Old Trafford· built byUuser-e8a0f3

Old Trafford 36

• 1909 Construction begins to Archibald Leitch's design Manchester, England United's brewery-owning chairman John Henry Davies put up £60,000 for a ground designed by the Scottish engineer behind most of Britain's great stadiums. The original plan for 100,000 was cut back on cost.
• 1910 Old Trafford opens Manchester, England Manchester United's ground and the largest club stadium in England at 74,310. Bombed in 1941 and rebuilt over a decade; nicknamed the Theatre of Dreams by Bobby Charlton.
• 1911 The FA Cup final replay comes to Old Trafford Manchester, England Bradford City beat Newcastle United 1–0 in front of 58,000, the first major final staged at the new ground.
• 1911 United win the league at their new home Manchester, England Manchester United took the First Division title in Old Trafford's second season, and would not win another for 41 years.
• 1915 The Khaki Final Manchester, England Sheffield United beat Chelsea in an FA Cup final played before a crowd thick with soldiers in uniform. Football was suspended for the rest of the war immediately afterwards.
• 1939 The record attendance is set Manchester, England 76,962 watched Wolves play Grimsby Town in an FA Cup semi-final, a figure that still stands as the ground's highest ever.
• 1941 Old Trafford bombed in the Blitz Manchester, England A Luftwaffe raid on the neighbouring Trafford Park industrial estate destroyed the main stand and much of the pitch. United played home games at Manchester City's Maine Road for the next eight years.
• 1945 The ruins sit unusable Manchester, England With the main stand destroyed and the pitch cratered, United played on at Maine Road and paid Manchester City £5,000 a year plus a share of the gate for the privilege.
• 1949 United return to Old Trafford Manchester, England After eight years as tenants across the city, United played their first match back on 24 August 1949, though the ground still had no roof over three sides.
• 1949 War damage compensation is granted Manchester, England The War Damage Commission awarded £22,278 to rebuild the stands and clear the site, funding the return to Old Trafford that August.
• 1956 European nights are played across the city Manchester, England With no floodlights at Old Trafford, United's first European Cup home ties were staged at Manchester City's Maine Road under City's lights.
• 1957 First floodlit match Manchester, England Floodlights were installed at a cost of £40,000, allowing European evening fixtures as United became the first English club to enter the European Cup.
• 1958 First match after Munich Manchester, England Thirteen days after the air crash that killed eight players, a patched-together United side played Sheffield Wednesday at Old Trafford. The matchday programme left the team sheet blank.
• 1965 Britain's first cantilever stand Manchester, England The United Road stand was rebuilt ahead of the 1966 World Cup with a roof carried on cantilevers, removing the pillars that had blocked views since 1910.
• 1966 World Cup matches hosted Manchester, England Old Trafford staged three group matches at the 1966 World Cup, including Portugal against Hungary with Eusébio.
• 1973 Perimeter fences go up Manchester, England Old Trafford became one of the first English grounds to cage its terraces after a pitch invasion, a response that would be reversed after Hillsborough sixteen years later.
• 1990 The Taylor Report changes everything Manchester, England The inquiry into Hillsborough required all-seater grounds in the top two divisions, condemning the Stretford End and forcing a decade of rebuilding.
• 1992 The last season of standing Manchester, England The Stretford End's final year as a terrace coincided with the first season of the Premier League.
• 1993 The Stretford End becomes all-seater Manchester, England The terrace behind the west goal, the most famous standing end in English football, was rebuilt with seats to comply with the Taylor Report.
• 1994 Old Trafford becomes all-seater Manchester, England Capacity fell to 44,000, its lowest since the 1930s, before the rebuilding programme began pushing it back up.
• 1996 North Stand rebuilt in three tiers Manchester, England The 25,000-seat North Stand made Old Trafford the largest club ground in England and gave it the cantilevered profile it has today.
• 1999 The title is won at home in the treble season Manchester, England United beat Tottenham 2–1 on the final day to take the Premier League, the first leg of a treble completed within eleven days.
• 2000 The East Stand gains a second tier Manchester, England Capacity passed 68,000 as the rebuilding moved round the ground stand by stand.
• 2002 The museum and tour centre open Manchester, England Old Trafford began operating as a year-round visitor attraction, drawing several hundred thousand people a year independent of matchdays.
• 2005 The Glazer takeover Manchester, England The American family completed a leveraged buyout that loaded the club with debt. Protests outside Old Trafford on the day turned hostile enough to require police escorts.
• 2006 Capacity passes 76,000 Manchester, England Quadrant infills between the North Stand and the east and west sides brought the ground to 76,098, its highest ever.
• 2006 The quadrants are filled in Manchester, England Corner infills between the North Stand and the east and west sides took the ground to its modern capacity.
• 2007 The modern record crowd Manchester, England 76,098 watched United play Blackburn Rovers, the highest attendance at the ground since the all-seater conversion.
• 2011 Champions League quarter-final against Chelsea Manchester, England United reached a third final in four years by winning at Old Trafford, in the most successful European run of the Ferguson era's late period.
• 2012 The North Stand is renamed Manchester, England The stand was named after Alex Ferguson to mark 25 years in charge, with a statue of him unveiled outside it.
• 2013 Ferguson's last match in charge at Old Trafford Manchester, England After 26 years and 38 trophies, Ferguson addressed the crowd from the centre circle and told them to stand by his successor.
• 2016 A match is abandoned over a fake bomb Manchester, England The final day of the season was called off after a dummy device was found in a toilet, left behind by a private firm running a security training exercise four days earlier. The ground was evacuated.
• 2020 Football behind closed doors Manchester, England Old Trafford played out the end of a season in silence during the pandemic, with piped crowd noise offered to television viewers.
• 2021 Supporters occupy the pitch Manchester, England Fans protesting the Glazer ownership and the collapsed European Super League broke into the ground and onto the pitch, forcing a Premier League fixture against Liverpool to be postponed — the first such postponement in the league's history.
• 2024 Ratcliffe buys in and the ground is judged past saving Manchester, England Jim Ratcliffe's minority purchase brought control of football operations and a review that found renovating Old Trafford would cost nearly as much as replacing it.
• 2025 A new 100,000-seat stadium is announced Manchester, England United set out plans to build alongside the existing ground rather than renovate it, which would make Old Trafford's successor the largest football stadium in Britain.