Muntz Street - Club Matches

Club Matches

The first game at Muntz Street, a friendly match against Saltley College, was played on 11 September 1877. Small Heath Alliance won 5–0, in front of "a handful" of spectators who contributed gate receipts of 6s 8d. This marked the start of a run of 22 games unbeaten at the new ground. The playing surface was notorious for its poor quality – bumpy and stony – and was referred to locally as the "celery trenches". The first meeting between Small Heath and Aston Villa – who went on to become the club's major rivals – took place in 1879; it resulted in a 1–0 home win, after which the Villa players described the pitch as "only suitable for pot-holing". In 1883, Wednesbury Old Athletic paid Small Heath £5 to switch the venue of a Walsall Cup tie away from Muntz Street; the club took the money, won the match and went on to win the competition, their first ever silverware. Nine years later, The Wednesday offered £200 to switch venues in a second-round FA Cup tie; the money was accepted, but without the success.

Events surrounding the February 1905 First Division match with Aston Villa highlighted the ground's inadequacies. The official attendance was given as 28,000, though with the gates closed before kick-off, thousands climbed over walls or forced entrances in order to gain admission, and the actual attendance is estimated at anything up to 35,000. The Birmingham Daily Mail reported "a constant stream of vehicles to the ground, while the trams were disgorging their freights at Muntz Street every two or three minutes." Inside, "the swaying of the mass of spectators rendered the placing of additional supports against the barriers a necessary precaution", and children were passed overhead and deposited on the pitch for their own safety. The following Monday the same newspaper commented that had space been available, another ten or fifteen thousand spectators might well have attended, as "hundreds of people found the doors closed against them, and probably there were thousands who would not go to the ground in view of the inevitable crush." The size of the crowd preferring to attend the same day's Birmingham & District League match between the two clubs' reserve teams at Villa Park – at least 3,000 spectators – lent support to that view.