Wales national football team home stadium

Wales national football team home stadium

The Wales national football team represents Wales in international association football. The team played its first match in March 1876 against Scotland before hosting its first home match the following year against the same opponent. The location selected for the fixture was the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham, the world’s oldest international football ground still in use. Four home matches have been held outside Wales; three were played at Anfield in Liverpool, and one at the Old Racecourse in Shrewsbury.

About Wales national football team home stadium in brief

Summary Wales national football team home stadiumThe Wales national football team represents Wales in international association football. The team played its first match in March 1876 against Scotland before hosting its first home match the following year against the same opponent. The location selected for the fixture was the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham, the world’s oldest international football ground still in use. The Racecourse has held more matches than any other venue with 94 by January 2020, 12 more than the second-most-frequently-used ground, Ninian Park, which was demolished in 2009. Since the team’s first match, sixteen grounds have hosted a Wales home international. Four home matches have been held outside Wales; three were played at Anfield in Liverpool, and one at the Old Racecourse in Shrewsbury. The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff was completed in 2000, and it was immediately named as the side’s new home ground. The FAW decided to play the first international in the south of the country, traditionally a rugby stronghold, in 1894, at St Helen’s in Cardiff. The North Wales Express called the decision to admit all 5,000 spectators through a small gate “sheer stupidity”. In the same year, Wales’ opening fixture of the 1891–92 British Home Championship against Ireland was moved to Penrhyn Park in Bangor; the FAW had been petitioned by the town’s football club to host a match. The venue provided by Douglas-Pennant, 2nd Baron Pen-rhyn, was the grounds of the estate of Pen-Rhyn Estate, on the outskirts of Bangor. In the 1894 crush, a boy suffered serious injury when stewards forced to open the gates to the ground and allow most of the paying spectators without paying, losing a significant gate revenue.

The next ground to stage an international is Hampden Park in Glasgow, which did not host its first game for another 27 years. The match between Wales and Ireland in 1890 remains Wales’ record victory in international competition, with John Price scoring four times in a 7–1 victory. The final victory, an 11–0 win at the racecourse, remains Wales’ record victory against the Irish side, and the match was played in front of a crowd of 6,000 people. Wales’ meeting with Ireland in 1892 led to the side’s first victory on home ground, with a scoreline of 11-0. The racecourse remained the only ground to host an international match until 1890, when a game was played against Ireland in the English border town of Shrew’sbury. Matches against England and Scotland were held at the Race Course as they tended to attract large crowds, while fixtures against the traditionally lesser-known Irish team were hosted by alternative venues. The first international match was held in 1876 at Hamilton Crescent in Partick, with Scotland travelling to Wales for the country’s first home international on 5 March 1877. The ground included a separate tent for women and their male companions. Although the match drew a significant number of fans, its attendance was only equal to that at previous fixtures at theRacecourse Ground. Although attendance was initially high at the Millennium, a gradual drop saw the team play matches in several newly built grounds.