How sources are used
Each venue page carries two lists: details treated as high confidence, and details treated as interpretive. High-confidence items — location, venue type, surface material, era — are the ones a written or photographic record can support. Interpretive items — camera paths, exact crowd movement, soundscape, fine texture — are reconstruction choices and are labelled as such.
No page on this site presents generated video as archive footage. Where the record is thin, the venue page should say so rather than invent precision.
Reference bodies and rulebooks
Laws of the game. The International Football Association Board publishes the Laws of the Game; Law 1 governs field markings, and the historical law changes (penalty line 1891, penalty area 1902, penalty arc 1937) date the pitch diagram itself.
Athletics technical manuals. The World Athletics publishes track and field facility guidance, the modern baseline for lane widths, line specifications and track geometry — useful because historic cinder tracks predate that clean standard.
Stadium design guidance. FIFA stadium guidance and UEFA stadium infrastructure documents describe what a compliant modern venue looks like, which helps identify what is period-specific in an older one.
Groundskeeping bodies. The Grounds Management Association, which grew from the National Association of Groundsmen founded in 1934, documents pitch preparation and marking practice as a profession, not folklore.
Histories, museums and archives
Stadium architecture histories. Simon Inglis’ The Football Grounds of Britain and the Played in Britain series produced with English Heritage remain standard published surveys of British ground design.
Museums. The National Football Museum and individual club museums hold match programmes, photographs and ground records; the important point for reconstruction work is the programme, image and object record rather than a single public URL.
Newsreel and film archives. The BFI National Archive holds period newsreel of grounds, crowds and surfaces — often the only moving-image evidence of how a pitch or track actually read.
Newspaper archives. The British Library collections and digitised regional newspapers carry match reports that describe surface condition — mud, frost, remarked lines — in plain contemporary language.
Historic mapping. The National Library of Scotland hosts historic Ordnance Survey maps that show ground footprints, track ovals and stand outlines at specific dates.
Municipal and county records. The National Archives Discovery catalogue and local record offices hold minutes, plans and maintenance records for council-owned grounds and tracks.
Club histories and ephemera. Official club histories and matchday programmes are primary evidence for fixtures, capacities and renovation dates, read with the usual caution about club self-presentation.
Open photographic commons. Wikimedia Commons holds period photographs; attribution and dating are checked against other records before a photograph is treated as evidence.