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The Britannia Stadium is an all-seater football stadium in Stoke-on-Trent, England and the home of Premier League club Stoke City F.C.. It has space for 27,902 spectators (reduced from 28,384 due to segregation).〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/clubs/profile.stadium.html/stoke )〕 The stadium was built in 1997 at a cost of £14.7 million as a replacement for the Victoria Ground. The name is taken from the sponsors of the stadium, the Britannia Co-operative Bank. Along with hosting football matches, the stadium has played host to performers such as Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams and Elton John. The ground also holds conference and banqueting suites, the ''Delilah's Bar'', and a club shop selling Stoke City merchandise. The highest attendance recorded at the stadium was 28,218 for the sell-out fixture against Everton in their FA Cup 3rd Round tie in 2002. The first goal in the stadium was scored by Graham Kavanagh for Stoke in a league cup game against Rochdale.〔(Stoke City FC: ''Brit-10-Years: First Ever Game'' )〕 The club had played at the Victoria Ground until 1997. Former player Sir Stanley Matthews' ashes were buried beneath the centre circle of the pitch following his death in February 2000; he had officially opened the stadium on 30 August 1997.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= Merseyside Potters )〕 ==History== The all-seater stadium cost nearly £15 million to build and brought the club up to standards with the Taylor Report of January 1990 to end 119 years at the Victoria Ground. Relocation had been considered by 1994 and by early 1996 the decision to build a new stadium had been confirmed. By early 1997, the skeletal steel superstructure was in place and the stadium began to take shape.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url = http://www.stokecityfc.com/page/BritanniaStadium/0,,10310~71103,00.html )〕 In August 1997 it opened its doors for the first time as the Britannia Stadium thanks to a £1million, 10-year sponsorship deal with the Britannia Building Society which was instrumental in the overall funding of the project. Another £3,000,000 was given as a grant by the Football Trust.〔 The Stadium's opening didn't go according to plan, as from the outset there was concern about actually getting there, as the plans covered only one access road from the nearby A50. That meant spectators arriving from the City or the motorway had to travel up the A50 for over a mile to a roundabout at Sideway and double-back the other way, which caused huge congestion problems.〔 The official opening of the stadium was made by club legend Sir Stanley Matthews, then aged 82. After he died in February 2000, his ashes where buried beneath the stadium's centre circle and a statue showing different stages of his career was put up in his honour outside the ground. On 27 August 1997, Rochdale were the visitors for the historic first-ever competitive match a 1–1 draw in the League Cup watched by 15,439 - and four days later the first-ever league game took place against Swindon Town before a crowd of 23,859.〔 The first season at the new ground was a bad one as Stoke were relegated from Division One and the supporters protested against chairman Peter Coates.〔 Four seasons of third tier football followed with Gunnar Gíslason taking control of the club in November 1999.〔 In May 2006 he sold control of the club back to Peter Coates and soon after the Club obtained full ownership of the stadium in a deal worth £6 million following the previous joint-partnership with the Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration Ltd.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Britannia Stadium」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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