Ninian Park was a football stadium in the Leckwith area of Cardiff, Wales. Between 1910 and 2009 it was the home ground of Cardiff City F.C, until they moved to the new Cardiff City Stadium (constructed opposite). Ninian Park Stadium was subsequently demolished and the site was redeveloped with residential housing.
History
Ninian Park is named after Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart (15 May 1883 – 2 October 1915), son of John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute (12 September 1847–9 October 1900).
The ground featured large floodlights in each corner and a plasma-screen television showed highlights during the game. The television was bought by the club in 2002 from Bolton Wanderers, who had previously used the screen in their former ground Burnden Park before moving to the Reebok Stadium, and was located between the Popular Bank and the Grange End.
The stadium hosted a number of Welsh international fixtures, including the Wales v Scotland World Cup qualifier on 10 September 1985, at which Scotland manager Jock Stein collapsed and died.
The last ever Cardiff City football match played at Ninian Park was a 3-0 defeat to Ipswich Town, who had Roy Keane as their new manager in his first match in charge, on 25 April 2009. The last ever senior player to score at Ninian Park was Jon Stead, then of Ipswich Town and the last player for Cardiff City to score at Ninian Park was Ross McCormack in a 3-1 victory over Burnley in the penultimate senior game at Ninian Park. The club relocated to their new all-seater stadium (capacity - just over 28,000) for the 2009-10 season, and the 99-year-old Ninian Park was demolished later in 2009 to make way for a housing development.
The last ever football match played at Ninian Park was a Welsh Schools Cup Semi-Final fixture between Radnor Road Primary school and Corneli Primary School, with Corneli Primary School edging the game after penalties in front of the Grange End. This left Corneli Primary School's manager, lifelong Cardiff fan Alex Clarke, as the last winning manager at Ninian Park.
Since it was built the ground has been used for numerous other events including:
It has hosted numerous Wales international matches alongside Wrexham's The Racecourse Ground which was the venue for the Wales U21 team.
As part of his Rastaman Vibration Tour Bob Marley staged a concert at the ground on 19 June 1976. This date had originally been scheduled for Stephen Stills but when he was unable to play Bob Marley filled the date. On the day the concert itself was mostly played through heavy rain.
Pope John Paul II held a rally here during his visit to the United Kingdom in 1982.
During the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games it hosted the show-jumping championships.
Cardiff rugby club played at the ground twice between 1960-1961 due to their ground not having floodlights, and the Cardiff City Blue Dragons rugby league team used the ground as their home between 1981 and 1984.
The Welsh national rugby league team, the Wales Dragons, used Ninian Park as one of its home venues. The ground hosted 6 internationals between 1981 and 1995. The Dragons held a 3-3 record at Ninian Park, winning its last game 28-6 over France in front of the largest International Rugby League crowd at the ground (10,250) on their way to a Semi-final berth in the 1995 Rugby League World Cup.
