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[Football] Which is your least favourite football stadium?







Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
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Oct 8, 2003
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Faversham
Layer Road... Colchester.

Only because of Scott McGleish....I sat with home fans (pay on the gate, they didn't care) and it was a bit like being on a promenade bench on Eastbourne sea front, but the day was OK. Easy parking for a fiver.

For the overall police horse and 'you can't walk that way' ambience, Shitehole park is of course very, very bad. So bad I'll never go again (hopefully won't have to after this season....). Five visits is more than enough for me.
 


Guinness Boy

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However, the worst place I've been to in years is Southend. I went to the infamous first game of the 2000/01 season there, and then again the season before last when we drew them in the cup. Nothing had changed in the fourteen or fifteen years between visits, or, I in fact suspect, since about 1965. The toilets were the grimmest I've ever seen at a football stadium, the entire place is rusty and falling to bits, and many of the locals displayed a bitterness I'd assumed had long since faded, along with a distinctly 1970s attitude to diversity. Horrible place. Long may they remain in the lower tiers of the Football League.

My first ever away ground in 1987/88 season and yes, it was different - the away end was at the other end and was an uncovered terrace with a big corner. It kicked off in said corner. Otherwise unchanged (was there for “bring on The Champions” too).

It’s a shithole to be sure but it’s a “proper” ground. To go back to my original point St Mary’s contains very similar people, is far more depressing and is impossible to get In or out of. And it has the bonus of being built by a five year old with an oval mould and unlimited supply of red Lego.

Reading is the same with fewer people to be fair.


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el punal

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Aug 29, 2012
12,545
The dull part of the south coast
There are some wonderful comments on this thread, but time is a wonderful healer - or maybe not. I just remember some real 'nasties' from 1970s and 80s. The short list would be Barnsley, during the miners strike, Luton, Millwall's old Den, Cardiff's old Ninian Park, Southend's shit hole, Fratton Park . . . . oh sod it! It's down to two. Ninian Park and the Den.

The Den, absolutely horrible place to get to, horrible place to watch football, every one of their fans a potential mass murderer, but the saving grace is they wear blue, as we do, and you might just have avoided A&E because we're Southerners and could just about get away with pretending to be one of them.

Ninian Park - they're Welsh, we're English. Problem number one. Problems two to ten continue from there on in. I got away from there in one piece - just, in 1978. We should have given them independence there and then.

And the winner is . . . . Ninian Park!! :sick:
 




Lady Whistledown

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Jul 7, 2003
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Reading is the same with fewer people to be fair.

Be even fewer next season if they can just get themselves relegated...currently three points above drop zone I believe.
 


Guinness Boy

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Be even fewer next season if they can just get themselves relegated...currently three points above drop zone I believe.

Reading and Saints double relegation would be pretty funny and is by no means off the cards :lolol:


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Guinness Boy

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There are some wonderful comments on this thread, but time is a wonderful healer - or maybe not. I just remember some real 'nasties' from 1970s and 80s. The short list would be Barnsley, during the miners strike, Luton, Millwall's old Den, Cardiff's old Ninian Park, Southend's shit hole, Fratton Park . . . . oh sod it! It's down to two. Ninian Park and the Den.

The Den, absolutely horrible place to get to, horrible place to watch football, every one of their fans a potential mass murderer, but the saving grace is they wear blue, as we do, and you might just have avoided A&E because we're Southerners and could just about get away with pretending to be one of them.

Ninian Park - they're Welsh, we're English. Problem number one. Problems two to ten continue from there on in. I got away from there in one piece - just, in 1978. We should have given them independence there and then.

And the winner is . . . . Ninian Park!! :sick:

I was gobsmacked last season when I went to Cardiff with a Cardiff supporting mate and a big crew of Brighton to realise the new ground is a stone’s throw from the old one. Even more when mate took us in the Spoons near the station and the Kiwi Bar and it was totally chilled. Even though it was friggin cold and a dour 0-0 it was one of my favourite away trips ever because it was an alcoholic, relaxed laugh.

It just shows how little things can change places. The new ground still bore all the tell tale signs that Tom Gorringe had been involved and made it feel quite homely but Tan had also clearly cleared a lot of the old nutters out.

It’s weird. I really enjoyed having a psycho-free drink up in Cardiff and yet the traditionalist in me hates what they’ve done to the ground and what Tan did with the red shirt nonsense.


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Lady Whistledown

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Reading and Saints double relegation would be pretty funny and is by no means off the cards :lolol:

I won't lie: I'd be delighted to see Reading go down. Noddy club. I was surprised and annoyed to see them doing well last year, as they largely failed to impress anybody throughout the season, but somehow kept grinding out wins despite being deeply dull and uninspiring to watch. It was a travesty that they made the play off final, even if their ultimate points total told another story. I also dislike their stadium, and their laughable "We hold the record, one hundred and six" song that they come out with whenever another team annoys them. What is the POINT of that song?? The only entertaining thing that's ever come out of Reading is that song that the Thai owners came up with a couple of years ago, which I will never get bored of hearing.

Hopefully they can lose a few more games and get sucked down to League One, with Sunderland (doomed already), and Birmingham. I'd like to see Burton survive but I think they're struggling, so realistically it's one more place up for grabs, which does somewhat reduce the chances of the Berkshire Noddys getting drawn in.
 


knocky1

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Jan 20, 2010
13,108
I was gobsmacked last season when I went to Cardiff with a Cardiff supporting mate and a big crew of Brighton to realise the new ground is a stone’s throw from the old one. Even more when mate took us in the Spoons near the station and the Kiwi Bar and it was totally chilled. Even though it was friggin cold and a dour 0-0 it was one of my favourite away trips ever because it was an alcoholic, relaxed laugh.

It just shows how little things can change places. The new ground still bore all the tell tale signs that Tom Gorringe had been involved and made it feel quite homely but Tan had also clearly cleared a lot of the old nutters out.

It’s weird. I really enjoyed having a psycho-free drink up in Cardiff and yet the traditionalist in me hates what they’ve done to the ground and what Tan did with the red shirt nonsense.


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I can be a witness that you had a few drinks......
Love nights out in CardiffScariest moment at the new Cardiff ground for me was being eyeballed by a bald nutter in an extremely threatening behaviour. I was leaving the Cardiff end with Welsh mates and seeing the Brighton Gus Bus thought I'd have a look at the boys. Charlie Oatway's reaction made me walk away very quickly.

Hope they come up.
 




nicko31

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Jan 7, 2010
18,574
Gods country fortnightly
Oxford's cheap skate Kassam Stadium is pretty horrendous, finished on only 3 sides and built with some of most cut price building materials available
 








BN9 BHA

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Jul 14, 2013
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I see Reading gets a few mentions.
First time I went there was 2002, I thought the stadium was stunning, but we were still at Withdean then and Falmer was still a dream.
Enjoyed the following seasons visit when we won 2-1, Kitson scoring the winner :) we had a full away end.
 


Exile

Objective but passionate
Aug 10, 2014
2,367
I won't lie: I'd be delighted to see Reading go down. Noddy club. I was surprised and annoyed to see them doing well last year, as they largely failed to impress anybody throughout the season, but somehow kept grinding out wins despite being deeply dull and uninspiring to watch. It was a travesty that they made the play off final, even if their ultimate points total told another story. I also dislike their stadium, and their laughable "We hold the record, one hundred and six" song that they come out with whenever another team annoys them. What is the POINT of that song?? The only entertaining thing that's ever come out of Reading is that song that the Thai owners came up with a couple of years ago, which I will never get bored of hearing.

Hopefully they can lose a few more games and get sucked down to League One, with Sunderland (doomed already), and Birmingham. I'd like to see Burton survive but I think they're struggling, so realistically it's one more place up for grabs, which does somewhat reduce the chances of the Berkshire Noddys getting drawn in.

Point of order.

*pitchinvasion*
 




Buzzer

Languidly Clinical
Oct 1, 2006
26,121
:fishing:

One of the great grounds left standing, proper old school pubs nearby, easy to park and a quick getaway on to the motorway and a chance to have a weekend in the excellent pubs and curry houses in Brum.

My least favourite is easily St Mary's, a soulless bowl with terrible transport links full of the most miserable, inbred people on earth. It doesn't have a single thing going for it. The network of bridges and tunnels to get back to the station / Mayflower area would also have been quite "interesting" in the 80s :whistle:

I'd go with both of those. Any fan of a certain age with silly romantic notions of why they love football will almost certainly love Villa Park. There's so much history to the ground. Villa Park ticks all the boxes as GB has alluded to - transport, plenty of old school pubs, a ground in a residential area and the Holte End/Spion Kop is, even with seats, still a thing of great beauty.

St Mary's IS soulless, it is an identikit of Reading and Leicester and it is a ballache to get to. The train journey from the Sussex Coast prepares you for the grim day ahead with its walking-pace journey, stopping at a hundred poxy little stations. British Rail do their best to add to the atmosphere with piss-smelling, sub-standard train coaches that they are too embarrassed to use anywhere else on the network. The journey to Southampton takes you past Fratton Park. That's never a good sign of a fun day out.

The fans have just one song, the beer is in warm plastic bottles and if you're hungry you can have a microwave burger.
 




One Teddy Maybank

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Aug 4, 2006
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Worthing
Southampton/Derby/Leicester/Stoke - identikit stadia built in the same era on a cheap per seat basis, and it shows. No side has an identity.

(Yes, I know Stoke left gaps in the corners, which they’re now filling in).

Yes I would also go with these.

Southampton always seems so cold as well.

Edit - and Middlesbrough.

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