Maine Road 100 – Day 32

It’s day 32 of my posts counting down to the centenary of Maine Road’s opening game. Today – A behind the Kippax image from 1993. This photo has so much going on despite it looking fairly bland. I’ll explain:

When the Kippax was roofed in 1957 the original terracing had to be squared off and so, instead of reducing the terracing City decided to extend it where its started to curve. You can see in this image that the end of the stand is on stilts/stanchions over the original banking where it was extended.

At the time the stand was enlarged in 1957 local residents objected to it. Some claimed they’d lost TV signal and were no longer able to get Granada TV which had started broadcasting in May 1956.

When this photo was taken in 1993 that area was for away fans and if you look carefully you can see the segregation fence to the left of the tunnel and going up the banking.

The tunnel and steps in the foreground of the photo are the original 1923 construction but these steps were no longer in use as an entry point. They were blocked off at the top and tended to be used as a seating area by fans instead. They’d been blocked off after the Ibrox Stadium disaster in 1971 when steps like these had to be remodelled to prevent a build up of fans flowing down at speed. This staircase was not altered but others were and remained in use.

Notice also the paved slope. This had been a simple slope of grass and rubble (as can be seen on the 1971 image lower down this page) for most of the stand’s life but general crowd disorder at football had led to City deciding to pave this section to prevent fans from grabbing stones and lobbing them over the segregation fence at rival fans. When I spoke with Bernard Halford many years ago, he was quite proud of this ‘flagging’ of the slope and said it did prevent some significant issues which could have had repercussions for the club.

This image from 1961 shows this part of the extended/squared off Kippax to the right of the photo.

Here’s a view from 1971 showing the back of the Kippax as it looked. The away staircase is to the left of number 8 and to the left of that you can see the squared off part of the stand on stilts. The staircase that is on the 1993 image is the one between 7 and 8 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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