"Ground development left the club with a tidy Main Stand that ran some three-quarters of the pitch length and seated 1600, a roofed Popular Side and unovered ends. Terracing was made of cinder embankments, with a few wooden crush barriers walloped into the dirt at random-looking intervals. A wooden hut provided dressing room accommodation at the [northern] end of the stand." In 1931, at a time of growing ambition for the club, terracing was cut into the cinder banking of the Kop and further earth removal from the Cross Street to Saltergate end was undertaken to level the pitch. In a successful push for promotion to the Second Division in 1931–32, 20,092 fans crammed into the ground to see the home team overtake Lincoln City for the top spot. In 1936, the club borrowed around £14,000 to fund the erection of a new brick and steel main stand by Scottish architect Archibald Leitch. Demolition of the old wooden stand began at the close of the 1935–36 season, which again saw the club promoted to the Second Division. The official opening of the new stand came in November, with Sheffield United visiting for a league fixture and a new record of 26,519 paying for entry. With the completion of the new stand, all four sides of the ground had taken on an appearance that would still be recognisable at the time of its closure. 1940-1979 After the Second World War, the club faced a pressing need to raise funds to service the debt on the new stand and pay off the bank loan. Further ground development became somewhat limited as a result, though the club was still in a position to buy up several houses around the ground in the late 1940s. A move away from Saltergate was proposed again in 1949, this time to a site near Walton Hospital, but the council rejected the plan. Instead, the club made what was to be its final major investment in the ground prior to the millennium, engaging Leitch and Partners to renew all the ground's cinder terracing with concrete and install their patented crush barriers. With relegation in 1951, average gates took a heavy knock and the decline continued over the decade as success eluded the club, which finally dropped to the fourth tier of English football for the first time in 1961. However, modest ground improvements still advanced after fundraising efforts