Riverside Stadium

The Riverside Stadium is a football stadium in Middlesbrough, England, which has been the home of Middlesbrough F.C. since it opened in 1995. Its current capacity is 34,000 all seated, although there is provisional planning permission in place to expand that to 42,000 if required.HistoryThe stadium was built to replace Ayresome Park after the Taylor Report, which required all top division football stadiums to be all-seater. After the report was delivered in January 1990, Middlesbrough needed an all-seater stadium by August 1994, and were unable to expand Ayresome Park outwards owing to its location in a residential area, and expanding the stadium upwards would have limited the club to a capacity of around 20,000 seats – the club wanted a considerably larger capacity. The decision was taken by club officials to build a new stadium; Teesside Development Corporation offered them the Middlehaven site by the River Tees for development.The new 30,000 seater stadium was constructed by Taylor Woodrow Construction for £16 million, taking approximately nine months to complete after work began in the autumn of 1994. The name of the stadium was chosen by the club's fans, following a vote during the final game at Ayresome Park. The other choices available were Middlehaven Stadium, Erimus Stadium and Teesside Stadium. When first opened, the name was amended to Cellnet Riverside Stadium (and then BT Cellnet Riverside Stadium) as part of a £3 million sponsorship deal with Cellnet, but this deal ended after the 2001–02 season.