The Fans' Stadium, Kingsmeadow

The Fans' Stadium, Kingsmeadow (formerly the Kingsmeadow Stadium) is a football stadium in Kingston upon Thames, London. The stadium is owned by AFC Wimbledon, but is also used for the home matches of Kingstonian F.C., who formerly owned it. Football (soccer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... The Athens Olympic Stadium A modern stadium (plural stadiums, Latin plural stadia) is a place, or venue, for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts or other events, consisting of a field or stage partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event. ... Kingston upon Thames, part of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, is an ancient market town where Saxon kings were crowned, and is now a lively suburb of London. ... This article is about the British city. ... AFC Wimbledon is a semi-professional English football team representing the area of Wimbledon and Merton in London, though they currently play their games in nearby New Malden. ... Kingstonian Football Club are an English, non-league football club that will play the 2005-06 season in the Isthmian League First Division after being relegated from the Isthmian League Premier Division. ...

The stadium has a capacity of 4,500, though in the past it held 6,299 (modern safety requirements required the capacity to be reduced - and for a time it was even lower). There are four stands: the Main Stand, the John Smith's Stand, the West Bank, and the newly covered "Tempest End" (formerly named the Athletics End due to the adjacent athletics stadium). The Fans' Stadium meets Football Conference standards, though neither Wimbledon nor Kingstonian currently play at such a high level. John Smith (died 1879) was the founder of a famous brewery at Tadcaster in North Yorkshire. ... Football Conference logo The Football Conference is a football league at the top of the National League System of so-called non-league football in England. ...

The stadium has been the home of Kingstonian since 1989. Following relegation from the Conference National, Kingstonian went into financial administration and both club and ground were purchased by Rajesh Khosla and his son Anup, who were not football oriented and alienated a large part of Kingstonian's support. 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Conference National (often referred to as the Nationwide Conference for sponsorship reasons) is the top division of the Football Conference. ...

An opportunity arose with the formation of AFC Wimbledon, who in 2002 needed a home for their inaugural season (in which they played in the Combined Counties Football League). After one season as tenants of the Khoslas (the rent not going to Kingstonian because the Khoslas had arranged that the stadium was owned in Rajesh's name and the club in Anup's), Wimbledon undertook to buy the ground, club owners The Dons Trust launching a share issue to finance the purchase, which was closed the following summer. They continue to pay off a mortgage debt to the Khoslas. For the Cusco album, see 2002 (album). ... The Combined Counties Football League is a regional English football league comprised of teams in several counties near London. ...

Once purchased, Wimbledon renamed the stadium from the Kingsmeadow Stadium to The Fans' Stadium, Kingsmeadow, representing a commitment to the role of supporters in English football and their involvement in broader groups like the Football Supporters' Federation and Supporters Direct. The Football Supporters Federation is an organisation representing football fans in England and Wales. ...

Wimbledon kept Kingstonian on as tenants and charge them a far lower rent than they themselves had been charged by the Khoslas, with both gate receipts and bar takings at Kingstonian games being retained by Kingstonian (which continued to be Khosla-owned until 2005). An annual friendly match between the two clubs is intended to defray the cost of the rent. A friendly match is generally a match where there is no competitive value of any kind, and most times quality of play is valued over the result. ...

The start of the 2005/06 season saw the Southwest Terrace end newly covered and is now established as the 'West Bank' or Home End, thanks to the generosity of Club shirt manufacturers Tempest.

External links

• Official site