St James' Park is an all-seater stadium in Newcastle upon Tyne, England,
and is the home of Newcastle United Football Club. The stadium has a capacity
of 52,387, making it the third largest club ground and fourth largest football
stadium in England.


   The four sides of the ground are known as the Gallowgate End (officially
the Newcastle Brown Ale Stand), the Leazes End (officially the Sir John Hall
Stand), the Milburn Stand (after 1950s player Jackie Milburn) and the East
Stand. It was first used by Newcastle United in 1892 after the unification of
Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End, although football had been played
there since 1880.


   It was announced on 2 April 2007 that the club intend to submit plans for
a new ￡300million development that would increase the stadium's capacity to
around 60,000.


   Sam godsell The ground received only modest expansion until the early 1990s
when businessman Sir John Hall invested heavily in the club. By 1995 the
stadium had reached a capacity of 36,610 seats. However this was still not
enough for the club's fan base, hence plans were drawn to move to a new
stadium in nearby Leazes Park, which would be in the design of the San Siro.
The old ground would then be connected and used by the rugby club to replace
their aging ground. These plans fell through due to political wranglings, led
by a conservation group headed by Dolly Potter. Instead the club decided to
expand the current St James' Park by adding extra tiers to the Sir John Hall
Stand and the Milburn Stand.


   The upper tiers on the West and North sides of the ground were completed in
July 2000, with seats and executive boxes also installed. The upper tiers
(especially the upper tier on the Sir John Hall Stand) are home to Newcastle's
most vocal supporters.


   Executive boxes in the East Stand were demolished and replaced by seating
blocks from pitch level up to the existing rows, in a mirror image of the
Milburn Stand, increasing capacity to approximately 52,143. The current
capacity is 52,387, after some handrails were removed to make way for
approximately 200 new seats, back in 2004.


   The cost of the new construction work was estimated at ￡42 million,
significantly higher than the proposed Leazes Park stadium. Although the
stadium appears lop-sided when viewed from the outside, the bottom tier of the
four stands does create an integral rectangular bowl around the stadium, with
the newer stands rising above this on two sides. The scope for further
expansion is limited by a road facing the Gallowgate end and the Tyne and Wear
Metro runs underneath where the proposed expansion would be.


   There is also a multi-storey car park. The car park includes a ramp into a
St James' Park bar, which is sometimes used for competition nights where a car
could be the prize.


   The club also purchased the land around and above the St James Metro
station, with the eventual aim of building hotel and conference facilities. In
2005, a new bar was built beneath the upper tier of the Gallowgate End, named
"Shearer's'" after Newcastle player Alan Shearer. During excavation underneath
the stand during building work, the builders uncovered the original steps of
the old Gallowgate End stand, which had simply been covered up when the stadium
was fully renovated in 1993. These steps were removed for Shearer's Bar.


   The stadium has hosted several music shows; including The Rolling Stones,
Bruce Springsteen, Queen, Bob Dylan and most recently Bryan Adams and coming
up in the summer of 2007, Rod Stewart.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_James%27_Park