Hartlepool

Victoria Park has hosted Hartlepool United since the club's earliest years, a compact ground now known commercially as the Suit Direct Stadium.

The club formed on 1 June 1908, growing out of West Hartlepool, an amateur side that had won the FA Amateur Cup three years earlier. West Hartlepool folded in 1910 and its assets passed to the new company. Election to the Third Division North followed in 1921. When the borough itself merged with West Hartlepool in 1968, the club dropped the "s" and "United" from its name, playing simply as Hartlepool before restoring United in 1977.

Relegation from League Two in 2017 put the club into the National League for the first time in 89 years, and financial trouble the following year brought it close to going out of business altogether before Raj Singh took ownership in 2018. The recovery took three seasons: in 2021 Hartlepool beat Torquay United in the National League play-off final and returned to the Football League.

Home kit has stayed blue and white stripes since the founding season, one of the few constants across the name changes. The nickname most heard around the ground is the Pools, though the club also carries Monkey Hangers — the story gave the club its mascot, H'Angus the Monkey. Local rivalry runs against Darlington, with meetings between the two known as the Teesside derby.