U of M students visit Fulham’s Craven Cottage on architecture study trip

2009 January 22

by Brian Quarstad

Inglis with U of M students sitting in Johnny Haynes Stand

Fulham FC posted an article on their web site on Wednesday about a group of college students from the University of Minnesota who were given a tour of Craven Cottage. The article states the students were studying industrial heritage and chose to study football (soccer) heritage as their main topic.

Students were given a tour by Simon Inglis. Inglis has written several books on football and sporting heritage. He recently published a book called Engineering Archie. The book refers to Archibald Leitch. Leitch designed the Johnny Haynes stands and the Cottage. The stadium was already in use at in the early 1900′s but many revisions have taken place since then. The Cottage Pavilion dates back to 1905 along with the Johnny Haynes Stand. The reason The Cottage was built was because of an oversight in the Stevenage Road Stand (as it was then), as Leitch had forgotten to accommodate changing rooms in his final plans.

View from the Haynes stand at night - Photo courtesy of Rich Allen

The U of M group spent time studying the historic Johnny Haynes stand and the Cottage. The stand is named after Johnny Haynes, Fulham’s most famous player in the storied 100 years plus of the clubs history.

Craven Cottage is the oldest stadium still used in the English Premier League. It was almost abandoned in the early part of the millennium, but fan pressure convinced the club to stay put at the historic stadium rather than moving the game to Loftus Road, home of QPR.

Thanks to Rich at Craven Cottage Newsround for bringing this story to my attention.