This traditional micro geocache is located in the Banister Park area of Southampton. The cache is easy to get to, with street parking around for a quick cache and dash.
The location should serve as a walk down memory lane for any local sporting officiandos. This area of Southampton was one a Mecca for the city sport enthusiast. Along this stretch of road one could take in football, cricket, crown green bowling, speedway, ice skating and ice hockey.
Southampton Stadium was the home of speedway and greyhound racing in Southampton. It was located in Banister Park and originally opened in 1928 and was the base for Saints, Southampton’s very own speedway team, although it also featured stock car racing and even boxing matches over the years. The track was 440 yards in length but later shortened to 333yds.
It was claimed the stadium could hold as many as 20,000 people for certain events. Both the speedway team and the greyhound racing quit the site in 1963. At the same time, the venue was taken over by the Rank Organisation and soon sold for housing.
The Ice Rink was built next to the Stadium, and first opened its doors in 1931. The first ice hockey match was between the Southampton Saints and Bournemouth. The 3,000 capacity venue burnt down in 1940 after bit hit during a German air raid. However, Charles Knott, the owner of the adjacent stadium vowed to build a new ice rink.
The new Sportsdrome opened in 1952. He sold to the Rank Organisation, who initially wanted to turn the whole site into housing, but Knott refused to do business on those terms. As a result, Rank agreed to keep the ice rink along with the bowling alley. The site was later owned by Mecca, and they closed the venue in 1988, shortly after a refurbishment largely done by members of the community. The site is now housing.
The Dell was home to the Saints for 103 years, The Dell was a bijou venue for top flight football. Built on the site of "a lovely dell with a gurgling stream and lofty aspens", from which the stadium gained its name. Constructed in 1898, the purchase and clearing of the land cost £9,000 and the ground was rented by the football club for £250 a year.
There were many suggestions for the name of the ground, including Fitzhugh Dell, Milton Park and Archer’s Ground, before the The Dell became the de facto identity for the site. Originally it could hold 24,000 spectators and the West Stand, when later reconstructed, was designed by renowned architect Archibald Leitch.
A bomb fell on the Milton Road goal area during the Second World War, rupturing the culvert which carried the Rollsbrook stream under the ground, and flooding the pitch. The record attendance at the ground was over 33,000 for Mick Channon's testimonial in 1976, but through the 80s and 90s, redevelopment restricted the capacity to just 15,200 by 1995. Saints left The Dell for St Mary’s in 2001 and new homes and flats were built on the site.
The County Ground in Southampton, England is a former cricket and football ground. It was the home of Hampshire County Cricket Club from the 1885 English cricket season until the 2000 English cricket season. The ground also served as the home ground for Southampton Football Club from 1896 to 1898. The Hampshire crowd has been treated to a venerable list of talent from the english talents of CB Fry, Robin Smith and the golden locks of David Gower to the Carribean Calypsos of Greenidge, Roberts and Marshall and Barry Richards from South Africa.
The ground has been redeveloped for executive housing containing a rather ironic sign stating "no ball games"!.