Cressing Road, also known as the Dunmow Group Stadium for sponsorship purposes, is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

stadium in Braintree, Essex, and the home ground of

Braintree Town Braintree Town Football Club is a semi-professional football club based in Braintree, Essex, England. They are currently members of and play at Cressing Road. History The club was formed on 24 September 1898 as Manor Works, the works team o ...

, and formally their reserve side. It currently has a capacity of 4,222.

History

The stadium was built as a general sports ground by the Crittall Windows Company, the parent company of the club, then known as Crittall Athletic.Blakeman, M (2010) ''The Official History of the Eastern Counties Football League 1935–2010, Volume II'' It was opened on 25 August 1923 by the fourth annual Crittall Sports and Show, which had previously taken place the club's old ground on Panfield Lane, with an attendance of 6,000. At the time the ground had a

cinder track A cinder track is a type of race track, generally purposed for track and field or horse racing, whose surface is composed of cinders. For running tracks, many cinder surfaces have been replaced by all-weather synthetic surfaces, which provide gre ...

a quarter of a mile long. The first football match was played on 15 September 1923, with Crittall beating Great Leighs 4–0. A 400-seat grandstand was opened in December 1924 and the ground became the regular venue for the Essex Junior Cup, with a record football crowd of 6,000 attending for the 1926 final between Rayleigh Athletic and Saffron Walden. This was equalled in the 1928 final between Leigh Ramblers and Wimpole Road Wesleyans and an Essex Senior Cup semi-final between Chelmsford and

Colchester Town Colchester Town railway station is on the Sunshine Coast Line in the East of England, and is the secondary station serving the city of Colchester, Essex. It is from London Liverpool Street. Its three-letter station code is CET. The city's larg ...

in 1931. A non-football record of 8,000 was set for the Crittall Sport and Show in 1926. A second grandstand was opened during the 1932–33 season. A record attendance for the home club was set during the 1935–36 season when 4,000 watched an Essex Senior Cup match against Barking; this was equalled on 8 May 1952 when they played Tottenham Hotspur in a friendly, with Spurs winning 8–1. Floodlights were installed in 1967 and inaugurated with a friendly match against West Ham.

Greyhound racing Greyhound racing is an organized, competitive sport in which greyhounds are raced around a track. There are two forms of greyhound racing, track racing (normally around an oval track) and coursing; the latter is now banned in most countries. Tra ...

also began to be held at the ground in the same year. In the mid-1970s the ground had fallen into a state of disrepair and the club was forced to play at other venues for a time due to problems with the pitch. Half of the main stand was removed in the early 1970s and in January 1974 the rest of the stand which was badly damaged in a storm. With the ground being in such poor condition the club had to play at alternative venues These included

Heybridge Swifts Heybridge Swifts Football Club is a football club based in Heybridge, near Maldon, Essex, England. They are currently members of the and play at Scraley Road. History The club was established in 1880 as Heybridge Football Club. After joining t ...

' Scraley Road (a single match on 26 April 1975 arranged at such short notice that many fans arrived at Cressing Road for the match and only 50 attended the game), Braintree Rugby Club's Tabor Avenue (at the start of the 1975–76 season) and the Courtaulds Sports Ground in Church Street in Bocking (a single match against Gorleston on 6 September 1975 with a crowd of 73). However, after winning the

Eastern Counties League The Eastern Counties Football League, currently known as the Thurlow Nunn League for sponsorship purposes, is an English football league at levels 9 and 10 of the English football league system. It currently contains clubs from Norfolk, Suffol ...

in 1983–84 the club began to upgrade the ground, building a new 292-seat grandstand at the end of the 1980s. New terracing was installed in 2011–12.

Current format

The ground currently consists of four stands: *Main Stand, a 553-seat covered stand *Clubhouse End, two uncovered terraces with a capacity of 1,131 *Quag End, with an uncovered terrace with a capacity of 1,408 *Cressing Road side, a 1,130-capacity terrace (of which 755 is covered)

Greyhound racing

took place around the pitch from 1967 until an unknown date. The racing was independent (not affiliated to the sports governing body the National Greyhound Racing Club). As a result, it was known as a flapping track, a nickname given to independent tracks.

References

{{English greyhound tracks Braintree Town F.C. Football venues in England Football venues in Essex Defunct greyhound racing venues in the United Kingdom Defunct athletics (track and field) venues in England Braintree District Sports venues completed in 1923 1923 establishments in England