New £5.7m purpose-built rugby stadium completed

A £5.7m purpose built stadium for Edinburgh Rugby has been completed.

The ground, adjacent to BT Murrayfield, will hold around 7800 supporters and is the team’s first permanent home since its inception as a professional side in 1996 and as an amateur district select dating back to 1872.

The completion of the project includes World Rugby certification for contact training and playing on the new state-of-the-art 3G surface, meaning the Edinburgh Rugby squad can now begin training in the ground.

Due to current coronavirus restrictions, the stadium will be used primarily for team training purposes in the short-term until fans can be welcomed safely.

In the meantime, the club will begin a multi-staged branding process to adorn the stadium in the club’s colours, while plans are already underway to map out the supporter fan-zone.

Edinburgh Rugby managing director, Douglas Struth, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to reach the point of project completion and are delighted with the finished product. The stadium looks and feels fantastic.

“We have worked exceptionally hard over a number of years to deepen our identity and association with the city of Edinburgh, the Lothians, Fife and the Borders. Now, with a home to call our own, we have a huge opportunity to really develop and showcase what it means to represent all of those communities in professional rugby.

“Our new stadium will allow us to better connect with our fans, community, sponsors and partners; creating a deeper sense of belonging as we strive to attract more people to the club, whilst enhancing the match-day experience for our fans inside and outside the ground.

“I have always said that this is a game-changing project for us, and Edinburgh Rugby has always been a club of huge potential. Our new stadium will now go a long way to helping us realise that potential.

“The hard work really kicks on from here. The new stadium is fantastic, but it is nothing without our fans here to fill it.

“That is a magnificent target to focus the mind and we can all really look forward to that moment.”

Edinburgh Rugby added that the new stadium will be open to applications for use from other rugby teams, sports and events, as well as from the wider community, to maximise the potential of the new ground.