This morning's run to me past (and around) the track at Newcastle Stadium. In 1950 Newcastle City Council announced plans to lay out a City Stadium on the former Ouseburn refuse tip. The initial plan was to cover the site in soil and turf and lay out a football pitch and cycling and running tracks. With the ultimate aim of building two stands on either side of the track, each seating 43,000 people and a terrace to accomodate a further 8,500. This would have been a larger capacity than Newcastle United's St James Park at the time!
The first phase (the football pitch and racing tracks) opened in June 1955. There was a cinder track, a small wooden pavilion and an entrance block. Notorious, politician and then Leader of Newcastle City Council, T Dan Smith, even proposed the site and forwarded plans for the 'stadium' to host the 1966 Empire Games, but this did not materialise.
Further plans to develop the site and install a new track were proposed in 2016 but these also seem to have been shelved.
This morning as I avoided the pot holes and plodged through the puddles of what remains of the cinder track, Strava tells me that as recently as May this year someone still managed a 58 second lap around here.
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