Selhurst Park

Selhurst Park is a football stadium in Selhurst, in the London Borough of Croydon, England. It serves as the home ground of Premier League club Crystal Palace. The stadium was designed by Archibald Leitch and opened in 1924. It has hosted international football, as well as games for the 1948 Summer Olympics. It was shared by Charlton Athletic from 1985 to 1991 and Wimbledon from 1991 to 2003.

In 1922, a former brickfield site was bought from the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Company for £2,750 by Crystal Palace F.C. The club had been pursuing a deal for the ground as early as 25 February 1919. The stadium was designed by Scottish architect Archibald Leitch, and constructed by Humphreys of Kensington (a firm regularly used by Leitch) for around £30,000. It was officially opened by the Lord Mayor of London on 30 August 1924. There was then only one stand, the present Main Stand, but this was unfinished due to industrial action. Crystal Palace played The Wednesday and lost 0–1 in front of 25,000 fans.

Two years later, on St David's Day in 1926, England played Wales in an international match at the stadium. England amateur matches and various other finals were also staged there, as were other sports including boxing, bicycle polo (in the late 1940s), and cricket and music concerts (in the 1980s). In addition to this, it hosted two games for the 1948 Summer Olympics.

In 1953, the stadium's first floodlights were installed, consisting of numerous poles around the 3 sides of terracing and four roof-mounted installations on the Main Stand. They were replaced nine years later by floodlights mounted on pylons in each corner, and six installations on the Main Stand roof. Real Madrid marked the occasion by playing under the new set of bulbs – a real footballing coup at the time for third division Palace, as it was Real's first ever match in London.

The ground remained undeveloped until 1969, when Palace were promoted to Division One (then the highest tier of English football) for the first time. The Arthur Wait Stand was built, named after the club's long-serving chairman, who was a builder by trade and was often seen working on the site himself. Arthur Wait was notable for overseeing Palace's rise from the Fourth to the First Division, in the 1960s. The Whitehorse Lane end was given a new look when a "second tier" of terracing, brick-built refreshments and toilets were provided along the top.

The Safety of Grounds Act required the Holmesdale Road terrace (the preferred stand for the Crystal Palace supporters) to be split into three sections for safety reasons. The remaining poorer facilities were mainly where opposition supporters were situated. New facilities were subsequently built at the back of the Holmesdale Stand. In the summer of 1981, the Main Stand terraced enclosure was redesigned and refitted with seating. This year also saw Palace sell the back of the Whitehorse Lane terrace and adjacent land to supermarket retailer Sainsbury's for £2m, to help their financial problems. The size of the terrace at this end was effectively halved.

Charlton Athletic moved into the stadium as temporary tenants in 1985, and became with Palace the first league clubs in England to agree such a ground-sharing scheme. The following year, Palace chairman Ron Noades purchased the stadium from the club as a means of raising revenue. In the summer of 1990, the lower half of the Arthur Wait Stand was converted to all-seater with the assistance of Football Trust Grant Aid, following the Taylor Report into the Hillsborough Disaster. Two rows of executive boxes (48 in total) were constructed above the Whitehorse Lane terrace (on the roof of Sainsbury's supermarket) in 1991, and this was subsequently roofed and made all-seater in the summer of 1993.

Charlton moved back to The Valley via West Ham's Boleyn Ground, and Wimbledon F.C. replaced them as tenants in 1991. The Holmesdale terrace was demolished in 1994 and replaced a year later with a two-tiered 8,500 capacity stand. The roof cladding of the main stand was also replaced, the previous one having started to leak. Some 25 years on, this remains the most recent major work to be carried out at Selhurst Park.