By Rob Atherton


Since 1884, Portman Road was always the stadium for Ipswich Town Football Club who currently compete in the Championship in England. It is a all seater arena that has a capacity of 30,031 and lies in the heart of Ipswich, simply a couple of hundred metres from the train station that's on the mainline to London.

The stands at either end of this arena were rebuilt in recent years and there are actually a number of executive boxes as well as other suites designed to have corporate events in.

Until eventually the mid-1980s, Portman Road was principally a football venue even if there were occasions when cricket had been played here during the summer and in the course of the First World War, the arena was also utilised by the British Army as a training camp. Of course, a large amount of supporters only knew Portman Road to be a football stadium.

In March 85, the American Evangelist, Billy Graham including Portman Road as part of his tour of the UK and nearly 8,000 people came to see him. With income becoming increasingly more critical to clubs, various other opportunities were considered to make use of the stadium throughout the summertime as there wasn't any football.

During the summer time of 91, Status Quo end up being the very first of various top music megastars and groups to play at Portman Road. Bear in mind it was more than a decade prior to the next significant music act visited Ipswich as Elton John performed at the arena. Subsequently, momentum has increased with a lot of top music stars performing including Tina Turner, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, REM, Dire Straits, Neil Diamond, Rod Stewart and more recently, Pink.

The summertime live shows at Portman Road are set to continue as they are of benefit of the football club along with the area.




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