Category Archives: Sport

Sandy Lane football ground

The football ground is shown on this 1938 OS map from National Library of Scotland (re-use CC-BY)

Tooting Town Football Club purchased the land in 1922 in February and it took 18 months to get ready, and it was first played on in the 1923-24 season. The wooden stand there was built when the ground was built, and it was replaced in 1958, and you can see a good view of this in the postcard and there’s also one on top of the Tooting Town programme.

In 1958 the stand was demolished and a new stand was built. In the original plans, they were talking about going to build a stand the full length of the pitch, and there was an idea of building the two end quarters first and then building the middle in at some other time, but they actually went for to demolish this stand and build these middle two quarters. This was ready for the 1958-59 season. They then had a very good cup run and with the money that they made, they built the the quarter on the left hand side of the stand at the Sandy Lane end. Unfortunately the last quarter never got built.

Photo of the ground taken in 2000, by Colin Peel.

When you look at the colour photograph of the ground, at first it looks as though the stand goes all the way along, but when you look closer you can see that the last quarter is not there, and a view of the more modern programme from the early 80s you can see it looking the other way and you can see that the the stand was only three quarters of the way down.

The ground actually lasted until the end of the 2001-2002 playing season and then the ground went over to a housing development.

Source: Stan Churchillman, a South London Football historian.

Aerial Views of the Mitcham Stadium and Sandy Lane football ground

These are birds-eye views, i.e. taken at an angle, that include the Mitcham Stadium and Sandy Lane football ground.

These were originally shown on the Britain From Above website, and are now hosted by Historic England, who have made available the ability to embed them here.

Photos available by year:

1937
1948
1952
1953

1937

1948

1952

1953