Location of the 'Chicken Run on the Goldstone East Terrace

[LowKarate]

Inspired by a recent thread where some of our older fans posted their views on where the 'Chicken Run' was located at The Goldstone (and also where it wasn't), I decided to dig out this old ground map which I have in my collection and post it here to provide a definitive reference for anyone wanting to know the answer to this question in the future.

This map was an insert in the first match day programme of the 1946/47 season after World War II against Port Vale and was presumably provided as an aide to help people decide where to watch the game from and also how much it cost in each area.

So now you know.

 

[drew]

Wasn't the whole of the East Terrace the chicken run?

 

[clippedgull]

Wasn't the whole of the East Terrace the chicken run?

That's what I understood at the time. mid 70's onward.

 

[Bromley shrimp]

Yes. Transfers is an interesting yet long forgotten concept I imagine for people who wanted swap position at half time to follow the Albion attack.

 

[Chicken Run]

Yes. Transfers is an interesting yet long forgotten concept I imagine for people who wanted swap position at half time to follow the Albion attack.

I would imagine that they would be better placed staying where they were and watching the Albion defence take a battering unless off course they had binos.


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[Shy Talk]

Wasn't the whole of the East Terrace the chicken run?

Yes, it was, and when I started watching the Albion in the 1950's you could walk all round the ground (except for the players tunnel)without paying 'transfers'.

 

[carlzeiss]

Yes, it was, and when I started watching the Albion in the 1950's you could walk all round the ground (except for the players tunnel)without paying 'transfers'.

Think it might have been a visit from Millwall that ended that tradition .

 

[BensGrandad]

I always thought that it was technically just the area from the corner up to the edge of the penalty box from the North Stand, which is where I stood

 

[skipper734]

1954, still 9d for boys, and often when the crowd was thin you walked down the other end to watch the Home goal action. (or not) I've never seen the Chicken run like that. Note that it is the original West Stand, and a picket fence ran all around the pitch and running track. I don't remember when they changed it for a wall.

 

[dejavuatbtn]

Good thread. Interesting to see how the turnstiles changed position over the years, what the prices were, transfers, location of press box and comparative sizes of the old wooden stands.

 

[T.G]

I'm sure I remember it as just the North East corner?

 

[BensGrandad]

I'm sure I remember it as just the North East corner?

That is what I thought up to the edge of the penalty area

 

[Shy Talk]

Presumably the OP's map was drawn before the terracing was built. It could have been fairly level ground then, or at best gently sloping? I would have thought that the fence would have been replaced with a wall on this side when the terracing was built.

 

[Marshy]

Standing on a box at the front of the chicken run, that's my first Albion memory

 

[Return of the Rev]

Wasn't the whole of the East Terrace the chicken run?

Not originally

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

So the East stand only used to go from the halfway point of each half? And that is what was called the chicken run? Not the whole East stand?

 

[whitelion]

East Terrace surely not East Stand.

 

[severnside gull]

Inspired by a recent thread where some of our older fans posted their views on where the 'Chicken Run' was located at The Goldstone (and also where it wasn't), I decided to dig out this old ground map which I have in my collection and post it here to provide a definitive reference for anyone wanting to know the answer to this question in the future.

This map was an insert in the first match day programme of the 1946/47 season after World War II against Port Vale and was presumably provided as an aide to help people decide where to watch the game from and also how much it cost in each area.

So now you know.

View attachment 77507

It wasn't always like that though. Throughout the 60's until 1978 there was no separation between the north stand and northwest terrace and there was standing space in front of the west stand up to the tunnel at halfway

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

It wasn't always like that though. Throughout the 60's until 1978 there was no separation between the north stand and northwest terrace and there was standing space in front of the west stand up to the tunnel at halfway

I am sure I remember walking from the north to the south as a small child at half time. I'd forgotten that, it means I went in the old north stand. The west was all standing on the lower sections, not just up to the tunnel.

 

[trueblue]

Interesting. I always thought the chicken run was the shallow terracing at the South end of the East Terrace so had that wrong. Why was it given that name?