Excavations and the afterlife of a professional football stadium, Peel Park, Accrington, Lancashire: towards an archaeology of football

Abstract

Association football is now a multi-billion dollar global industry whose emergence spans the post-medieval to the modern world. With its professional roots in late nineteenth-century industrial Lancashire, stadiums built for the professionalization of football first appear in any numbers in the North of England. While many historians of sport focus on consumerism and ‘topophilia’ (attachment to place) regarding these local football grounds, archaeological research that has been conducted on the spectator experience suggests status differentiation within them. Our excavations at Peel Park confirm this impression while also showing a significant afterlife to this stadium, particularly through children's play.

Keywords:

• Association Football
• Lancashire
• spectators
• material culture
• class
• childhood

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due especially to our collaborators at BBC North West: Howard Booth (whose idea the whole project was) and Sarah Mulkerrins (who filmed and interviewed us on site); and equally to our partners at Peel Park School: Judith Williams (headteacher), Abigail Worrall (history co-ordinator) and Tony Hall (site manager). Children from the school were interested visitors throughout the project and years 5 and 6 carried out some of the digging and a vast amount of vital finds processing work. Mike Tennant ably co-ordinated all the school activities on site. The excavation was carried out by undergraduate students from UCLan: Carl Alfrey; Jonathan Banasko; Jasmine Barnfather; Alex Batey; Julia Cookson; Damien Ennis; Megan Ferguson; Katie Foley; Jodie Gilbert; Francesca Gill; Jessica Gill; Alex Griffiths; Caitlin Halton; Dave Hitchen; James Hodgson; Vikki Le Quelenec; Simon Lobel; Amber Mitchell; Christine Mortimer; Lizzie Munroe; Karl Povey; Amy Revans; Vanessa Silva and James West. The project was directed by the authors with assistance from Clare Bedford. Rob Heys, Chief Executive Officer of the current Accrington Stanley FC, was an interested visitor to the site along with some of the squad. Thanks to Steve Andrews, Eddie Prince and James West for advice about ammunition and to Alex Griffiths for advice about clay pipes.