![]() ![]() ![]() In September 1949, South Liverpool's Holly Park ground hosted the first game in England under "permanent" floodlights: a friendly against a Nigerian XI. ![]() This situation lasted until the 1950s, when the popularity of floodlit friendlies became such that the League relented. In the 1930s, Herbert Chapman installed lights into the new West Stand at Highbury but the Football League refused to sanction their use. A fresh white coloured ball was introduced after about every 20 minutes and the goalposts were painted yellow. The floodlights were fixed to overhead wires strung above and across the pitch. played a friendly match in Paris against RC Paris under floodlights. In 1929 the Providence Clamdiggers football club hosted the Bethlehem Steel "under the rays of powerful flood lights, an innovation in soccer" at their Providence, Rhode Island stadium. These experiments, which included high-profile fixtures against Arsenal and West Bromwich Albion, were set up using engineers and equipment from the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company. ![]() Thames Ironworks (who would later be re-formed as West Ham United) played a number of friendly matches under artificial light at their Hermit Road ground during their inaugural season of 1895–96. The match was played at 7:45pm and Forest lost 2-0 watched by 5000 spectators. However the same article also reported on 26 March 1889 that 'a strong wind was blowing from the Radford goal, and this caused the lights on the town side to shed a considerable portion of their radiance on the adjoining fields, so that dark shadows were often thrown upon the playing ground and it was almost impossible to see a case of handling unless the officials were close to'. These lights were placed around the ground and 'illuminated the playing arena well enough for the spectators to follow most, if not all, the points of play' according to the Nottingham Evening Post on 26 March 1889. This match was illuminated by 14 Wells Lights which was a portable illumation system powered by paraffin Nottingham Forest played a floodlit match against Notts Rangers at the Gregory Ground, Lenton, Nottingham on 25 March 1889. Subsequent tests over the next month using three Siemens dynamos at the first Hampden Park, Rugby Park in Kilmarnock and at Powderhall Stadium in Edinburgh produced mixed results, in part due to technical issues and weather conditions. Blackburn and Darwen also hosted floodlit matches in 1878, and in October of the same year 3rd Lanark RV played an exhibition match against Scottish Cup holders Vale of Leven at the first Cathkin Park, with press reports suggesting the lighting from a Gramme machine was not successful in illuminating the whole field. With no national grid, lights were powered by batteries and dynamoes, and were unreliable. (Note the two gantries near the light for servicing)īramall Lane was the first stadium to host floodlit association football matches, dating as far back as 1878, when there were experimental matches at the Sheffield stadium during the dark winter afternoons. This is a common style of floodlights at older football and rugby grounds in England and Scotland. Floodlights on a Rugby league field at the Headingley Stadium in Leeds, UK. ![]()
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