Sandygate Road

The sign in the first photograph carries a claim that would not survive scrutiny at Bramall Lane. It reads "World's Oldest Ground," yet the stadium in Sheffield has long since passed that distinction to Hallam FC at Sandygate, whose cover is visible in the second image. The date "1860" on that blue roof belongs to the club, not the ground, which opened in 1855 as a cricket oval.

Bramall Lane does not look like a place that has been rebuilt for a World Cup or expanded for television. The Desso GrassMaster system installed in 2015 ended 153 years of natural grass, but the undersoil heating and the hybrid surface do not change the way the ground holds its shape: a bowl of concrete and steel built for a different age.

The record attendance of 68,287 came on February 15, 1936, when Leeds United visited for an FA Cup fifth-round tie. That crowd would not fit into the current layout, and the Taylor Report conversion to an all-seater ground in 1994 ensured it never would again. The stands have carried names — the H.E. Barnes Stand, the John Street Stand — but the venue itself has always been Bramall Lane. It is not a temple of football.