Toughsheet Community Stadium

The Toughsheet Community Stadium stands in Horwich, a town on the edge of Bolton. It is a football ground with four covered stands arranged around the pitch. A hotel is built into one of the stands, and some rooms look straight onto the playing surface. The stadium replaced an old ground called Burnden Park, which had once held more than 60,000 fans but had shrunk to under 20,000 by the 1990s. After the Taylor Report required all-seater stadiums, the club chose a site at Horwich and commissioned Lobb Sports as lead architect. Construction began in 1996 and finished the following year, when the stadium opened with a Labour politician cutting the ribbon. The stadium has hosted many firsts in football and other sports. The first Premier League match there ended in a 0–0 draw between Bolton and Everton, with Gerry Taggart’s header wrongly disallowed. Alan Thompson scored the first competitive goal, a penalty against Tottenham, while Chris Armstrong equalised. In 2002 it staged England under-21s’ first game at the ground, a 1–1 draw watched by 10,531 people. The venue has also welcomed Lokomotiv Plovdiv for Bolton’s first UEFA Cup tie, and in 2025 the women’s team played their first match there. The stadium’s name has changed several times, most recently to Toughsheet Community Stadium in 2023. Visitors find four named stands: the Carrs Pasties Stand at the north end, the South Stand at the away end, the Kia Stand on the west side and the Nat Lofthouse Stand on the east. A bronze statue of Nat Lofthouse, the club’s legendary forward, stands near the south-west corner. The stadium has held concerts by acts such as Oasis and Coldplay, whose video for ‘Fix You’ used footage filmed there. It has also staged darts, boxing and rugby, including a Rugby League World Cup group match in 2022. A Premier Suite hosts amateur mixed martial arts events, and in 2021 it became home to the Champion of Champions snooker tournament.