The focal point of the 51 acre site is the uniquely
designed 24,500 seater stadium
deemed unsafe and would not reopen for two years. Checks conducted after the Hillsborough disaster reduced Leeds Road still further to 14,000. With each failure and removal of a crush barrier, another little piece of the ground’s former glory died. Yet, ironically, life at Leeds Road brightened up at almost the same time as serious plans were being made to abandon the old ground. On 12th August 1992 planning permission for a new stadium was granted. Eighteen days later a foretaste of the new ground sharing era was provided when Huddersfield RLFC played their first ever game at Leeds Road, having left the now crumbling Fartown after 114 years.
Huddersfield Town played their 1,554th and final league game at Leeds Road on 30 April 1994. Blackpool were the visitors, losing 2-1, watched by a near capacity crowd of 16,195.
In 1994 Huddersfield Town and Huddersfield Giants RLFC moved in to the Galpharm where, for ten years, it was known as the McAlpine Stadium following a sponsorship
agreement with the constructors, Alfred McAlpine plc.
The focal point of the 51 acre site is the uniquely designed 24,500 seater stadium which is home to the two sports clubs and was awarded the prestigious RIBA
the Dalton Bank End terrace was possibly British football’s first electronic scoreboard, a gift from the Dutch company Philips, who had a factory in nearby Darwen and whose PSV Eindhoven team had close ties with Town. Regrettably, it was vandalised in 1970 and replaced by a traditional manual board thereafter. Less innovative, but rather more useful, was the arrival of floodlights in 1961, financed by the £55,000 transfer of Denis Law to Manchester City. In February 1962 two of the new pylons blew down in a gale - one embedding itself in the pitch! Leeds Road capacity was then 52,000; a total which fell to 31,000 after the ground became designated under the Safety of Sports Grounds Act in 1984. In 1989 the Cowshed was
Phil Redgwill
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