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Easter Road
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Easter Road | |
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| The Leith San Siro | |
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| Location |  Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Broke ground | 1893 |
| Opened | 1893 |
| Renovated | 2001 |
| Owner | Hibernian Football Club |
| Surface | Grass |
| Tenants | |
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(Scottish Premier League) |
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| Capacity | |
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Easter Road is the home ground of Scottish football club Hibernian. Located in the Leith area of Edinburgh, the stadium has a capacity of 17,500, making it the seventh largest stadium in Scotland and the largest stadium used primarily for football in Edinburgh. It is affectionately known by Hibs fans as "The Leith San Siro".
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Since Sir Tom Farmer took control of Hibernian Football Club in 1991, the stadium has undergone major redevelopment in order to comply with the Taylor Report. The stands behind each goal, the Famous Five (North) Stand and the South Stand, were built in 1995. Previously there was covered terracing at the north end (known as the Cowshed) and open terracing at the south end (known as the Dunbar End). Recently, a scoreboard has been installed in the South Stand.
The West Stand, built in 2001 to replace the ageing main stand, is the largest stand with a capacity of 6,500 and is similar in design to the North and South Stands. The stadium has dining and conferencing facilities within the West and South stands. The "Behind the Goals" bar in the Famous Five Stand is one of the largest match-day bars in Scotland.
The East Stand was a large terrace which has been greatly reduced, roofed and made all seated. Views of the pitch from this stand are somewhat restricted by the supporting pillars. The club does have planning permission to replace this stand with a modern facility similar to the other three stands, but the club's (until recently) weak finances and low attendances meant that the planning permission has not been acted upon so far.
If the East Stand is redeveloped to the same style as the other stands, capacity will reach around 21,000. Filling in of the North-West and South-East corners (single tiered) and North-East and South-West corners (two tiered) could ultimately boost capacity to around 25,000 although there are currently no proposals in the public domain relating to building in the corners.
However, the club has improved its finances and attendances have risen in the last three years. Consequently, there has been speculation that the east side of the ground will be redeveloped. Hibs Chairman and CEO Rod Petrie has recently (as of October 2006) been quoted as saying that the development of training facilities at East Mains (in East Lothian) is the first priority for the club. The training ground is expected to be completed in late 2007. At the recent AGM, Rod Petrie confirmed that the East Stand would be redeveloped in time for the 2008-2009 Season, bringing the total capacity at Easter Road to over 21,000.
The record attendance stands at 65,860 against Hearts on 2 January 1950, dating from when the stadium had large terraces, particularly on the east side of the ground.
Easter Road sometimes plays host to Scottish League Cup semi-final matches, depending on the ties drawn. Recent examples of this include Dunfermline 1 v 0 Livingston in 2006, Hearts 2 v 3 Motherwell in 2005 and Livingston 1 v 0 Dundee in 2004.
Scotland sometimes play full international matches at Easter Road, usually "friendly" matches against less attractive opposition where a relatively small crowd is expected. There are three examples of this in the last five years:
Scotland 1 v 4 Sweden in 2005
Scotland 4 v 1 Trinidad & Tobago in 2004
Scotland 3 v 1 Canada in 2003
The Scotland under-21 team also played one match at Easter Road in recent years, a playoff against the Croatia under-21 team in 2003. Scotland won the match 1-0, but lost 2-1 on aggregate. Easter Road will host another Scotland under-21 match aganist Lithuania under-21s in October 2007 [1]
In 2006, the stadium played host to a pre-World Cup friendly between South Korea and Ghana. This match came about because South Korea (coached by the former Rangers manager Dick Advocaat) had used Rangers' training ground as a pre-tournament training base, and wanted matches to complete this training process. This match meant that international stars such as Michael Essien, Stephen Appiah and Park Ji-Sung played at the ground. Ghana won the match 3-1.
Easter Road was briefly the home ground for the Edinburgh Rugby professional rugby union team in the late 1990s. It has been reported that Edinburgh Rugby are looking into the possibility of using Easter Road again due to disputes with the Scottish Rugby Union over the use of Murrayfield.
It is thought to be unlikely that this will happen, however, because the Hibs manager (John Collins) is keen for his side to play a passing game. Playing rugby would mean having to grow the grass longer. The longer grass and greater use of the pitch would cause the quality of the pitch to decline, both of which would hinder passing football. Collins' predecessor, Tony Mowbray, was opposed to rugby being played on the ground for these reasons.
In 2005, Sir Elton John performed Easter Road's first rock concert.