Wholly Trinity
Floodlights
Villa Park reaches new heights
Colin Peel brings us up to date on the rebuild of the famous Trinity Road Stand at Villa Park
Despite one or two little problems, the new Trinity Road Stand at Aston Villa remains on track for
completion by Boxing Day and the
keenly anticipated visit of Manchester Milestones
The key developments to external areas, match-by-match
United.
At just seven months to demolish the (League games only)
venerated old stand and erect a 13,000seat replacement, the speed of the project is truly impressive and surely a
benchmark for other stadium builders to
go by.
In the builders’ favour, however, is the
relatively uncomplicated design of the
stand, which, despite its modernity,
barely advances the cause of stadium
architecture. There are two-and-a-half
tiers (the seats nearest the pitch consti- 5/8/2000
tuting the ‘half tier’), with a line of executive boxes underneath the top tier runMATCHDAY 1: Chelsea
27/08/2000
ning the full width of the stand. The
Site fully fenced off; most of middle tier seating decks in
upper tier slopes downwards on both place, with some seats; temporary changing rooms installed;
sides, with the supports of the South four roof beams in place.
end standing in the neighbouring Aston
Park; Trinity Road itself now runs underneath part of the stand. The roof is daringly cantilevered at a downward angle
so that although the rear supports are
even higher than the massive Holte
End, the front fascia lines up perfectly
with both end stands.
Of course, Villa have continued to play
matches throughout the building work,
and a huge effort was required to make
27/8/2000
the stand ready for the first match on
August 27th. The club had earlier said
that around 7,000 seats would be avail- MATCHDAY 2: Bradford
16/09/2000
able against Chelsea, but in the end a Almost all middle and upper seating decks in place; most
last-minute safety certificate was ob- middle tier seats fixed; nine roof beams in place.
tained for 1,500 [