10 ABANDONED football stadiums!
Which stadiums are rotting away?
A football stadium can be so meaningful to fans, in many cases, a stadium is home to a specific team, and it feels like that for the fans too.
It’s somewhere fans can truly get behind their team on matchdays, creating an atmosphere by singing and setting of flares and cheering goals.
But around the globe, there are some terribly sad cases of stadiums just been abandoned and rotting away. We’ve got a list of 10 grounds currently in that situation.
1) Turnfurlong Stadium
2) Stadion Eden
Home of Slava Prague, this 38,000 seater stadium closed in 2003 and has been abandoned ever since.
3) Kirov Stadium
This used to be the home of Zenit St. Petersburg in Russia, and had a HUGE capacity of 100,000. It closed in 2006. Demolition was heavily protested, however, as local architects lobbied for its preservation, but eventually in vain.
4) Belle Vue
This was the home of English side Doncaster Rovers, a fire in the main stand of the stadium in June 1995 caused extensive damage, with the club’s ex owner jailed for conspiracy to commit arson. They moved out in 2006 and now play their games the Keepmoat stadium.
5) Stadionul National
Romania, Steaua Bucharest, Dinamo Bucharest all shared custody of this 60,000 seater stadium. The last match played at the stadium was Romania’s 6-1 win over Albania in 2007. The Stadionul National was eventually demolished to make room for a new one on the same site.
6) Stadio delle Alpi
In English, the stadium name translated to “Stadium of the Alps”, a reference to the Alps mountain range that was nearby. It belonged to Juventus and Torino, local rivals, but now it is vacated.
7) Millmoor
One of the great English stadiums, Millmoor was the home of Rotherham United for 100 years, until a dispute with the ownership of the club forced Rotherham to relocate to the all seater New York Stadium in 2008.
8) Ninian Park
After spending 99 years at Ninian Park, Cardiff City moved in 2009, only a quarter of a mile away to the new Cardiff City Stadium.
9) Maracana Stadium
A stadium that hosted the World Cup final just 3 years ago now lays abandoned because of the lack of maintenance available in Brazil. Incredibly sad.
10) Upton Park (Boleyn Ground)
West Ham played their first match at Upton Park in 1904 against rivals Millwall, in front of 10,000 fans. The Hammers were awarded the lease on the Olympic Stadium in 2013, which became the new home of West Ham from August 2016. Now renamed the London Stadium, the stadium has a capacity of 57,000.
By Ben Kelly – @benkelly_10