Portman Road A Year Round Football and Events Venue

By Rob Atherton


Since 1884, Portman Road was always the home stadium for Ipswich Town F.C. who play in the Championship in England. It's a all seater stadium having a capacity of just over 30,000 and lies in the centre of Ipswich, merely a couple of hundred metres from the train station that's on the mainline to London.

The stands at either end of this arena were rebuilt in recent years and there are actually a number of executive boxes as well as other suites designed to have corporate events in.

Until eventually the mid-1980s, Portman Road was principally a football venue even if there were occasions when cricket had been played here during the summer and in the course of the First World War, the arena was also utilised by the British Army as a training camp. Of course, a large amount of supporters only knew Portman Road to be a football stadium.

In March 1985, the American Evangelist, Billy Graham including Portman Road as part of his tour of the UK and close to 8,000 people came to hear him speak. With money becoming an increasing number of crucial to clubs, more options were looked at to utilise the stadium in the course of the summer months as there was no football.

In the summer of 1991, Status Quo become the 1st of many different big music superstars and groups to perform at Portman Road. Yet it was over a decade prior to the next great music act came to Ipswich when Elton John played at the stadium. Subsequently, impetus has increased with lots of foremost pop stars performing such as Tina Turner, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, REM, Dire Straits, Neil Diamond, Rod Stewart and more lately, Pink.

The summertime live shows at Portman Road are set to continue as they are of benefit of the football club along with the area.




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