Liverpool - Anfield 1963 | 3D

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The stadium is named after the surrounding area, Anfield. The word originated in the combination of Old and Middle English words, which mean a field on a slope. Anfield, and its deviations, has been associated with the area since at the least 1642. It has been suggested that the name is linked to the influx of Irish people into the spreading city in the 1850s, and was associated with Annefield, outside New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland. Opened in 1884, Anfield was originally owned by John Orrell, a minor land owner who was a friend of Everton F.C. member John Houlding. Anfield's first league match was played on 8 September 1888, between Everton and Accrington F.C. Everton quickly improved as a team, and became Anfield's first league champions in the 1890–91 season. In 1892, negotiations to purchase the land at Anfield from Orrell escalated into a dispute between Houlding and the Everton F.C. committee over how the club was run. Events culminated in Everton's move to Goodison Park.[14] Houlding was left with an empty stadium, and decided to form a new club to occupy it. In 1892 the new team was called Liverpool F.C. and Athletic Grounds Ltd, and the club's first match at Anfield was a friendly played in front of 200 people on 1 September 1892, against Rotherham Town. Liverpool won 7–1. Liverpool's first Football League match at Anfield was played on 9 September 1893, against Lincoln City. Liverpool won 4–0 in front of 5,000 spectators. A new stand capable of holding 3,000 spectators was constructed in 1895 on the site of the present Main Stand. Designed by architect Archibald Leitch, the stand had a distinctive red and white gable, and was similar to the main stand at Newcastle United's ground St James' Park. Another stand was constructed at the Anfield Road end in 1903, built from timber and corrugated iron. After Liverpool had won their second League championship in 1906, a new stand was built along the Walton Breck Road. Local journalist Ernest Edwards, who was the sports editor of newspapers the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, named it the Spion Kop; it was named after a famous hill in South Africa where a local regiment had suffered heavy losses during the Boer War in 1900. More than 300 men had died, many of them from Liverpool, as the British army attempted to capture the strategic hilltop. Around the same period a stand was also built along Kemlyn Road.