Victoria Pleasure Grounds
Scunthorpe (Goole), East Riding of Yorkshire, England
Victoria Pleasure Grounds, Scunthorpe (Goole), England — opened Used as a football/sports ground from 1883 (rugby team from Sep 1883); formally named Victoria Pleasure Grounds in Sep 1888, 42 rugby league games hosted, home of Goole Football and Athletics Club, 1889-1902 (including the historic Goole rugby league club, a Northern Union member 1898-1902 after converting from rugby union following an RFU sanction; disbanded Aug 1902 after failing to gain re-election to the new Northern Rugby League Second Division); Goole Town F.C. (football), 1903-1996; Goole A.F.C. (football), 1997-present; Goole Vikings (modern amateur rugby league club), 2018-present, formed via a committee established at this ground in Nov 2018.
Sourcing caveat: Floodlights not confirmed either way.
Ground facts
| Opened | Used as a football/sports ground from 1883 (rugby team from Sep 1883); formally named Victoria Pleasure Grounds in Sep 1888 (This site's own venue directory lists the town/region as 'Scunthorpe (Goole)' — a data quirk, similar to a previous batch's 'Oxford (Maidenhead)' case. Direct research found no connection whatsoever to Scunthorpe (a separate town in North Lincolnshire, roughly 20 miles away) in any source; the ground is unambiguously in Goole, East Riding of Yorkshire. Unlike the Oxford/Maidenhead case, no club-name explanation for 'Scunthorpe' was found here — it appears to simply be an error in the source database, and Goole is treated as the confirmed location.) |
| Home club | Goole Football and Athletics Club, 1889-1902 (including the historic Goole rugby league club, a Northern Union member 1898-1902 after converting from rugby union following an RFU sanction; disbanded Aug 1902 after failing to gain re-election to the new Northern Rugby League Second Division); Goole Town F.C. (football), 1903-1996; Goole A.F.C. (football), 1997-present; Goole Vikings (modern amateur rugby league club), 2018-present, formed via a committee established at this ground in Nov 2018 |
| Games hosted (rugby league, on record) | 42 |
| Top recorded crowd | 712 |
| Capacity | 3,000 |
| Surface | Historically grass; an artificial turf pitch was installed in 2025 as part of a £7 million refurbishment scheme (also relocating the athletics track), with completion scheduled for 2026 |
| Years used | 1900–2026 |
| Location | Scunthorpe (Goole), East Riding of Yorkshire |
Name history
- Victoria Pleasure Grounds / Victoria Pleasure Ground — since Sep 1888, no name change found
Rugby league history
A long-standing multi-sport municipal ground in Goole primarily associated with football history (Goole Town, later Goole A.F.C.), but with a genuine, if modest, rugby league pedigree: home to the original Northern Union-era Goole rugby league club (1898-1902) and, since 2018, to the modern amateur Goole Vikings. Goole (as a rugby union side, before its 1898 conversion) beat Leeds 15-2 in the 1893 Yorkshire Cup second round, a major upset, though the exact venue for that specific match was not explicitly confirmed. No Test matches, Challenge Cup finals, or other top-tier representative fixtures were found associated with this ground. Currently undergoing a major £7m redevelopment expected to complete in 2026.
Long associated primarily with football (Goole Town F.C. 1903-1996, Goole A.F.C. 1997-present).
Sources
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
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