Maine Road 100 – Day 14

Day 14 of my posts counting down to the centenary of Maine Road’s opening game… I mentioned on a previous day how during 2002-03 I managed to wander around the stadium often exploring what the stadium had hidden away. Sometimes I’d wander with club photographer Ed Garvey but mostly I’d just go on a search myself. One day while exploring the Main Stand I spotted this staircase to nowhere.

It intrigued me quite a bit and then one game I happened to walk through here pre-match and fans were sat on the steps reading the programme and having a drink. The steps clearly once went somewhere (if you can’t tell via this photo there is a ceiling stretching across the concourse and over the steps. The steps go up to it but there’s no way through.

I started to ask people and show people this photo, which I’d taken during the week. Eventually former club employee Roger Reade, who has fulfilled a variety of roles over the years but is probably best known for his work with the Junior Blues, explained that when the club developed its hospitality functions in the 1980s the staircase was blocked off and an executive suite built above it. So that’s that. An original 1923 staircase that by the late 1980s was redundant. Incidentally, it’s not the only redundant staircase by this time and I’ll perhaps talk about one at the Kippax later this year.

For those unfamiliar with Maine Road this may help locate the staircase to nowhere. It was in the public concourse area of the Main Stand, roughly behind the Main Stand tunnel to the right of number 3 on the photo below.

If you’d like to read more on the history of Maine Road, take a look at Farewell To Maine Road, which can be downloaded from this page:

Farewell To Maine Road – Part One

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