Plans to preserve Bootham Crescent's history - and not just its part as home to York City FC

For many, the name Bootham Crescent evokes memories of the football club that made it its home for 88 years, of famous FA Cup games against the likes of Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and Liverpool, players such as Keith Houchen and Keith Walwyn, promotion campaigns and even the death of David Longhurst, who died on the pitch during a 1990 match against Lincoln City.

But before the Minstermen arrived in 1932 it was home to York Cricket Club, and from 2016 the football club shared the stadium with rugby league side York City Knights, as they will the new 8,500-seater LNER Community Stadium at Monks Cross. Baseball was played at Bootham in the 1930s and American football in the 1980s.

More than that, the tunnel under the club's Popular Stand once used to allow home and away fans to switch ends at half-time served as a World War Two air raid shelter primarily used by the nearby Shipton Street School, and the pitch had the ashes of deceased supporters spread on it.

The 4.2-acre has been sold to Persimmon Homes, who plan to build 93 homes on it, but there will also be significant nods to what was there before, thanks to work between the football club, developers and Historic England.

Sections of the Popular Stand terrace and tunnel plus the boundary wall will be retained, a memorial garden built, the old centre circle marked and a request has been submitted to the City of York Council to name six places within the development after club legends, including Longhurst, whom the Shipton End terrace was named after following his death. There has even been 3D mapping of the site to facilitate future projects.

“It is very upsetting to be leaving Bootham Crescent but there is a legacy,” promised York City chairman and lifelong fan Jason McGill. “We've all worked together hard to leave a lasting tribute to Bootham Crescent. It will show there was a football ground there and I think that's vitally important.

“I have a degree in history and I think it's vital to reflect and have somewhere we can remember the past.

“We are trying to do something a little bit different and I think in a more meaningful way than a lot of developments where housing has been built on old football grounds.

“Although it will be disappointing to see it go, there will be things supporters can visit and enjoy their memories.”

The plan is to move existing memorials, caskets and ashes to the new memorial garden, subject to the wishes of the families, although five plaques to commemorate players who died in World War Two will go to the new ground, as will Bootham's old clock.

For many years a club flag was lowered from the south-east corner to indicate that the match would end in five minutes, and a recreated flagpole with replica flag is also planned. The site of the centre circle will sit in a public open space.

The brick wall on the western side was a feature of the cricket ground. Where concrete blockwork has been added it will be removed, and any necessary consolidation will be done with bricks reclaimed from elsewhere in the ground.

Historic England have identified some of the stadium's wooden seats as “the finest remaining example of this type in the country” and described early 1900s railway lines used to support crush barriers as railway memorabilia “of significant interest”.

There will, however, be no street named after Houchen, scorer of the winning goal in one of the greatest moments in Bootham Crescent history as York knocked an Arsenal side featuring eight internationals out of the FA Cup in 1985.

“The naming of various streets and buildings for legends is very important,” said McGill. “I'm not sure why but they have to be deceased players, I'm led to believe.

“I think that's a fitting tribute to those York City legends that have passed away at the site where they plied their trade.”

The new stadium is due to host its first game on January 30, when Curzon Ashton are visitors for a behind-closed-doors Conference North fixture, although talks were held yesterday to discuss abandoning the season because the financial support the Government gave clubs in October has ended and will be replaced by loans, which some feel makes continuing to play no longer viable.

York's move has been nearly two decades in the making, with delays throughout. Even this month, a planned January 12 game was put on hold because of a late renegotiation with the council over lease and matchday arrangements, and the game scheduled for seven days later had to be postponed because of Covid-19 illnesses in the York squad.

Not only were fans unable to attend the final game at Bootham, various postponements ensured it was only after the event anyone realised it took place on December 28, when Guiseley were beaten 1-0.

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