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The small clubs with big grounds thread!


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Been thinking about this for a few days and thought I would throw it open on here. Can you name any clubs which have huge stadia in comparison to the size of the club? A few off the top of my head;

Queens Park - Hampden Park (50000+) Amateur Club playing in the home of Scottish football

Darlington - The Reyonds Arena (or whatever it is now - 25000) White elephant of a stadium that could well end up causing the death of the club

Bari - San Nicola (50000+) Built for Italia 90, but since then has rarely, if ever been full.

Any others worth a mention across the globe? :)

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Queen's Park are a special case.

Bari used to be in Serie A for many years.

Darlington I'll give you, they built a stadium far too big for their needs. They would have to win promotion to the Premier League to come close to filling it and that's a couple of leagues higher than they've ever been.

You could perhaps say Milton Keynes Dons... but then their stadium hasn't actually been finished.

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There are numerous club's in Germany with 30k plus stadiums outside the top division including Aachen (32960), Dresden (32,066), Frankfurt (51,500), Dusseldorf (54,400) and 1860 Munich (69,000).

In England you can also name Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United in League 1.

Frankfurt and Dusseldorf were in the top division for a long time. 1860 Munich (used to?) ground share with Bayern.

You can't really call the Sheffield teams small either, they are just in a bit of a slump the past few years. They'll come back in time.

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Queens Park - Hampden Park (50000+) Amateur Club playing in the home of Scottish football

That 1 has never made sense to me. How did that even end up happening? Got to be a bit freaky playing in a 50k+ stadium with what's probably just a few hundred people there.

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That 1 has never made sense to me. How did that even end up happening? Got to be a bit freaky playing in a 50k+ stadium with what's probably just a few hundred people there.

Because they are Scotland's oldest team. When it was built they were a much bigger team, but because of there strict amateur policy they obviously can't compete at the top level anymore. It's also our national Stadium so the SFA pay to maintain it i imagine which allows them to keep playing in it.

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That 1 has never made sense to me. How did that even end up happening? Got to be a bit freaky playing in a 50k+ stadium with what's probably just a few hundred people there.
Hampden is no stranger than the English FA having Wembley, I can't think of too many other international grounds outside the UK that does not have a resident club using it as their home stadium.
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Istanbul Buyuksehir Belediyespor (Istanbul B.B) in the Turkish Super League - they play their games at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium (Capacity 76k) due to being the team of the Istanbul Metropolitan Council and not having a suitable ground of their own. They were only formed in 1990, don't have a natural fanbase in a city with established three larger clubs and a host of established smaller clubs and as a consequence tend to play their home games in front of about 70 odd thousand empty seats! The only exception being when they play one of the big three Istanbul teams at home.

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Not stricly in the game, but can be activated in the Editor (as per my game at the minute) the mighty Pyongyang City of North Korea play in a massive 100,000 seater stadium and regularly receive attendances of 1,500!!!!

Those crazy North Koreans!!!

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I was gonna say that practically every team in North Korea has a huge stadium, the Kim Il-Sung one springs to mind which is 50,000; I think either April.25 Sports Club or Pyongyang City play there. Not sure if the 100,000 capacity one, used for the mass games, is used for football. Maybe for internationals?

RB Leipzig is a good one, anyone know what their average attendance is? I used to play for the reserve side of a semi-pro German club (SC Herford) and they have a stadium that can hold almost 20,000, think quite a few small German clubs have big stadiums. And yes, 1860 Munich still groundshare with Bayern.

I'd have thought there would be some examples in Brazil, but I'm not as knowledgeable about their football as North Korea or Germany's :lol:

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RB Leipzig is a good one, anyone know what their average attendance is? I used to play for the reserve side of a semi-pro German club (SC Herford) and they have a stadium that can hold almost 20,000, think quite a few small German clubs have big stadiums. And yes, 1860 Munich still groundshare with Bayern.

Leipzig had an average of over 9000 for the first half of this season. Impressive I'd say.

By the way: 1860 still goundshare with Bayern, but Bayern now own the arena completely and should have repaid all the loans in five or six years. Then they're gonna invest in the team big time!!

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Frankfurt and Dusseldorf were in the top division for a long time. 1860 Munich (used to?) ground share with Bayern.

You can't really call the Sheffield teams small either, they are just in a bit of a slump the past few years. They'll come back in time.

I'm playing as Dusseldorf at the moment - started unemployed and got offered the job about 14 games into the season - couldn't believe my luck with the standard and size of the stadium they have! It even has a retractable roof...

To be fair, they've been all the way down to the regional divisions in the last couple of years so they're not the force they were 30 or 40 years ago by any means. Not until I get them promoted of course...

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For my custom Linconshire Database I have noticed many clubs that are down in the lowest leagues in the game having 4k plus stadia, this is leaving with with most clubs getting less than 30% of capacity. In the lowest leagues i have seen clubs get 8% of capacity for 500 capacity stadia.

I wonder what is the most people you can get round a pitch and have everyone see, no stadia, just the green grass and one of those stringy rope things they use to keep the parents from intefering with the game.

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Bradford League Two with 26000, Telford has 11000 in BSP? (not sure). Las Palmas 30000 in Liga Adelante. Many big stadiums in The Championship. River Plate in Argentina?

There are plenty of these in all the big football nations.

Bradford is the fifth biggest city in the country and the team was in the Premier League for a couple of seasons not too long ago. That said, they should be a bigger club than they are.

Telford's capacity is more like 6-7000 not 11,000.

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Bradford is the fifth biggest city in the country and the team was in the Premier League for a couple of seasons not too long ago. That said, they should be a bigger club than they are.

Telford's capacity is more like 6-7000 not 11,000.

Maybe it was Hereford I remembered having the biggest stadium in the BS leagues then. Bradford is a small club now - despite being a relatively big club a decade ago. Any club playing in League Two is a small club.

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Bradford League Two with 26000, Telford has 11000 in BSP? (not sure). Las Palmas 30000 in Liga Adelante. Many big stadiums in The Championship. River Plate in Argentina?

There are plenty of these in all the big football nations.

River Plate may be many things, but a small club isn't one of them.

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Gl. Vejle Stadion - 15.000

Ikast Stadion - 15.000

They're both unused.

We've got Frederikshavn Stadion here in Denmark. The team (Frederikshavns forenede Idrætsklubber) is currently playing in Danmarksserien (inactive in FM) and the station capacity is 10.000

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Charlton

27,111

We also got planning permission for approx 45,000 (before we got relegated from the prem), I assume this is recognised in the game if you do well enough.

Hardly a small club (although technically Charlton itself is quite small). Capacity totally justifiable when in Prem. Same as both Sheffield teams, stadiums expanded to current size when in prime position. Could say the same about some current Prem teams if they ever drop down to lower leagues.

I've always thought Darlo's stadium too big when I saw them on tv highlights when in League 2. Hopefully they'll stave off closure.

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I think they are both multisport venues, maybe unused for football but other things use them during the year.

Both are old stations and the clubs decided to built new ones.

Vejle BK used to play at Gl. Vejle Stadion, but is now playing at Ny Vejle Stadion - Placed right next to the old one.

FC Midtjylland used to play at Ikast Stadion, but are now using SAS Arena.

The same goes for Gl. Fredericia Stadion, with a capacity of 10.000 - FC Fredericia wanted a new stadion and the old one is now unused.

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Hardly a small club (although technically Charlton itself is quite small). Capacity totally justifiable when in Prem. Same as both Sheffield teams, stadiums expanded to current size when in prime position. Could say the same about some current Prem teams if they ever drop down to lower leagues.

I've always thought Darlo's stadium too big when I saw them on tv highlights when in League 2. Hopefully they'll stave off closure.

Ye, thought id mention it though, because this year we are quite an interesting game.

- A good footballing team

- Stadium that holds 27k but only gets around 17k per game, can be expanded

- 2 leagues lower than where we should be

- Expected to get promoted, poor financial state

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Maybe it was Hereford I remembered having the biggest stadium in the BS leagues then. Bradford is a small club now - despite being a relatively big club a decade ago. Any club playing in League Two is a small club.

Im pretty sure when we (Hereford) were in the Conference we didn't have the largest ground. In fact Halifax's (who we beat in the playoff final) capacity is about twice the size of Edgar Street.

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