Portman Road A Year Round Football and Live Performance 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-80s, Portman Road was mostly a football venue whilst there were times when cricket has been played here all through the summertime and for the duration of World War I, the stadium was also utilised by the British Army as a training camp. Of course, nearly all fans only knew Portman Road as 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.

During the summer time of 91, Status Quo end up being the very first of various top music megastars and groups to play at Portman Road. Bear in mind it was more than a decade prior to the next significant music act visited Ipswich as Elton John performed at the arena. Subsequently, momentum has increased with a lot of top music stars performing including Tina Turner, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, REM, Dire Straits, Neil Diamond, Rod Stewart and more recently, Pink.

The summer events at Portman Road are going to continue because they reward both the football club along with the area.




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