Saltergate, officially the Recreation Ground, was the historic home of Chesterfield Football Club, and was in use from 1871 until the club's relocation in July 2010, a 139-year history that made it one of the oldest football grounds in England at the time of its closure. From the 1920s onward the name 'Saltergate' became predominant in popular references to the ground.
Tightly surrounded by housing, the football stadium was located near Chesterfield's town centre on the thoroughfare of the same name. The ground underwent only limited additional development after a new main stand was opened in 1936.Basson, Stuart (2010) "Saltergate Sunset: The Story of the Recreation Ground, Chesterfield", Chesterfield F.C., p27 Although plans to develop the site were explored, the club's fans ultimately voted in favour of pursuing a new ground in a 2003 ballot, with the site confirmed by a 2006 poll.
The final Chesterfield fixture at Saltergate, a Football League Two game against Bournemouth, was held on 8 May 2010. From the 2010–11 season, the team switched to the new b2net Stadium located in the Whittington Moor area of the town. An October 2010 publication from the club, Saltergate Sunset by Stuart Basson, chronicled the story of the ground.
In January 2012, the football club sold the Saltergate site to Barratt Homes. Its demolition to make way for a new housing development began in April and was completed in July 2012.
Today the road located in front of the site is still named Saltergate.
History
1871-1920
In 1871, Chesterfield Football Club became a distinct entity from the Chesterfield Cricket Club, from which it was formed in the previous decade. Together, they took up the tenancy at the 'New Recreation Ground', Saltergate, located just 100 yards West of their previous home, and the ground was used for both sports for more than two decades. The site hosted its first game of football on 4 November 1871, with Rotherham providing the opposition in a 14-a-side match under Sheffield Rules. 11-a-side football was first played a few weeks later against the Sheffield F.A. team.Basson, Stuart (2010) p11 A wooden pavilion was developed on the eastern side of the ground later in the 1870s but otherwise it remained simply an open field in this era. After the initial Chesterfield Football Club folded in 1881, a number of other local football teams used the pitch until the establishment of a second Chesterfield F.C. in 1884, later known as Chesterfield Town. The first recorded attendance, from Boxing Day 1889, put the crowd at 400 for a game against Sheffield Heeley Reserves. A small, uncovered grandstand with benched seating for around 400 was added early in the 1890s. With the football club steadily progressing toward employing its first semi-professional players, it was also able to take the cricket club's relocation in its stride during 1894, shouldering the full rent thereafter.
League football came to Saltergate in 1899 with Chesterfield Town's election to play in Division Two of the Football League. The club's step up necessitated remedial work on a pitch that sloped markedly from north to south, most notably the removal of a hill in the north west corner, the spoil from which was dumped at the Saltergate end. In addition, the grandstand was enlarged and roofed over, its capacity increasing to around 800 spectators. Fencing was erected on the Compton Street side to obscure the free view from adjacent back gardens (modest coverage later being added on this side). After a decade of financial struggle, other clubs who had invested in their stadia vied for an opening in the league and Chesterfield Town were voted out in 1909. In a bid to return, a running track was constructed around the perimeter, said to offer up to 10,000 fans a decent view, and a white picket fence was constructed around the pitch to replace the previous wire boundary. However, any ambitions proved short-lived. Faced with the abandonment of competitive football after the outbreak of the First World War the club was forced into voluntary liquidation in 1915. A new club with the same name was formed by a local restaurateur to play wartime football at Saltergate using locally based "guests" from Football League clubs. It was shut down by the FA for illegal payments in 1917. The following year saw no senior football in Chesterfield but Saltergate was used for local cup matches.
A fourth club – the present Chesterfield FC – was established in 1919 at the instigation of the local authority. A ground move to the Queen's Park Annexe also formed part of the vision, but did not progress after costings were received for a new stand. Thus the club continued to base itself at Saltergate as league football returned to the town in 1921.
1921-1939
The inter-war years represented Saltergate's main period of development.
When Chesterfield F.C. became founder members of the new Third Division North in 1921, the ground saw a new spurt of improvements. According to club historian Stuart Basson:
"Ground development left the club with a tidy Main Stand that ran some three-quarters of the pitch length and seated 1600, a roofed Popular Side and unovered ends. Terracing was made of cinder embankments, with a few wooden crush barriers walloped into the dirt at random-looking intervals. A wooden hut provided dressing room accommodation at the [northern] end of the stand."
In 1931, at a time of growing ambition for the club, terracing was cut into the cinder banking of the Kop and further earth removal from the Cross Street to Saltergate end was undertaken to level the pitch. In a successful push for promotion to the Second Division in 1931–32, 20,092 fans crammed into the ground to see the home team overtake Lincoln City for the top spot.
In 1936, the club borrowed around £14,000 to fund the erection of a new brick and steel main stand by Scottish architect Archibald Leitch. Demolition of the old wooden stand began at the close of the 1935–36 season, which again saw the club promoted to the Second Division. The official opening of the new stand came in November, with Sheffield United visiting for a league fixture and a new record of 26,519 paying for entry. With the completion of the new stand, all four sides of the ground had taken on an appearance that would still be recognisable at the time of its closure.
1940-1979
After the Second World War, the club faced a pressing need to raise funds to service the debt on the new stand and pay off the bank loan. Further ground development became somewhat limited as a result, though the club was still in a position to buy up several houses around the ground in the late 1940s. A move away from Saltergate was proposed again in 1949, this time to a site near Walton Hospital, but the council rejected the plan. Instead, the club made what was to be its final major investment in the ground prior to the millennium, engaging Leitch and Partners to renew all the ground's cinder terracing with concrete and install their patented crush barriers.
With relegation in 1951, average gates took a heavy knock and the decline continued over the decade as success eluded the club, which finally dropped to the fourth tier of English football for the first time in 1961. However, modest ground improvements still advanced after fundraising efforts by fans which allowed the Kop to be roofed in the same year. Despite acquiring second-hand lights in 1963, boardroom procrastination meant that Saltergate was the second-last league ground in England to install floodlights, with Chesterfield's first home game under lights not being played until the 1967–1968 season.
In 1979, the centre section of the Compton Street Terrace was re-roofed and a wooden television gantry added, the only notable ground work in the decade.
1980 onwards - stay or go? Financial problems in the early 1980s led the board to again consider a ground move to the Queen's Park Annexe, previously considered in 1920. In the aftermath of the 1985 Bradford City stadium fire and the general upgrading of football ground safety, a number of ground adaptations were undertaken, most significantly the construction of a series of emergency exits from the main stand in the form of flights of steps down to the pitch. Hundreds of seats also had to be removed to provide more gangways. The club was also ordered to install fencing around three sides of the pitch days before the start of the 1985–1986 season.
The additional cost of further works gave added spur to the idea of a move, but the discovery of a covenant on the Annexe that forbade its use for professional sport put paid to the club's favoured relocation site toward the end of the decade, though not the idea of relocation itself. The board persisted in putting forward alternate locations throughout the 1990s.
Talk of relocation dominated the 1994 AGM, with a sizeable group of supporters advocating the redevelopment of Saltergate, rather than its abandonment – including the Crooked Spireite fanzine. An early proposal showed a two tier kop, with smaller seated stands on the remaining three sides.
New plans for the club to leave Saltergate in favour of Wheeldon Mill emerged in October 1995 and were pursued avidly by Chairman Norton Lea in the face of substantial opposition. Though the scheme was blocked in 1998 when the council refused planning permission, subsequent unsuccessful attempts were made to revive the move well into the next decade. Having received a dispensation from the upgrading requirements of the 1989 Taylor Report based on relocation, the club was perpetually left without a plan B.
Thus, in late 2000, more than ten years after Taylor's report, the future of football at Saltergate became mired in crisis with three sides of the ground under threat of closure from the Football Licensing Authority. This was narrowly averted by a further dispensation for two sides of the ground amid turbulent times for the club under the chairmanship of Darren Brown.
Although 2001 saw a hastily organised fans group, the Chesterfield Football Supporters Society, replace Brown in controlling the club (he was later to be jailed for fraud), they faced a myriad of challenges related to ensuring Saltergate's future. It emerged that a debenture had been secured on the ground requiring that £200,000 be raised in just three weeks to fight off the threat of losing the stadium. Even with that met and the club in administration, much additional fundraising was required to deal with Saltergate's worst deficiencies. Thus, the ground saw a number of modest improvements, but remained an aged stadium, lacking many of the modern facilities available to rival clubs who had relocated or redeveloped their existing grounds.
In 2003, members of the Chesterfield Football Supporters Society voted in favour of the club pursuing relocation to Wheeldon Mill. A further vote in 2006 saw more than 90% back a plan to switch to the site of the former Dema Glass factory, near the Chesterfield - Sheffield bypass (Sheffield Road), around from the town centre.
End of an era
The 2009–10 season represented the club's last at Saltergate and its commercial department announced extensive plans to mark the 'End of an Era', including a book, DVD and end of season gala.
For 8 May 2010, the date of the final game, Chesterfield Community Trust organised a number of events to celebrate the history of Saltergate and bid it farewell. A heritage project at The Pomegranate Theatre presented a visual history of the club's time at the ground, including match footage from 1923 and photos dating back to 1900. Former players, including Albert Collins of the 1945 Football League War Cup semi-final side, were also present to share their memories. Afterwards, a brass band led a parade up to the match along Chesterfield High Street, swelling to an estimated 2,000 people on arrival.