railway Terrace, bringing the seated capacity of Vale Park to 1,010. A rare event occurred on 17 January 1976, when the Vale directors permitted rivals Stoke to play a home game against Middlesbrough at Vale Park. Despite this effort, inspectors closed the Bycars End down due to safety issues and reduced the stadium's capacity to 12,000 after cutting the capacity of the Railway Paddock by two-thirds. The Bycars End roof was also removed for safety reasons, whilst a police box was constructed between the Railway Paddock and the Hamil End. The Valiant 2001 Charter stated that Bratt's management team would invest £400,000 to install under-soil heating in mid-2002, and to also quickly complete the Lorne Street stand. However, it took until 2020 for the seats to be installed. Chairman Norman Smurthwaite separated Vale Park from Port Vale after taking the club out of administration in 2012. New high-tech floodlights were fitted in March 2019, paid for by the club's shirt sponsor. The stadium's ownership was returned to the club after Smurthwaite sold the club to Carol and Kevin Shanahan in May 2019. Five months later, it was declared an "asset of community value status" by Stoke-on-Trent city council. The Shanahans spent £500,000 on ground improvement by summer 2021. Another £1.2 million was spent the following summer in order to make Vale Park a Championship standard ground. ==Structure and facilities==

The current stadium includes around 19,000 seats of which 16,800 are available for spectators and has four stands: Lorne Street opposite to the Railway Stand/Paddock, and the Bycars End facing the Hamil Road End. The Lorne Street Stand is relatively new, with 2,045 useable seats and 48 executive boxes that host 711 people. It was not completed when it opened in 1999, and although 1,500 missing seats were finally installed in April 2020 to visually complete the stand, over 2,000 seats remain unusable for spectators pending the reinstatement and fitting out of spectator concourse facilities in the Hamil half of the stand. The stand acts as the ground's grandstand, The Hamil End has 4,514 seats with the blocks nearest the Lorne St side allocated as the Family section, and a Fanzone area housed behind the stand. The Railway Stand has a capacity of 2,094 The Accessibility Stand located between the Lorne Street Stand and the Bycars End has room for 106 spectators whilst the former Family Stand located between the Bycars End and the Railway Stand has been unused for spectators since 2023 when a large video screen was installed there. ==Other events==

On 1 August 1981, Vale Park hosted a one-off rock concert, Heavy Metal Holocaust, featuring Motörhead, Ozzy Osbourne Band, Mahogany Rush, Triumph, Riot and Vardis. Around 20,000 attended the concert, raising £25,000 for the club. In 1985, the Stoke Spitfires American football team used the ground for matches. It also hosted a full international women's match on 7 April 2017, when England played Italy. ==Records==

A club record 49,768 attended a 1960 FA Cup fifth round fixture against Aston Villa. The biggest victory in a competitive match came in December 1958 when Gateshead were beaten 8–0. ==References==