During the build up to London 2012 one of the many images used was that of poster girl Jessica Ennis training hard with her coach at Sheffield’s Don Valley Stadium. Shortly after the end of the games and once all the fanfare and media coverage had died down she was back at the stadium pounding round the track and training for the next 4 years of championships and competitions in preparation for Rio 2016.
Jessica Ennis maybe making it to Rio but one of her training sites might not make it that far.
Don Valley Stadium is under threat from a city council looking to save upwards of £50 million in their latest budget.
Built in time for the 1991 World Student Games this stadium was part of a massive and ambitions building project for the council to take up. This included building the Stadium, Sheffield Arena and Ponds Forge Leisure Centre at a cost of £147 million all for the Games but also to allow the athletes and future athletes from the city and the surrounding area to have some world class facilities to use, train and compete at. Much of the plan for the venues has come to pass with the Sheffield Arena annually hosting the world’s biggest stars in concert as well as top level ice hockey and holding its own against the pull of buildings like the MEN Arena in Manchester and the new, as yet unnamed arena in Leeds.
Ponds Forge has become one of the country’s premier swimming pools and has hosted international competitions, TV programmes, election counting and, like the Arena, world championship boxing.
What about Don Valley Stadium though?
After it’s opening in September 1990 the stadium became the biggest athletics stadium in the country and the first national stadium to be opened since Wembley Stadium in 1923. Seating 25,000 it has only been bettered in size by the Olympic stadium in London. The design of the facility, with its sunken track meant that there wasn’t a bad seat in the house either in the main stand or in one of the un-covered blocks on the opposite side of the 400 meter track. This made it ideal for hosting events such as the Grand Prix athletics championships and the English Schools Championships.
In addition to athletics events the stadium was also home to the Sheffield Eagles rugby league team and hosted American Football for many years. Although neither or both of the cities football teams could be tempted to use the stadium it did host football league games for local side Rotherham United, while there new ground was being designed and built between 2008 and 2012.
But the stadium was more than just a sporting venue, in its early life it hosted many of the world’s major music stars including Michael Jackson, U2, Celine Dion and Sheffield’s own Def Leppard, who became the first band to perform at the stadium in 1993.
Now as you will no doubt have noticed when I refer to the stadium I do so in the past tense, one very good reason for this is that the decision has already been made by Sheffield City Council to close the stadium and demolish it as soon as possible.
So what does this mean for Athletics not just in the city but also in the surrounding area?
With the council needing to save £50 million a year in its budget demolishing Don Valley Stadium will save them over £500,000 a year, however there are no plans to replace the stadium in another location in the city to keep its foot in the door of UK athletics. The only option the council have offered is to re-open and improve a site close to the current stadium at Woodburn Road. However the work required to bring this facility, which is currently used to host local 5-aside football and not athletics of any kind, would require something in the region of £1 million and, with a capacity of less than 1,000 seats would mean that hosting top level outdoor athletics would be impossible for the city.
So what would happen to stars such as Jessica Ennis and clubs like Hallamshire Harriers and City of Sheffield Athletics Club if Woodburn Road isn’t improved or improved enough to meet the needs of the athletes?
Well for Jess there are a number of options such as the national training centre at Loughborough or the John Charles Centre for Sport in Leeds, both of these options would mean Jess leaving the city or travelling everyday to train at a suitable site.
The athletics clubs will either have to make the same journey or make do with what is on offer at Woodburn Road, which was closed over 18 months ago.
Mike Corden, chairman of City of Sheffield Athletics Club, told BBC Sport;
“I would be fighting tooth and nail to make sure we keep a top-class facility open so we can develop the Jess Ennises of the future, “
“I would hope the council, if they do ultimately close this place down, will offer us a first class alternative. “
(‘Jessica Ennis’s Don Valley Stadium could face closure.’ BBC Sport Website; 7th January 2013 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-20926575)
Woodburn Road, once Don Valley Stadium is closed, will be the only 400 meter athletics track in the city but with the improvements needed to get it opened and up to a standard local clubs would expect will take time. The council have until early March to finalise its budget decisions and there is still a glimmer of hope for Don Valley but it looks very unlikely that the stadium will be saved.
Since the decline of the steel works Sheffield has promoted it’s self as a city of sport, indeed modern football was first played in the city, it houses the world’s oldest football team in Sheffield FC, two professional football teams with history dating back, in the case of Sheffield Wednesday, to 1867 as well as ponds forge leisure centre, IceSheffield with its two Olympic size ice rinks and the National Institute for Sport as well as hosting annual events such as the World Snooker Championships at the cities Crucible Theatre. Now, however, one jewels in the cities crown will be missing and that’s a world-class outdoor athletics facility and the possibility of hosting the world’s best athletes.
Will this actually harm the chance of the next Jessica Ennis emerging from Sheffield?
Well that’s hard to judge at the moment and, I suppose, only time will tell but when you see stars like Jess performing in front of 80,000 fans at the Olympic Stadium in London then you go to a tree lined athletics track in Sheffield with the local tram system thundering past and the cries of disgruntled 5-aside footballers in the back ground you could accept that maybe the appeal of top level athletics to a 10-year old might not be as high on their priority list as it should be.
Once the door closes for the final time on Don Valley Stadium and the bulldozes move it will be a sad day for Sheffield but even sadder one for Athletics in the North of England and deal a blow to the legacy bid of London 2012.
