Plough Lane

Plough Lane was a football stadium in Wimbledon, south west London. For nearly eighty years it was the home ground of Wimbledon Football Club, from September 1912 until May 1991, when the club moved their first team home matches to Selhurst Park as part of a groundshare agreement with Crystal Palace. Both clubs' reserve teams then used Plough Lane as their home ground until 1998, when the site was sold to Safeway. Whilst site redevelopment plans were negotiated, the stadium remained derelict for several years until it was finally demolished in 2002. The site then became a private housing development known as Reynolds Gate, completed in 2008.Plans to build a new stadium for AFC Wimbledon on the nearby site of the Wimbledon Greyhound track, approximately 200 yards from the original Plough Lane stadium, were approved by Merton Council in December 2015.HistoryAs Wimbledon F.C.'s home groundThe leasehold on the disused swampland at the corner of Plough Lane and Haydons Road was purchased by Wimbledon Football Club in 1912. The pitch was consequently fenced in and the playing surface improved, while a dressing room was built. A stand holding 500 spectators was erected, and Wimbledon played their first match at the ground on 7 September 1912, a friendly match against Carshalton Athletic which was drawn 2 - 2. Improvements continued to be made to the ground during the First World War, and Plough Lane soon became the pride of the club — in 1918, Vice-president A. Gill Knight boasted that the club had "the finest ground in the southern district".