City of Manchester Stadium
The City of Manchester Stadium in Clayton, Manchester, is the home of Manchester City. Built to host the 2002 Commonwealth Games, the stadium has since staged the 2008 UEFA Cup Final, England football internationals, rugby league matches and a boxing world title fight. The stadium was originally proposed as an athletics arena in Manchester’s bid for the 2000 Summer Olympics, but was converted to a football stadium after the Commonwealth Games. It has a domestic football capacity of 55,017, making it the sixth-largest stadium in the Premier League and tenth-largest in the United Kingdom.
About City of Manchester Stadium in brief
The City of Manchester Stadium in Clayton, Manchester, is the home of Manchester City. Built to host the 2002 Commonwealth Games, the stadium has since staged the 2008 UEFA Cup Final, England football internationals, rugby league matches and a boxing world title fight. The stadium was built by Laing Construction at a cost of £112 million and was designed and engineered by ArupSport. In August 2015, a 7,000 seat third tier on the South Stand was completed, in time for the start of the 2015–16 football season. Manchester City F. C. agreed to lease the stadium from Manchester City Council and moved there from Maine Road in the summer of 2003. It was originally proposed as an athletics arena in Manchester’s bid for the 2000 Summer Olympics, but was converted to a football stadium after the Commonwealth Games. It has a domestic football capacity of 55,017, making it the sixth-largest stadium in the Premier League and tenth-largest in the United Kingdom. It is located on a brownfield site 1.6 kilometres east of the city centre on derelict land that was the site of Bradford Colliery, known colloquially as Eastlands. The foundation stone was laid by Prime Minister Tony Blair in December 1999, and construction began in January 2000. The current stadium was completed in August 2003. Its design incorporated a cable-stayed roof structure which is separated from the main stadium bowl and suspended entirely by twelve exterior masts and attached cables. The design has received much praise and many accolades, including an award from the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2004 for its innovative inclusive building design and a special award in 2003 from the Institution of Structural Engineers for its unique structural design.
The city council submitted a bid that included a design for an 80,000-capacity stadium on a greenfield site west of Manchester city centre. The bid failed and Atlanta hosted the Games. In 1996, this same planned stadium competed with Wembley Stadium to gain funding to become the new national stadium, but the money was used to redevelop Wembley. In February 1993, the city council bid tohost the 2000 Olympic Games, but this time focusing on aBrownfield site in the east of Manchester. The council’s shift in focus was driven by emerging government legislation on urban renewal, promising vital support funding for such projects; the government became involved in funding the purchase and clearance of the Eastlands site in 1992. After successful athletics events at the Commonwealth games, conversion into a football venue was criticised by athletics figures such as Jonathan Edwards and Sebastian Coe as, at the time, the United UK still lacked plans for a large athletics venue due to the capability of installing an athletics track having been dropped from the designs for a rebuilt Wembley Stadium. Had either of the two larger stadium proposals been agreed for funding, then Manchester would have had a venue capable of being adapted to hosting large-scale athletics events through the use of movable seating. However, Sport England wished to avoid creating a white elephant, so they insisted that the City Council agree to undertake and fund extensive work to convert CoMS from a track and field arena.
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This page is based on the article City of Manchester Stadium published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
