Stadiums, stadiums, stadiums, we can't get enough of them. This special edition of Stinging Standstand is all about stadiums. Not a Top 25, because we have done that before (in number 23, which was completely dedicated to ground hopping), but in the form of articles with a different angle, as you are used to from us.
Such as a backstory of British football expert Joris of the Wier about Archibald Leitch, the probably best-known stadium architect, who designed, among other things, Fulham's Craven Cottage (see the beautiful cover). We were also in the Velka strahovsky Stadium in Prague, the largest football stadium in the world, where a quarter of a million people can enter and on Eriskay, an island of the Scottish Out Hebrides, where one of the most beautiful football fields in the world is located.
In addition, we spoke with Martin Kleine Schaars, the architect of the renewed Adelaarshorst in Deventer, an example of how you can renovate a stadium with respect for the past. For the real stadium nerds, Tijs Tummers wrote a backstory of the (Dutch) invention of the Elascon gallery, the Citroën DS under the football stands. And we were in Krefeld to see the renewed Grotenburg-Stadion, where KFC Uerdingen has been playing again since April. That was in a state of decline, but no less than four hundred fans put their heads together to renovate the stadium.
You will also read a preview of the book Verdwenen Stadions by Martijn Schwillens, which will soon appear under the wings of Staantribune and will be about eleven disappeared stadiums in the Netherlands: the old Abe Lenstra Stadion, better known as Sportpark Noord, Het Oosterpark, Het Oosterpark, De Alkmaarderhout, De Meer, Bornsestraat, Het Diekman, Nieuw Monnikenhuize, Beatrix, Kaal.
With beautiful footage from, among others, master photographers Stuart Roy Clarke and Marco Magielse