Spion Kop (stadiums)

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The end of a football stadium with th seats painted red.
The Kop at Anfield, the home of Liverpool F.C.

Spion Kop (or Kop for short) is a colloquial name or term for a number of terraces and stands at sports stadiums attended by hardcore fans, particularly in the United Kingdom.

Their steep nature resembles a hill near Ladysmith, South Africa, that was the scene of the Battle of Spion Kop in January 1900 during the Second Boer War.[1]

History

File:Spioenkop01.jpg
The Spion Kop hill near Ladysmith, South Africa

The first recorded reference to a sports terrace as "Kop" related to Woolwich Arsenal's Manor Ground in 1904.[2] A local newsman likened the silhouette of fans standing on a newly raised bank of earth to soldiers standing atop the hill at the Battle of Spion Kop. In 1906 Liverpool Echo sports editor Ernest Edwards noted of a new open-air embankment at Anfield: "This huge wall of earth has been termed 'Spion Kop', and no doubt this apt name will always be used in future in referring to this spot". The use of the name was given formal recognition in 1928 upon construction of a roof. It is thought to be the first terrace officially named Spion Kop. Many other English football clubs and some Rugby league clubs (such as Wigan's former home Central Park) applied the same name to stands in later years.

Villa Park's old Holte End was historically the largest of all Kop ends, closely followed by the old South Bank at Molineux, both once regularly holding crowds in excess of 30,000. However in the mid-1980s work was completed on Hillsborough's Kop which, with a capacity of around 22,000, became the largest roofed terrace in Europe.

Composition

There is much debate about what type of stand constitutes a Kop. The size and location of the stand in the stadium varies; most are located behind the goal and are occupied by its club's most vocal supporters. It is usually a single-tiered stand and is traditionally terraced. In England, safety regulations brought into effect after the 1989 Hillsborough disaster required many to be made all-seated. A Kop is not necessarily the largest stand in the stadium and does not have to have a particularly large capacity; for example, Chesterfield's former stadium, the Recreation Ground (known to all as Saltergate), had a Kop with a capacity of only a few thousand.

Kopites

The supporters who sang on Liverpool's Kop helped make Anfield famous for its atmosphere.[3] "Kopites" is a collective name given to the supporters of Liverpool Football Club.[4]

Kops

The Kop at Meadow Lane
The Kop at St Andrew's
Ground Club Stand
Anfield Liverpool Spion Kop[5]
Central Park (demolished 1999) Wigan Warriors RLFC The Kop (demolished 1999)[6]
Baseball Ground (demolished 2003-04) Derby Popside Kop (The Popside) (demolished 2003-04)[7]
Bloomfield Road Blackpool Mortensen Kop[8]
Bramall Lane Sheffield United The Kop[9]
County Ground Northampton Town Spion Kop[10]
Deepdale Preston North End Bill Shankly Kop[11]
Elland Road Leeds United The Kop[12]
Filbert Street (demolished 2003) Leicester City Spion Kop (Double Decker)[13] (demolished 2003)
Highfield Road (demolished 2006) Coventry City The Spion Kop Terrace[14] (demolished 2006)
Hillsborough Stadium Sheffield Wednesday Spion Kop[15]
Home Park Plymouth Argyle Spion Kop (demolished 2001)
Knowsley Road (demolished 2011) St Helens RLFC The Kop (demolished 2011)
Manor Ground (demolished c.1913) Woolwich Arsenal Spion Kop[2] (demolished c.1913)
Meadow Lane Notts County Spion Kop[16]
Oakwell Barnsley Spion Kop[17]
Prenton Park Tranmere Rovers The Bebington Kop[18]
Racecourse Ground Wrexham The Kop[19]
Recreation Ground Chesterfield Spion Kop[20]
St Andrew's Birmingham City Spion Kop[21]
Wilderspool Stadium (demolished 2014) Warrington RLFC Spion Kop (demolished 2014)
King Power Stadium Leicester City The Kop, Fosse Stand[23]
Windsor Park Linfield / Northern Ireland The Kop[24]
Parc des Princes Paris Saint-Germain Kop of Boulogne[25]

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Duke, Greg. Football First 11: Stunning stadiums CNN. 29 October 2008.
  4. ↑ Augustyn, Adam. The Britannica Guide to Soccer. RES 15 August 2011. "In 1906 Anfield's newly constructed terrace grandstand was christened Spion Kop for its resemblance to a hill where a famous South African War battle had been fought, which led to the well-known "Kopites" nickname for Liverpool's fans."
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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Sources

External links

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