Muntz Street - Location and Facilities

Location and Facilities

Small Heath Alliance Football Club, founded in 1875, played their first home games on waste ground off Arthur Street, in the Bordesley Green district of Birmingham, very near the site where the club's St Andrew's stadium would be built some thirty years later. In 1876, they made a temporary move to a fenced-off field in Ladypool Road, Sparkbrook, with a capacity estimated at 3,000; because the field was enclosed, admission could be charged. A year later they moved again, to a field in Small Heath, rented for an initial £5 a year from the family of Sam Gessey, a Small Heath player. The field had a capacity of 10,000 spectators, and was situated on the eastern edge of Birmingham's built-up area, just north of the main road to Coventry. It was bordered on two sides by developed streets, Muntz Street on the western side, Wright Street to the south; the other two sides of the enclosure adjoined farmland.

When it first opened, the ground had few facilities for either player or spectator. Uncovered terracing surrounded the pitch, and a hut acted as the players' changing room. A small but well-appointed covered wooden stand was built on the Coventry Road side, and over the years the terracing was enlarged to raise the capacity to around 30,000. In 1895, the football club bought the lease to the ground, which had 11 years remaining, for a sum of £275. Two years later, they paid £90 to their near neighbours, Aston Villa Football Club, for an old grandstand from Villa's former ground in Perry Barr. The club transported it piece by piece, and re-erected it as a terrace cover behind the goal at the Muntz Street end. No other major improvements were made, nor did the club ever move their administrative offices to the site, instead maintaining premises in Corporation Street, in Birmingham city centre.

Muntz Street was readily accessible by public transport. In the early years, horse-drawn buses ran along the Coventry Road, linking Small Heath with the city centre and with other nearby districts. In 1882, the building of a tramline along the Coventry Road to Small Heath Park was authorised, and four years later, the Coventry Road steam tramway route was opened to a terminus near Dora Road, a few yards past the ground. In the early years of the 20th century, this line was converted for use by electric trams.

Contemporary reports referred to the ground throughout its lifetime as Coventry Road. Writer and researcher Steve Beauchampé suggests that the Muntz Street name may have been adopted to distinguish it from St Andrew's, which was also built just off the Coventry Road.