Our Story

Hi, my name is Martin and I have an (un)healthy obsession with football grounds and design. 

My obsession began on Christmas Day 1984 when Santa dropped off a copy of Simon Inglis' seminal "The Football Grounds of England and Wales" book, and I vowed to visit every one of the 92 characterful homes detailed inside. The journey began early the following year in the salubrious surroundings of Saltergate for a glamorous encounter between Chesterfield and Scunthorpe.

By the end of the eighties I was well on my way, travelling near and far to watch Nottingham Forest (including Hillsborough, 97 RIP), and then through the nineties, as grounds were upgraded to "stadiums" in the post-Hillsborough era.

By this time I had started work as an Apprentice Draughtsman, drawing structural steelwork on an old-school drawing board, with pencil, set square, scale rule, etc. I loved this job but, as with most other things, technology eventually took over and the drawing boards were all replaced with CAD. After ten years of working as a draughtsman I eventually drifted away from the profession to run my own online business, which I've done in various forms ever since.

I still visit as many football grounds as possible - in Britain, Europe, and occasionally even further afield. I am still as obsessed with them now as I was then, and in particular the structural and architectural details that make each one unique.

The idea for GroundDesigns came about a few years ago, when I was reading another, more recent, Simon Inglis book about the late great football ground engineer Archibald Leitch, in which I found out he had also started his working life as an apprentice draughtsman. There were several beautiful old structural drawings featured inside and, just for fun, I decided to dust down my old pencil and set square, and set about recreating the famous criss-cross balcony steelwork from the Bullens Road Stand at Goodison Park. It developed from there, through a very laborious process, until eventually I had my first proper design in a digitalised format.

I liked the fact that it was a piece of "football art" without any obvious references, but that would still make sense to those in the know. Something that people might actually want to hang in their home, or office, rather than the usual garish football print offering.

People liked it, so I decided to do a few more, based on personal memories. When I closed my eyes and thought of Highbury, for example, the clock on the old Clock End was the first thing that came into my head, so I did that. With Anfield it was the mad colour scheme of the seats in the old Anfield Road End. Old Trafford? A trip during the Madchester era and a subsequent love of the music, artwork and attitude of Factory Records. Etc, etc.  We now refer to these designs as the Originals Editions.

GroundDesigns became more than just a hobby during the Covid years when lockdowns caused the demise of the successful events-based online business my wife, Sam, and I had run for many years.  Using many of the skills we'd acquired along the way, we set about creating new designs and covering as many new teams as possible, and the Map Edition series was born.

We now have designs for all of the 92 clubs in that original book from 1984 - a book I still use for reference and inspiration - plus lots of others from different leagues in England, Scotland, Europe and further afield.  We are also now starting to branch out into other sports, including rugby league, rugby union, cricket and NFL stadiums.  If you can't see your team there yet, please get in touch and let me know. 

The highest accolade I've had so far actually came from Simon Inglis himself, who contacted me via Twitter to say how much he liked my work. That'll do for me.

Cheers, Martin