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The Nest (football ground)


Coordinates: 52°37′47″N 1°18′37″E / 52.62972°N 1.31028°E / 52.62972; 1.31028

The Nest was the former home ground of Norwich City F.C., used for 27 years between 1908 and 1935. Before The Nest, the team played at a ground in Newmarket Road. Today, the club plays at Carrow Road.

The first competitive match at the stadium was a 0-0 draw with Portsmouth on 12 September 1908, with the final match being a 2-2 draw with Swansea on 4 May 1935. The record attendance for a match at The Nest was 25,037 for an FA Cup fifth-round tie against Sheffield Wednesday on 16 February 1935.

The ground was a disused quarry in Rosary Road, Norwich similar in appearance to Charlton Athletic's The Valley. Following the adoption of the club's nickname of "The Canaries", the ground was appropriately named. Its most noticeable feature was a large concrete wall at one end of the ground, which supported a cliff on which supporters would watch the matches.

Thousands of tons of earth had to be shifted before a pitch could be laid and stands erected and there then followed the process of dismantling the old Newmarket Road structures and moving them painstakingly by horse and cart to their new home on the other side of the City.

Chairman John Pyke, the man behind the switch, kicked off the first game at City's new home on 1 September 1908 as City beat Fulham 2-1 in a friendly in front of a crowd of around 3,000. An FA Cup tie against Reading later in the year had to be switched to a neutral venue when City's opponents complained that the Nest pitch was not big enough – but the club soon settled into their new home and it was not long before five figure crowds were packing into the compact little ground.


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