Culverden Stadium is an

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

stadium in

Royal Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells (formerly, until 1909, and still commonly Tunbridge Wells) is a town in Kent, England, southeast of Central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the Weald, High Weald, whose sand ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, England. It is the home ground of Tunbridge Wells F.C. It has a capacity of 3,750, with 250 seats. It is located in Culverden Park Road, Tunbridge Wells.

History

The Culverden Stadium was opened in 1962 as a permanent home for Tunbridge Wells. The occasion was commemorated with a charity football match between Tunbridge Wells and a TV All Stars team which included

Jess Conrad Jess Conrad (born Gerald Arthur James; 24 February 1936) is an English stage and screen actor and singer. As a boy he was nicknamed "Jesse" after American outlaw Jesse James; as there was already an actor named "Gerald James" in Actors' Equity Ass ...

and

Bernard Bresslaw Bernard Bresslaw (25 February 193411 June 1993) was an English actor and comedian. He was best known as a member of the '' Carry On'' film franchise. Bresslaw also worked on television and stage, performed recordings and wrote a series of poetr ...

. On 31 August 2005, during an

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual Single-elimination tournament, knockout association football, football competition in domestic Football in England, English football. First played during ...

Preliminary Round Replay, the Culverden Stadium was the location of a record set for the most penalty kicks taken in a

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

. The match was won by Tunbridge Wells against Littlehampton Town 16-15 after 40 penalty kicks. This was recognised as an FA and European record. In September 2006, the Culverden Stadium was subject to a series of vandalism attacks. The clubhouse was broken into and equipment was stolen. A later attempt was thwarted after Tunbridge Wells officials boarded the windows of the clubhouse. The record crowd at the Culverden Stadium was 1,810 set in March 2013 for an

FA Vase The Football Association Challenge Vase, also known as the Isuzu FA Vase for sponsorship reasons, is an annual football competition run by and named after The Football Association (The FA), for teams playing in Steps 5 and 6 of the English Nation ...

quarter final between Tunbridge Wells and Hadleigh United. In January 2023, the clubhouse was damaged by a fire.

Pitch

The Culverden Stadium was recognised in

non-league Non-League football describes association football, football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is ...

football for having a poor surface. It also has a sloped pitch. To address this in 2012, Tunbridge Wells set up a pitch fund to gain funds to improve it.

Usage

The Culverden Stadium hosts the annual Courier Cup in August. The Culverden is also used for non-football purposes with it being used as a location for bingo.

References

{{coord, 51.14432, N, 0.25087, E, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Buildings and structures in Royal Tunbridge Wells Sport in Royal Tunbridge Wells Sports venues completed in 1962 Sports venues in Kent