Visit the Yellow Wall
With affordable match tickets, easy (and, on match days, free) stadium transport and guaranteed big-game atmosphere, Dortmund is the best-attended club in Europe. The so-called Yellow Wall is also the mightiest of home ends. Now visitors may take advantage of a new scheme involving several hotels and the club management. Calling itself the ‘Dortmund Adrenalin […]
Babyfoot bars and stylish stades
Previously regarded as the smallest of the five big leagues, France is now more of a major force thanks to unprecedented investment in two previously underachieving clubs, Paris Saint-Germain and Monaco. Factor in the major modernisations, rebuilds and new builds under way for Euro 2016, and the game in France can no longer be considered […]
From Augsburg to Wolfsburg – the booming Bundesliga
World champions in 2014, Germany and its football are enjoying their best period since the glory days of Beckenbauer and Müller in the 1970s. Attracting the highest attendances in Europe, Germany’s top-flight Bundesliga is the role model for others to follow. Affordable ticket prices, free city transport to stadiums on match days and family-friendly initiatives […]
Palaces of calcio and classic stadios
Italy is the home of calcio and classic clubs of great tradition – many who still play in ageing communal stadiums from the pre- and immediate post-war eras. Crowds are down, revenues too, and many look back on the 1990 World Cup as a high-water mark of the modern Italian game. Back then, Milan was […]
England
Pubs, pies, the Premier League – and TV profits
U’s and Blues
Having recently regained League status, Cambridge United host Oxford this Saturday. In footballing terms, the Varsity cities have little rivalry. Beyond the Boat Race and rugby, sporting encounters between their universities lack profile. But 166 years ago, Cambridge students drafted the first rules of football and played by them on Parker’s Piece, a park by […]
Que sera, sera
The Matthews final, Wembley and the white horse, what could be more English than the FA Cup, football’s oldest competition? But among the amateur hopefuls battling in this Saturday’s first qualifying round is a team with a difference. As their name suggests, FC Romania comprise ex-pat Romanians based in Britain. Peterjon Cresswell meets their founder and […]