Spotland Stadium from 1902 to 1903, but both folded. The present Rochdale A.F.C. was then formed to use the ground in 1907, later buying the freehold for £1,700 in 1914. By the time the club joined the Football League in 1921, a low wooden grandstand had been built on the south side of the ground, once the location of the cricket pavilion. Also by this time, the name of the surrounding area of the town, Spotland, had been adopted as the ground's name. In August 2016, Rochdale A.F.C. renamed Spotland Stadium the Crown Oil Arena as part of a sponsorship deal by
English public school football games Matthew, a Winchester scholar from 1643 to 1647. He describes how "...we may play quoits, or hand-ball, or bat-and-ball, or football; these games are innocent and lawful. ..". That football at winchester was "innocent and lawful" at this time is very noteworthy. This is strongly supportive of the fact that by the mid-seventeenth century football and other ball games in English public schools had been tamed. "Nugae Etonenses" (1766) by T. Frankland also mentions the "Football Fields" at Eton. A more detailed description of football is given in Francis Willughby's Book of Sports, written in about 1660. This account is