Walkers Stadium
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-->The Walkers Stadium is a football stadium which plays home matches to English football team Leicester City F.C. The all-seater stadium, inaugurated in July 2002, holds 32,500 and is named after sponsors Walkers, a former shirt sponsor of Leicester. It offers un-obstructed views from every seat.
History
Leicester's previous stadium was at nearby Filbert Street. As a result of the success of Leicester during the 1990s and the increasing popularity of football, the club outgrew Filbert Street to the extent that nearly every home game was a 21,500 sell out. Some parts of the ground - the East and North Stands in particular - were also somewhat outdated, which led the manager, Martin O'Neill to joke that when he showed Filbert Street to new signings he led them backwards out of the players tunnel to prevent them from seeing the East Stand.After an abortive attempt to build a new 40,000 all-seater stadium at Bede Island South, the club turned their attention to Freemans Wharf, a 22-acre former power station site about 200 yards south of Filbert Street. Planning permission was granted for a 32,500 all-seater stadium designed by the Miller Partnership in November 2000 and construction began in June of that year. The stadium was completed on time in the summer of 2002, ready for Leicester to take up residence for the start of the 2002/03 season.
The first game at the new stadium was a friendly against Spanish team Athletic Bilbao, on 4th August 2002. The game finished 1-1, with Jordan Stewart scoring Leicester's first goal. The attendance was approximately 24,000 (no official figure was recorded due to a computer problem). The first competitive match took place six days later and Leicester beat Watford 2-0 in front of a near capacity crowd of 31,022. Brian Deane scored both goals.
The £37 million cost of the new stadium, combined with relegation from the Premiership and the collapse of ITV Digital meant that Leicester went into administration shortly after moving to the new stadium. Birse Construction who had built the stadium therefore lost a large part of their fee, and they withdrew from any further football ground construction. The main losers from this were, ironically, Leicester's local rivals Coventry City, who were in negotiations with Birse to build their own new stadium.
Naming
Originally the ground was to have been called the Walker's Bowl, but that name was dropped after fans voted to reject it. Fans criticised the name for having only the name of the sponsor in it, and no Leicester City reference, such as "filbert," or "fosse." As a result of the vote, the name "Walker's Stadium" was chosen, however no vote was offered to fans, some of whom are still unhappy with the name for the same reasons.Some fans objected to "Walker's Bowl" on the grounds that they thought it was ridiculous and too "American". Nevertheless, it is sometimes referred to as the "crisp bowl". The majority of the club's supporters refer to it as Filbert Way (or colloquially "Filbo") after the road surrounding the ground with its reference to the club's previous ground at Filbert Street.
Sharing
In 2005, Leicester's rugby club, Leicester Tigers considered sharing the stadium with Leicester City as their 16,000 capacity Welford Road Stadium, was considered too small to handle the growing popularity of rugby. However the clubs failed to fully agree terms and the deal was abandoned. Prior to the abandonment of the deal, Tigers played one rugby match at the ground, a Heineken Cup semi-final on 24 April 2005, losing 27-19 to Toulouse. A second Heineken Cup match was played there on 1 April 2006 when Tigers switched their home quarter-final against Bath to the stadium to get a bigger gate. Bath won 15-12 in front of a sell-out. It seems likely that Tigers will continue to switch matches likely to draw a large gate.
Notable games
During their absence from Wembley Stadium, the England national football team played a home friendly game against Serbia and Montenegro at the stadium on 3 June, 2003. Goals from Steven Gerrard and Joe Cole gave England a 2-1 victory. On 12 October of the same year, the ground hosted an international friendly match between Brazil and Jamaica .On May 20, 2006, the stadium hosted the Football Conference playoff final between Hereford United and Halifax Town. A goal in extra time gave Hereford a 3-2 win and promotion to the Football League. Nine days later, the ground was also the venue for yet another international friendly, with Ghana beating Jamaica 4-1.
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