Lost Grounds (2): Five spooky stadiums

Halloween Special in our series "Lost Grounds" – The Event-Breaks.com editorial team presents, purely subjectively, five stadiums in Europe that, in terms of architecture or infrastructure, are just plain spooky. 

What a pity that Luton Town no longer plays in the Premier League, because otherwise, a Premier League football trip could lead to one of the spookiest, dimly-lit stadiums in all of England: Kenilworth Road. 

1, Maple Road, Luton LU4 8 AW – at this address, there’s probably no treats or tricks, but here stands a ground that offers space for only 10,000 fans and where as recently as 2014, they were still playing in the fourth division (Football League Two). 

Luton, Kenilworth Road: Just Follow Your Nose…

Duncan Adams describes the experience for away fans in his classic work The Football Grounds of England & Wales (Publisher: Trolsen, 2007) as follows: "The access to the Oak Road Stand is one of the strangest in the whole country. After walking down a long alley, it seems as if you're queuing to enter a residential house. About 2,000 away fans can have this rare experience."

"If you want to go to the restroom, just 'follow the scent of urine,'" noted the Kronen Zeitung (Vienna) accurately. The tabloid's conclusion: "Completely outdated, but it has a bit of genuine football charm for purists."

The Horror of Grimsby

Drafty and fishy – that’s Blundell Park of Grimsby Town. In October 2024, the portal givemesport.com (GMS) probably rightly named the stadium of the Football League Two Mariners as the ugliest stadium in Britain – ahead of the London Olympic Stadium, where West Ham United permanently blows bubbles in the Premier League. 

"Four stands with completely different sizes, poorly thought out," says GMS, "in desperate need of renovation, parts of the stadium seem to be falling apart."
Many away fans genuinely dread Grimsby. The town of 120,000 people in the northeast of England and the Blundell Park, just 600 meters from the rough sea, are seen on the island as a synonym for the end of the (football) world and athletic exile. 

Here’s the twist: Blundell Park is a stadium situated among grid-patterned housing blocks. But not in Grimsby itself, rather in the neighboring town of Cleethorpes. If you drive here via the A180, it’s your own fault, as there are no parking spots around the ground. Even "Lotto King Karl" wouldn't play parking-lotto in the narrow side streets here... 

Even those who take the train must be fit. It’s a 20-minute walk between Cleethorpes station and the stadium. Quite a trek.

Waldstadion Frankfurt: Once a Concrete Bowl, Now a Football Temple

Eintracht Frankfurt and its arena in the city forest provide an unmatched goosebump atmosphere, especially during European Cup games. Many say the Deutsche Bank Park might have the best football atmosphere in Germany. There's something to that.

But: That was different until the renovation for the 2006 home World Cup. The old Waldstadion, a concrete bowl that was also completely rebuilt for the first World Cup in Germany in 1974, remained stuck in seventies nostalgia until the renovation between 2003 and 2005. 

High tiers, poor views due to an athletics track, few sanitary facilities, and long walks through the forest with uneven parking lots and access paths reminiscent of a Russian mud wasteland, long lines at entry points – that didn’t score points, even when Eintracht was celebrating "Football 2000" with Andy Möller, Uwe Bein, Anthony Yeboah, and Uli Stein in the early 1990s.

But once! On May 29, 1999. "When the Bundesliga reported back from the abyss," and SGE avoided relegation with a sensational 5:1 against Lautern, the Waldstadion shook to its foundations.

Old Wildpark Stadium: "Adios, Stadium of Horror"

"You could see that even in the Wildpark the devil is loose," said Karlsruhe coach Winfried Schäfer after the legendary 7:0 in the UEFA Cup against FC Valencia on November 3, 1993. Yes, the 1993/94 season, when KSC reached the UEFA Cup semi-finals, was special. 

However, in terms of magic, the expansive Wildparkstadion, with its athletics track, many uncovered seats, and forest and meadow parking lots, could not compete with the Fritz-Walter-Stadion of the southwestern rival 1. FC Kaiserslautern. That changed only with the complete reconstruction starting in 2019 when, for example, the main stand fell to the wrecking ball. For the reopening in July 2023, FC Liverpool and Jürgen Klopp came to town. KSC returnee Lars Stindl scored the first goal in the BBBank Wildpark. 

For FC Valencia, which had to accept the worst defeat in its European Cup history in Karlsruhe, the Wildpark was a place of horror for more than two decades. Only when the bulldozers rolled in did the Spanish sports newspaper Marca breathe a sigh of relief: "Goodbye, Stadium of Horror!"

Empoli: Officially the "Ugliest Stadium in Europe"

The portal money.co.uk ranked five Italian stadiums among the top ten ugliest in Europe in 2022. Ahead of Balaidos by Celta de Vigo and Maksimir Stadium, home of Croatian record champions Dinamo Zagreb, the Stadio Carlo Castellani of FC Empoli was ranked number one in this ignominious ranking. 

With only 16,800 seats, the stadium is one of the smallest in Serie A and, thanks to an athletics track, has the charm of a district-level athletics facility. Adding to this are free-standing, uncovered seating blocks behind both goals. The good news: In July 2024, Empoli presented renovation plans. 

That’s it for Halloween – and always remember: "Down in the basement… there’s a werewolf!"