June 29, 2007
The Estádio do Bessa (now Estádio do Bessa XXI) is a football stadium located in the Boavista area of Porto, Portugal, used by Boavista FC.
Like other stadiums used in Euro 2004, the Bessa is a new ground, but built on top of the old stands, and each one of them was built at a time, which allowed Boavista to continue playing there. It cost €45′164′726 to build, from which €7′785′735 were supported from the Portuguese state, and has an all-seater capacity of 28′263. Plans for improvement actually existed before the organization of the Euro 2004 was given to Portugal in 1999, and by then the first works were already underway.
[Source: Wikipedia]
The Frankenstadion was inaugurated in 1928 in Nuremberg as home stadium to the Bundesliga club 1. FC Nürnberg. It is located next to the Zeppelinfeld. In 1991 it recived its current name, before that it was known simply as the, Urban Stadium. It also neighbors the new Arena Nuernberg. The Stadium is planned to host five games of the 2006 World Cup. During the World-Cup Finals the stadium will be known as “FIFA World Cup Stadium Nuernberg”: On March 14 2006, the stadium was renamed for a period of five years in “easyCredit-Stadion”, after a financing product of the German bank Norisbank AG.
[Source: Wikipedia]
June 27, 2007
Hanshin Kōshien Stadium (阪神甲子園球場, Hanshin Kōshien Kyūjō) is a baseball park located near Kobe in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. The stadium was built to house the national high school baseball tournaments, and opened on April 1, 1924. It was the largest stadium in Asia at the time it was completed, with a capacity of 53,000. The design of the stadium was heavily influenced by the Polo Grounds in New York City. In 1936 it became the home stadium for the Osaka Tigers (current Hanshin Tigers), now with the Central League. On February 14, 1964, the name of the baseball park changed from Koshien Stadium to Hanshin Koshien Stadium.
In addition to the annual National High School Baseball Championship, played in August, the stadium hosts the annual National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament in March, a smaller, invitational tournament. Both tournaments are generally known simply as Kōshien. The high school tournaments are given a higher priority, with any tournament games that need to be rescheduled forcing the Tigers to postpone or cancel conflicting home games.
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June 24, 2007
Cajun Field (built 1971) is a stadium located in the city of Lafayette, Louisiana. Nicknamed The Swamp, it is the home field of Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette stadium is primarily used for its American football and women’s soccer athletic teams.
Cajun Field boasts 2,577 chairback seats and bleacher seating to the capacity of another 28,423, giving the stadium an official seating capacity of 31,000.
In 1988, when the school was known as the University of Southwestern Louisiana, the field gained The Swamp as a nickname, which was noted on stadium signage, the school yearbook and a year later in the 1989 official Southwestern Louisiana sports media guide. The characteristics which helped create the tradition of the swamp-referenced nickname are tied to the field’s early 1970s construction and even refer back to the original football field for what was then the Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute in the early 1900s.
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June 22, 2007
Steelyard Stadium is a multi-use stadium in Pohang, South Korea. It is currently used mostly for football matches and is the home stadium of Pohang Steelers. The stadium holds 25,000 people and was built in 1990.
[Source: Wikipedia]
Twickenham Stadium, located in the Twickenham district of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, is the third largest stadium in the United Kingdom with a capacity of 75,000, bettered only by Old Trafford Football Stadium and, when it eventually opens in 2007, the new Wembley Stadium.
The South Stand is currently being redeveloped to increase capacity to 82,000. The stadium is the home of England’s Rugby Football Union, and as such primarily a venue for rugby union and hosts England’s home test matches. Stadium tours are available and there is a Museum of Rugby at the ground.
June 18, 2007
“Kielce” race track in Miedziana Gora
Floyd Casey Stadium is a stadium in Waco, Texas. It is primarily used for American football, and is the home field of the Baylor University Bears. It opened in 1950 with a game against Houston, and has room for 50,000 people. It is located about four miles from campus.
Originally known as Baylor Stadium, the stadium received its current name in 1988, when it was renamed for Floyd Casey by his son, university trustee and longtime booster Carl B. Casey of Dallas, who gave $5 million towards an $8 million renovation project.
The stadium has a long history of renovations as well. In 1998, the stadium installed SportGrass, the world’s finest natural grass surface. In 2005, the stadium underwent massive renovations to extend the Grant Teaff Plaza to memorialize Baylor’s most prestigious head coach, Grant Teaff. The extended plaza created much-needed updates to the stadium’s façade.
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Husky Stadium is the University of Washington’s football and track and field venue in Seattle, USA, located between Montlake Boulevard N.E. and Union Bay just north of the Montlake Cut. Its U-shaped design was specifically oriented to minimize glare from the sun in the athletes’ eyes. The open end overlooks scenic Lake Washington and the Cascade Mountains.
Husky Stadium was originally built in 1920, with a seating capacity of 30,000, but has gone through four remodels (two major, two minor) to expand the seating capacity. In 1936, 10,000 seats were added around the rim. In 1950, a layer of 15,000 covered seats was added to the south side–the new structure also made some of the lower seats covered. In 1968, a few thousand more seats were added along the rim. In 1987, 13,000 covered seats were added on the north side–again, this structure also made some of the lower seats covered. This made the total capacity 72,500, making it the largest stadium, amateur or professional, in the Pacific Northwest. The 1987 construction project made headlines when the first version of the grandstand collapsed (There was no design error of the North Stands Addition. Investigators found that several critical guy wires–cables which kept the structure from twisting–were removed in error). However, construction was completed before the beginning of the 1987 football season. The University of Washington has planned an extensive renovation for the stadium by 2015.
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