Wednesday 22nd October 2025 ko 19:45

Women’s National League – Championship North

WEST BROMWICH ALBION 0

BURNLEY 1 (Ravening 11p)

Att 95 at Alexander Stadium, Perry Barr

Entry £6

Programme £2

It was Swedish Groundhop organiser Kim Hedwall’s last evening with us, and I was on the lookout for something a little different. Now if you’ve ever driven north along the M6 just north of Villa Park and Spaghetti Junction, in recent years I’ve little doubt you’ve spotted the huge floodlights on the left.

Those belong to the Alexander Stadium, in Perry Barr. You are a few hundred yards from the site of the recently demolished Perry Barr Stadium that once hosted greyhounds, and the Birmingham Brummies speedway team. The stadium is named after William Whiteway Alexander a key figure in the early development of the Birchfield Harriers Athletics Club in Birmingham and the West Midlands. The original stadium was opened in 1976, but the Alexander Stadium of today is a reconditioned facility expanded and modernised for the 2022 Commonwealth Games at a cost of £72 million.

For the games the capacity was 40,000 but much of that was due to temporary stands at the ends. They were removed after the games to leave the 18,000 seats you see today. One of the final acts of the Commonwealth Games’s closing ceremony was a performance by Tony Iommi and Ozzy Osbourne, which transpired to be the latter’s penultimate public performance. You do see the temporary stands…

But why would West Bromwich Albion pick an 18,000 capacity stadium to stage their third tier women’s games? After all Villa Park and the Bescot Stadium are close by, so you are not in the Throstles’ hinterland, and there are no lack of non league grounds nearer The Hawthorns.

The answer is that they’ve clearly got a very good deal from owners Birmingham City Council to play here, and there’s no lack of free parking too! And while it really really isn’t a football ground just an extremely well-appointed athletics stadium, it was an interesting place to watch a game, even if the sightlines are predictably awful. It didn’t help that the game failed to spark either, with just an early penalty enough to win in for Burnley.

But let’s not overthink things here. My good friend Kim got to see a stadium he’d not expected, and as for Robyn and I well every time we pass by the Alexander Stadium, we can nod sagely at each other, knowing that’s another box ticked.