After over 12 years of exile, Gloucester City are now preparing to return home. Their new stadium will be built exactly on the site of Meadow Park, which was famously destroyed in the 2007 flood.

Gloucester today remains a city without a proper football stadium. There's one for athletics, rugby is even stronger here. But local football ground was lost in 2007, during the famous flood that nearly covered the crossbars at Meadow Park.

The below photograph by Neil Phelps became a symbol of the destruction and helped run the crowdfunding effort to help Gloucester City FC survive the destruction. To this day only the building with changing rooms remains of what used to be Meadow Park.

Since 2007 GCFC had to use stadia outside their town, dividing that over-12-year-long period between Cirencester, Nailsworth, Chaltenham and Newsham. Thankfully, the club managed to remain active and this news its executives have some great news for the fans: construction will begin soon!

The planning permission has been in place since May but only in recent days a subsidy from the Football Stadia Infrastructure Fund (FSIF) has been secured. Majority of the project should be covered by co-chairman Alex Patheram. Now Gloucester City have commissioned the production of two prefabricated steel stands. Their capacity will be modest, at just 350, but it's a starting point.

Both new stands will be built on the two sides of old changing rooms building of Meadow Park. The field will also be built as it was, except it's been raised by 3.5 meters in order to never again be flooded. It's also going to be covered with synthetic surface in order to enable year-round training of several teams ran by GCFC.

At present it's expected that actual construction will begin before Christmas. The new ground at Meadow Park should be ready before the 2020/21 season.