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Once the crown jewell of North Shore football stadiums, Newell Stadium is now run down and is a down right embarassment! The field itself is on the verge of being un-playable and the track is useless for it's intended purpose.Gone are the restrooms and the north side ticket booth is rotting away. Artificial field turf is the way to go for the playing surface,but it's expensive. In the long run it would hold up to girls field hockey,soccer and of course football.That alone would save money in the long run but funding for such an endeavor would be hard to come by these days.
There is hope however,the NFL Grassroots Program provides grants to communities in need to provide funding for such installations. I would think Gloucester would be a good fit for this. A new field would also help prevent injuries and I think that alone would be an incentive to at least look into it. In the meantime I toured the stadium and found the home side stands warped but shored up with welded beams and ties on a base of crushed rock ballast. The stands themselves are made of galvinized steel but the beams used to shore up the stands is untreated steel. Most mechanical connections are ok and the rust is superficial. The visitor stands installed in 1983 are in better shape.They came via the old USFL Boston Breakers.They were new in "83" and were at BU's Nickerson Field where the Breakers played.After the "83" season the Breakers moved to New Orleans. I asked the Breakers co-ownner George Mathews if he would be interested in selling the stands to Gloucester.He did and the city got one year old bleachers for about half the price of new ones. Bottom line is that Newell Stadium is in need of serious repairs,the way it is now our athletes and those from visiting teams are in peril!
Help rebuild Newell Stadium!
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