IN SOME countries, there is a limited away-fan culture and visiting supporters are often in small numbers when they do turn up. Just look at some Spanish and Italian games and see if you can identify the small band of flag-wavers penned into a miniscule section high in the stadium, often outnumbered by burly stewards […]
ASTOUNDING is one way to describe Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena. The sheer size and audacity of the building is like something from another universe. You can quite easily compare it to a recently-landed space ship, one that is sitting on the outskirts of one of Europe’s most appealing and civilised cities, observing life forms found […]
FOOTBALL is a sport that flourished during the industrial revolution, especially the professional game, so naturally, stadiums sprung up in red-bricked back streets, on the fringes of mill towns and close to mines, factories and railways. The vision of the working class community trudging to the game, flat caps screwed onto heads, turned-up collar and […]
FOOTBALL fans consider the club stadium as an extension of their personal space. They go misty-eyed when they talk about the terraces they once stood on, the end of the ground they occupied and they stick very close to a long-established ritual of going to the match. The stadium is “home”, integral to the club’s […]
WHEN is a young player not a young player? Raheem Sterling, aged 24, 49 caps for England and over 300 first-class appearances. Surely, a young player is, first of all, somebody who is on the way up, still growing and potential-rich. Given there are currently a batch of players who are indeed in the ascendancy, […]
FOOTBALL fans, by and large, are nostalgists, especially those that remember the days when pitches were muddy, shirts were not emblazoned with multiple sponsors, and football managers actually said something meaningful in post-match interviews. Ask any non-league fan, for example, their favourite locations and they will invariably tell you the old wooden ground at Clapped-out […]
ONE of the notable features of the 2018 World Cup has been the stadiums, many of which were completed just a few months before the competition got underway. Most are new constructions, with the most expensive being St. Petersburg, coming in at around USD 1.5 bn. Any nation that wins the right to stage a […]
