Holgate End - Wrong Kop?

morrissey

Well-known member
Always felt the East End should have been our Kop, just look at the size of it (seats installed for the '66 World Cup kyboshed that!)
 

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The holgate backed right up to the hospital so it was as big as it could be. The east end could have been much bigger, I suppose.
Its not like Ayresome was always full. It very rarely sold out when I was going.
 
Hard one this.
The Holgate was small and unremarkable, but when full and swaying created a great atmosphere.
The East End would have been a far more intimidating structure pre 66 and if full and bouncing would have been as good a Kop as any.
However with under 10k in the ground it would have been a sad old sight, as even The Holgate could be.
 
I suppose the Holgate became the home end before either end was covered?

West end means the sun is behind you; East end means you're looking into it.
I've always assumed that that was the reason the Holgate became to the home end.

The one time I sat in the East, the sun did affect the experience.
 
When I first started going we stood in that end. I can remember my Dad not being happy when they decided to put seats in for the world cup.
 
The trouble with the 'bob end' as it was known is that there was no cover and when it was partially covered in 1966 it was only the seated part that had a roof over it. The benefit of the Holgate end was that because it was mostly covered the sound reverberated and created a noisier and better atmosphere in the ground.
 
The trouble with the 'bob end' as it was known is that there was no cover and when it was partially covered in 1966 it was only the seated part that had a roof over it. The benefit of the Holgate end was that because it was mostly covered the sound reverberated and created a noisier and better atmosphere in the ground.
Looking at old aerial photos the roof coverage of both ends looked pretty similar.
I guess with the holgate the noise was kept closer to the pitch, which may
have helped the atmosphere.
 
Hard one this.
The Holgate was small and unremarkable, but when full and swaying created a great atmosphere.
The East End would have been a far more intimidating structure pre 66 and if full and bouncing would have been as good a Kop as any.
However with under 10k in the ground it would have been a sad old sight, as even The Holgate could be.
The Shed End, Chelsea looked like that occasionally with hardly anyone in it.
 
Boro ' Joeys ' started going in the east stand seats one season , the one I remember most was Boro had the seats at the back of the stand ( 100 if that ) and 250 Leeds mob came in and sat in the section below near their main gathering in the Clive road corner .
Lots of gesturing and shouting but no more , then a group of 25 old guard Boro town lads wearing sheepskins came in and sat in front of the Joeys and behind the Leeds mob . An older Leeds bloke stood up and told the Leeds crew to leave by the bottom exit and into the Clive Road quietly . The younger Leeds lads were up for having a go, the old boys not.
 
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I had one season in the east end seats 89/90, the year of the Leeds ‘crush’ incident, rest of my time was in Holgate apart from a couple early 80s games in NE corner and a couple in chicken run.
 
Only went in the east stand seats once, can't remember why. I went in every other part of the ground though.

Quite a few changes to the east end post 1966. The NE corner was reduced in size quite a bit, a large chunk taken off the back as was dangerous and that reduced the east end capacity a bit. Then in the away corner quite a large portion was fenced off as the back of the stand went too close to the east end roof so rubbish sight lines and dangerous. There was a standing paddock for a while at the front of the east stand, they built a wall across and tried to make it two tiered, this was probably mid 70's to mid 80's. I think this was gone by around 88 and for a while they just had lots of empty steps at the front with no seats or standing posts, this again reduced capacity. Early 90's I think they put seats back in right to the front.

My old man always said east end is where kids and those who just turned up for the big games stood. And was always favoured by away fans pre segregation, this us like pre 1960..
 
I also heard the holgate was favoured as some liked to find a way over the holgate wall for a free entry.
 
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