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www.irishfa.comcapacity of the ground from around 60,000 to
48,600, and that was the attendance quoted for
the first international match to be played following
the installation of the seats – Northern Ireland v
England in October 1966.
A Members Lounge was added to the ground
in 1966 followed by a new official entrance and
renovated dressing rooms two years later.
At the start of the 1970s a social club was built at
the Railway End – it was extended 10 years later –
and towards the end of the decade the floodlighting
was upgraded.
In November 1978 Linfield invited Russian side
Moscow Dynamo to celebrate the opening of
the new £100,000 floodlighting system. It was
switched on by Roy Mason, then Secretary of State
for Northern Ireland.
The Russian visitors won the game 4-0 in front of
9,000 fans. The crowd was smaller than expected
because there was torrential rain on the night of the
game.
Part of the Railway Stand at Windsor Park was
wrecked by a terrorist bomb in April 1972, while a
decade later the unreserved stand backing on to
Olympia Drive went up in flames after Linfield had
defeated Glentoran 1-0 in a Co Antrim Shield tie.
Prior to the fire in the unreserved stand the
Irish Football Association had commissioned
a feasibility study looking at the potential
replacement of the terracing there with a new all-
seater stand.
That study quickly became reality after the fire.
Work began in September 1983 on the new
structure, which would be known as the North
Stand, and it opened a year or so later. Its 6,800
seats took the seating capacity in the stadium to
11,300, while the overall capacity in the ground was
reduced by 10,000 to 30,000.
The stand was formally opened in September
1984 on the eve of a Northern Ireland v Romania
World Cup qualifying game. The opening ceremony
was carried out jointly by FIFA President Dr Joao
Havelange and Nicholas Scott, Northern Ireland
Minister responsible for Sport.
The total cost of the North Stand scheme, including
professional fees, VAT, site investigation costs and
so on was just over £1.9 million.
The government via the Department of Education
contributed 50% of the total cost up to a limit of
£1m. The Football Trust advanced £500,000 and
the Football Grounds Improvement Trust £200,000
leaving a balance of around £250,000 to be funded
by the Irish Football Association and Linfield.
At the start of 1985 the ground got what could
be described as its first modern dugouts. The
dugouts, which each accommodated 11 people on
individual seats, replaced covered structures which
only had bench seats.
Following the fire tragedy in the main stand at
Bradford City’s Valley Parade ground in May 1985,
in which 58 people died, local authorities across
the UK acted to prevent any repetition. Following
an intervention by the Department of Economic
Development’s health and safety experts, the South
Stand had to be revamped.
The old Balmoral section of the stand was removed
and fireproofing, lighting and exit points upgraded
to comply with safety requirements. The stand’s
wooden bench seats were removed and replaced
with plastic tip-up seats. And its capacity was
reduced to 1,700 by the start of the 1986-87
season.
Following the Hillsborough disaster in Sheffield in
April 1989, in which 96 Liverpool fans died, FIFA
decreed (July 1989) that from 1992 no standing
spectators would be permitted at World Cup
qualifying matches.
This saw the closing of the Spion Kop terracing
for internationals staged at Windsor Park from
1991-92 onwards, although it did remain open for
Linfield games. Mind you, the Kop did manage one
last hurrah re: international games. It was used for
an international friendly against Germany on 29
May 1996; the Germans had used Northern Ireland
Demolition work begins on the
South Stand in 2014.
Construction work begins on the new
West Stand (Feb 2016).