The Story Of A Stadium at the Heart of Its Community
As the Trust celebrates 30 years, Vicarage Road Stadium is celebrating its centenary. Having opened in August 1922, it’s been home to Watford FC for 100 years.
Right from its earliest days, the ground has hosted events for the benefit of the community. Inter-school sports days were staged in summer. In 1935 the families of employees at Benskins brewery, then the Club’s main benefactor, enjoyed a day celebrating the silver jubilee of George V: there was a conjurer’s show to watch, a tug-of-war and – unlikely to be repeated nowadays – a ladies’ tape-cutting race. A Girl Guide Rally was held in 1938, with games, dancing and a demonstration of various forms of camping.
The stadium is an even greater asset today with its range of facilities – rooms, spaces and the pitch (but strictly only after the football season has finished) – and many Trust activities have been held at Vicarage Road. The learning centre classes, stadium tours, educational events for schools, mock press conferences, the stadium Step Up challenge, the Extra Time club, the Golden Memories dementia support programme … it’s a long list. Many thousands of people have been able to benefit from what it offers.
The stadium has an intangible pull too. There’s something magical about being inside on a non-matchday. The yellow and red seating dazzles; the bright green grass looks sumptuous. You feel a sense of privilege just being there.
Of all the magical treats, for many the greatest is being on the pitch – or even playing on it! In May 2022, Vicarage Road and the Trust hosted the Premier League Primary Stars tournament. Over two days, children from 60 schools across England and Wales enjoyed the full Premier League experience, coming out of the players’ tunnel to music, playing on the Vicarage Road pitch and being refereed by leading officials.
The vast majority of the Trust’s activities are tailored to local participants; this was a prestigious national event, appropriate in the centenary year of a stadium that has played host to its local community across 100 years.
At the same time, by using the stadium for the purpose of bringing community groups together, it wasn’t so different to the inter- school sports days of the 1920s and 1930s.
