{"id":17336,"date":"2017-03-21T12:04:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T12:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stadiumguide.com\/?p=17336"},"modified":"2017-03-21T12:06:10","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T12:06:10","slug":"roots-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stadiumguide.com\/roots-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Roots Hall Stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Roots<\/p>\n

Key facts<\/h3>\n

Club: Southend United FC | Opening: 1955 | Capacity: 12,392 seats<\/p>\n

History and description<\/h3>\n

Southend United had been playing at the site of Roots Hall since their foundation in 1906, but moved away in 1919 and spent over three decades renting other grounds.<\/p>\n

In the 1950s, however, the club was looking for a site to build a new club-owned ground and settled on the site of Roots Hall where they had previously played. The new ground opened on 20 August 1955 with a match between Southend and Norwich. It was the last new stadium in England to open until 1988.<\/p>\n

Roots Hall recorded its highest attendance of 31,033 in 1979 when Liverpool visited for an FA Cup match.<\/p>\n

The stadium underwent a series of changes in the 1990s when it got converted to an all-seater and part of the\u00a0south stand got sold off to real estate developers to keep the struggling club financially afloat. It replaced the stand with a small double-tiered stand.<\/p>\n

For\u00a0the last two decades, Southend have looked to build a brand new stadium at a site in the north of the city, generally dubbed the Fossetts Farm site, however repeated bureaucratic and financial problems have thus far halted the project.<\/p>\n

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