Spion Kop (stadiums)

The Kop at Anfield, the home of Liverpool F.C.

Spion Kop (or Kop for short) is a colloquial name or term for a number of terraces and stands at sports stadiums attended by hardcore fans, particularly in the United Kingdom.

Their steep nature resembles a hill near Ladysmith, South Africa, that was the scene of the Battle of Spion Kop in January 1900 during the Second Boer War.

History

File:Spioenkop01.jpg

The Spion Kop hill near Ladysmith, South Africa

The first recorded reference to a sports terrace as "Kop" related to Woolwich Arsenal's Manor Ground in 1904. A local newsman likened the silhouette of fans standing on a newly raised bank of earth to soldiers standing atop the hill at the Battle of Spion Kop. In 1906 Liverpool Echo sports editor Ernest Edwards noted of a new open-air embankment at Anfield: "This huge wall of earth has been termed 'Spion Kop', and no doubt this apt name will always be used in future in referring to this spot". The use of the name was given formal recognition in 1928 upon construction of a roof. It is thought to be the first terrace officially named Spion Kop. Many other English football clubs and some Rugby league clubs (such as Wigan's former home Central Park) applied the same name to stands in later years.

Villa Park's old Holte End was historically the largest of all Kop ends, closely followed by the old South Bank at Molineux, both once regularly holding crowds in excess of 30,000. However in the mid-1980s work was completed on Hillsborough's Kop which, with a capacity of around 22,000, became the largest roofed terrace in Europe.

Composition

There is much debate about what type of stand constitutes a Kop. The size and location of the stand in the stadium varies; most are located behind the goal and are occupied by its club's most vocal supporters. It is usually a single-tiered stand and is traditionally terraced. In England, safety regulations brought into effect after the 1989 Hillsborough disaster required many to be made all-seated. A Kop is not necessarily the largest stand in the stadium and does not have to have a particularly large capacity; for example, Chesterfield's former stadium, the Recreation Ground (known to all as Saltergate), had a Kop with a capacity of only a few thousand.

Kopites

The supporters who sang on Liverpool's Kop helped make Anfield famous for its atmosphere. "Kopites" is a collective name given to the supporters of Liverpool Football Club.

Kops

The Kop at Meadow Lane

The Kop at St Andrew's

Ground	Club	Stand
Anfield	Liverpool	Spion Kop
Central Park (demolished 1999)	Wigan Warriors RLFC	The Kop (demolished 1999)
Baseball Ground (demolished 2003-04)	Derby	Popside Kop (The Popside) (demolished 2003-04)
Bloomfield Road	Blackpool	Mortensen Kop
Bramall Lane	Sheffield United	The Kop
County Ground	Northampton Town	Spion Kop
Deepdale	Preston North End	Bill Shankly Kop
Elland Road	Leeds United	The Kop
Filbert Street (demolished 2003)	Leicester City	Spion Kop (Double Decker) (demolished 2003)
Highfield Road (demolished 2006)	Coventry City	The Spion Kop Terrace (demolished 2006)
Hillsborough Stadium	Sheffield Wednesday	Spion Kop
Home Park	Plymouth Argyle	Spion Kop (demolished 2001)
Knowsley Road (demolished 2011)	St Helens RLFC	The Kop (demolished 2011)
Manor Ground (demolished c.1913)	Woolwich Arsenal	Spion Kop (demolished c.1913)
Meadow Lane	Notts County	Spion Kop
Oakwell	Barnsley	Spion Kop
Prenton Park	Tranmere Rovers	The Bebington Kop
Racecourse Ground	Wrexham	The Kop
Recreation Ground	Chesterfield	Spion Kop
St Andrew's	Birmingham City	Spion Kop
Wilderspool Stadium (demolished 2014)	Warrington RLFC	Spion Kop (demolished 2014)
King Power Stadium	Leicester City	The Kop, Fosse Stand
Windsor Park	Linfield / Northern Ireland	The Kop
Parc des Princes	Paris Saint-Germain	Kop of Boulogne

Sources

• Inglis, Simon. The Football Grounds of England and Wales (Collins Willow, 1982)
• Kelly, Stephen F. The Kop, (Virgin Books, 2005)
• Pearce, James. How Kop tuned in to glory days, Liverpool Echo. 23 August 2006.
• Chapple, Mike. Spion Kop's mixture of myth and magic Liverpool Daily Post, 25 August 2006.

External links

• The incredible story behind the Kop Guided by local historian Raymond Heron, BBC Sport's Mark Lawrenson visits Spion Kop in South Africa.

• Duke, Greg. Football First 11: Stunning stadiums CNN. 29 October 2008.
• Augustyn, Adam. The Britannica Guide to Soccer. RES 15 August 2011. "In 1906 Anfield's newly constructed terrace grandstand was christened Spion Kop for its resemblance to a hill where a famous South African War battle had been fought, which led to the well-known "Kopites" nickname for Liverpool's fans."
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