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Guides for fans who travel to matches
Away days, stadiums, host cities, and how to keep a record of every ground you tick off. Written by people who go, not by people who read about it.
Signal Iduna Park: a first visit to the Yellow Wall
Germany's biggest ground, a standing terrace of 25,000, and a match ticket that doubles as a train ticket across the region. What to sort out before you travel.
8 min read →Legia Warsaw stadium guide — Stadion Wojska Polskiego, Warsaw
Stadion Wojska Polskiego for a visiting fan: how to reach it, why you cannot buy a ticket online without a PESEL, where away fans sit, and what to expect.
8 min read →Lech Poznań stadium guide — Enea Stadion, Poznań
Enea Stadion for a visiting fan: trams from the station, why your match ticket is also a tram ticket, buying without a PESEL, and the celebration born here.
8 min read →Górnik Zabrze stadium guide — Arena Zabrze, Zabrze
Arena Zabrze for a visiting fan: getting there from Katowice, buying tickets without a PESEL, a ground mid-rebuild, and the best two-match weekend in Poland.
8 min read →Wisła Kraków stadium guide — Stadion Henryka Reymana, Kraków
Stadion Reymana for a visiting fan: trams from the old town, buying tickets without a PESEL, where away fans sit, and the rival ground across the park.
8 min read →Jagiellonia Białystok stadium guide — Chorten Arena, Białystok
Chorten Arena for a visiting fan: two hours twenty by direct train from Warsaw, tickets with a passport at the Jaga shop by the station, and the club that won its first Polish title at the 104th attempt.
8 min read →Cracovia stadium guide — Stadion Cracovii, Kraków
Poland's oldest surviving club, a 15,000-seat ground on the Błonia, and the fiercest derby in the country. How to visit, and what not to wear.
7 min read →Śląsk Wrocław stadium guide — Tarczyński Arena, Wrocław
The Tarczyński Arena has the largest away allocation in Poland. Trams from the square, buying without a PESEL, and a city with six hundred bronze dwarfs.
6 min read →Pogoń Szczecin stadium guide — Stadion Floriana Krygiera, Szczecin
The easiest Polish ground to reach from Germany: two hours from Berlin, a stadium rebuilt in 2022, and two street foods that exist nowhere else.
6 min read →Widzew Łódź stadium guide — Stadion Widzewa, Łódź
No supporter card, a railway station at the turnstiles, and a one-week window to buy. The most foreigner-friendly ticketing in Polish football.
6 min read →GKS Katowice stadium guide — Arena Katowice, Katowice
The newest ground in Polish football: Arena Katowice opened in 2025 with a Silesian derby and a full house. How to get there, and what to see in the city.
6 min read →Piast Gliwice stadium guide — Stadion Piotra Wieczorka, Gliwice
A ten-thousand-seat ground belonging to a champion of Poland, ten minutes from Zabrze — and the tallest wooden structure in the world down the road.
6 min read →Raków Częstochowa stadium guide — Stadion Raków, Częstochowa
A champion of Poland playing in front of 5,500 people, in a city that receives four and a half million pilgrims a year. Go before the new stadium is built.
6 min read →Zagłębie Lubin stadium guide — KGHM Zagłębie Arena, Lubin
A club owned by a copper company, in a town built on copper, with a stadium the company paid for. An hour from Wrocław, which is how to do it.
6 min read →Korona Kielce stadium guide — Exbud Arena, Kielce
Widely regarded as the first modern stadium in Poland — the template everything newer copied. Also why Polish capacity figures never quite agree.
6 min read →Motor Lublin stadium guide — Arena Lublin, Lublin
Five minutes on foot from the main railway station, matchday tickets with ID, and a city that is European Capital of Culture in 2029.
6 min read →Radomiak Radom stadium guide — Stadion Braci Czachorów, Radom
A ground named after four brothers, a rebuild that took six years, and a city where the road to Solidarity started in June 1976.
6 min read →Wisła Płock stadium guide — Stadion Kazimierza Górskiego, Płock
Named after Kazimierz Górski, the manager who took Poland to third at the 1974 World Cup. Above the city, two Piast rulers are buried in the cathedral.
6 min read →Lechia Gdańsk stadium guide — Polsat Plus Arena, Gdańsk
A Euro 2012 stadium shaped like a lump of Baltic amber, which staged a European final in 2021 and now hosts second-division football — the easiest big Polish ground to get into right now.
7 min read →Slavia Prague stadium guide — Fortuna Arena (Eden), Prague
The best modern ground in Czechia, eight minutes from Prague main station — and a ticketing system with none of the obstacles you meet in Poland.
6 min read →Sparta Prague stadium guide — Letná, Prague
Buy online, walk in with your phone, pay about six euros. Letná is the easiest ticket in Central European football and a short walk from the Old Town.
6 min read →Baník Ostrava stadium guide — Městský stadion Vítkovice, Ostrava
The Czech half of the same coalfield as Polish Silesia, two hours from Katowice. Easier tickets, stronger beer, and a running track around the pitch.
6 min read →Viktoria Plzeň stadium guide — Doosan Arena, Plzeň
A ten-minute walk from the town square to the ground, and another to the brewery where pilsner was invented. The closest Czech stadium to Germany.
6 min read →Bohemians 1905 stadium guide — Ďolíček, Prague
A kangaroo on the badge from a 1927 tour of Australia, and a hundred-year-old ground in the same Prague district as Slavia. Two stadiums, one walk.
6 min read →Sigma Olomouc stadium guide — Andrův stadion, Olomouc
A top-division ground a short walk from a UNESCO-listed baroque column, in the most attractive Czech town almost nobody visits. Tickets on the day for about six euros.
6 min read →Slovan Liberec stadium guide — Stadion u Nisy, Liberec
A grandstand built into a rock face, a river that becomes a border downstream, and the best base in Central Europe for a three-country weekend.
6 min read →Brno: Srbská stadium guide — Stadion Srbská, Brno
One ground, two top-division clubs, and the rule for counting shared stadiums. Plus a Mies van der Rohe villa across town and the best wine bars in Czechia.
6 min read →FK Teplice stadium guide — Na Stínadlech, Teplice
The third-largest football ground in Czechia, in a spa town of fifty thousand people, an hour and a half from Dresden.
6 min read →Slovan Bratislava stadium guide — Tehelné pole, Bratislava
Slovakia's national stadium, an hour by train from Vienna, at a fraction of Austrian prices. The cheapest top-division football within reach of a Western capital.
6 min read →Spartak Trnava stadium guide — Štadión Antona Malatinského, Trnava
A nineteen-thousand-seat stadium built into the middle of a walled medieval town, ten minutes from the station and forty from Bratislava.
6 min read →DAC Dunajská Streda stadium guide — DAC Aréna, Dunajská Streda
A new 12,700-seat arena in a town where three quarters of the population are ethnic Hungarians — and where the football happens in a different language from the league.
6 min read →MŠK Žilina stadium guide — Štadión pod Dubňom, Žilina
The Slovak ground closest to Poland, under the Malá Fatra mountains — and the place to eat the national dish where the sheep cheese actually comes from.
6 min read →FC Košice stadium guide — Košická futbalová aréna, Košice
A stadium built in two halves and finished in 2024, at the eastern edge of the European Union, in a city with the largest Gothic cathedral in Slovakia.
6 min read →Union Berlin stadium guide — Stadion An der Alten Försterei, Berlin
Eighty per cent standing, a terrace rebuilt by 2,300 supporters in their own time, and the closest Bundesliga ground to Poland. How to get a ticket, and why it is hard.
6 min read →RB Leipzig stadium guide — Red Bull Arena, Leipzig
Union Berlin's ground was rebuilt by 2,300 volunteers. RB Leipzig has 21 members. Both are true, and together they explain German football better than either alone.
6 min read →Schalke 04 stadium guide — Veltins-Arena, Gelsenkirchen
A 16,000-capacity standing terrace, a pitch that slides out of the building, and Dortmund half an hour away. The densest pair of giant grounds in Europe.
6 min read →Bayern Munich stadium guide — Allianz Arena, Munich
Seventy-five thousand people under a shell that glows red, sixteen minutes from Marienplatz — and the hardest ticket in this series. What actually works.
6 min read →Eintracht Frankfurt stadium guide — Waldstadion (Deutsche Bank Park), Frankfurt
A stadium in a forest where the entire away end stands on safe-standing rails. One of the best away days in Europe, and easy to reach from anywhere.
6 min read →Werder Bremen stadium guide — Weserstadion, Bremen
A stadium whose roof is a solar power station, a riverside walk to reach it, and a home terrace you cannot buy into unless you are a member.
6 min read →Hamburger SV stadium guide — Volksparkstadion, Hamburg
For fifty-five years the only club never relegated from the Bundesliga, with a stadium clock counting the seconds. In 2018 it stopped. What that means for a visit.
6 min read →1. FC Köln stadium guide — RheinEnergieStadion, Cologne
A live goat on the pitch, beer in glasses the size of an espresso, and fifty thousand people in a good mood regardless of the league table.
6 min read →Borussia Mönchengladbach stadium guide — Borussia-Park, Mönchengladbach
An away allocation of around 5,500 — one of the largest in Germany — and two more Rhineland grounds within an hour. One of the best away days in Europe.
6 min read →VfB Stuttgart stadium guide — MHPArena, Stuttgart
Sixty thousand seats with the Mercedes museum next door, vineyards above the city — and a home terrace you will not be admitted to in visiting colours.
6 min read →SC Freiburg stadium guide — Europa-Park Stadion, Freiburg
6,200 solar panels covering the stadium's entire electricity demand, built beside an airfield in Germany's greenest city. Also the hardest ticket ratio in the league.
6 min read →Bayer Leverkusen stadium guide — BayArena, Leverkusen
A hotel built into the stand with rooms looking onto the pitch, a factory club with a legitimate 50+1 exemption, and the only unbeaten season in Bundesliga history.
6 min read →Mainz 05 stadium guide — MEWA Arena, Mainz
More than fourteen thousand standing places, twenty minutes from Frankfurt Airport, at the club that produced Klopp, Tuchel and Nagelsmann before anyone had heard of them.
6 min read →TSG Hoffenheim stadium guide — PreZero Arena, Sinsheim
A Concorde and a Tupolev Tu-144 on a museum roof next to the ground, one of the easiest tickets in the league — and the club that handed its 50+1 exemption back in 2024.
6 min read →FC Augsburg stadium guide — WWK Arena, Augsburg
A geothermally heated stadium forty minutes from Munich, in a Roman city where the world's oldest social housing has charged the same rent since 1521.
6 min read →SC Paderborn stadium guide — Home Deluxe Arena, Paderborn
Back in the Bundesliga and the division's second-smallest ground, in a city where two hundred springs rise in a park and feed the shortest river in Germany.
7 min read →SV Elversberg stadium guide — Ursapharm-Arena an der Kaiserlinde, Spiesen-Elversberg
Ten thousand seats in the Bundesliga, in a municipality of thirteen thousand people — the smallest place ever to reach the German top flight, at a ground the builders have not finished.
7 min read →FC St. Pauli stadium guide — Millerntor-Stadion, Hamburg
Nearly seventeen thousand standing places, a stadium the club has refused to sell the name of since 2007, and the Reeperbahn a few minutes' walk away.
8 min read →Hertha BSC stadium guide — Olympiastadion, Berlin
Seventy-four thousand seats in the second division, built for the 1936 Olympics and still carrying its running track — the easiest big ticket in Germany.
7 min read →1. FC Kaiserslautern stadium guide — Fritz-Walter-Stadion, Kaiserslautern
A city of a hundred thousand people with a stadium for fifty thousand, on a hill above the town, named after the captain who won the 1954 World Cup.
7 min read →1. FC Nürnberg stadium guide — Max-Morlock-Stadion, Nuremberg
Fifty thousand seats, nine German championships, a ground the supporters named themselves — and the former Nazi party rally grounds next door, preserved and explained.
7 min read →Dynamo Dresden stadium guide — Rudolf-Harbig-Stadion, Dresden
Eight East German titles, eleven thousand standing places and one of the loudest grounds in the country — in a city rebuilt from its own rubble.
8 min read →VfL Bochum stadium guide — Vonovia Ruhrstadion, Bochum
Six names since 1911, no running track, and a whole crowd singing a 1984 pop song about their own city before every home match.
7 min read →Arminia Bielefeld stadium guide — SchücoArena, Bielefeld
A cup final reached from the third division, eight promotions to the Bundesliga, and a city that offered a million euros to anyone who could prove it did not exist.
7 min read →Eintracht Braunschweig stadium guide — Eintracht-Stadion, Braunschweig
One of the last running tracks in German professional football, a forgotten championship, and the afternoon in 1973 when a stag on a shirt changed the business of the game.
8 min read →1. FC Magdeburg stadium guide — Avnet Arena, Magdeburg
They beat AC Milan 2–0 in a European final in 1974 — the only club from East Germany ever to win one, and almost nobody in the west remembers it.
7 min read →VfL Wolfsburg stadium guide — Volkswagen Arena, Wolfsburg
A club owned outright by a car company, in a town that company caused to be founded in 1938 — and one of the easiest tickets in German football.
7 min read →1. FC Heidenheim stadium guide — Voith-Arena, Heidenheim
Fifteen thousand places on a wooded hillside below a castle, and the same manager since 2007 — the longest tenure in the history of German football.
7 min read →Energie Cottbus stadium guide — LEAG Energie Stadion, Cottbus
Eleven thousand standing places in a ground still called the Stadium of Friendship, an hour and a half from Berlin and close to the Polish border.
8 min read →Hannover 96 stadium guide — Niedersachsenstadion, Hanover
Forty-nine thousand seats in a bowl raised out of the rubble of the bombed city, the last German cup won from the second division, and a red line that walks you round the town.
7 min read →Karlsruher SC stadium guide — BBBank Wildpark, Karlsruhe
A stadium demolished and rebuilt one stand at a time around a team that never stopped playing, in a city drawn in 1715 as a fan of thirty-two streets.
7 min read →Holstein Kiel stadium guide — Holstein-Stadion, Kiel
German champions in 1912, and it took another hundred and twelve years to reach the Bundesliga. Fifteen thousand places on a Baltic fjord.
7 min read →SV Darmstadt 98 stadium guide — Merck-Stadion am Böllenfalltor, Darmstadt
Seventeen thousand places with no running track, twenty minutes from Frankfurt, in a city with a UNESCO-listed Jugendstil hill and an element named after it.
7 min read →Greuther Fürth stadium guide — Sportpark Ronhof, Fürth
Three German championships in the 1910s and 1920s, a ground named after a person rather than a company, and a second Franconian stadium ten kilometres up the U-Bahn.
7 min read →VfL Osnabrück stadium guide — Stadion an der Bremer Brücke, Osnabrück
Three in five people in this ground are standing — close to ten thousand of them — and the room where the Thirty Years War was ended is five minutes away.
7 min read →Luton Town stadium guide — Kenilworth Road, Luton
Away supporters reach their seats through a gap built into a row of terraced houses and up a staircase between the buildings. The ground closes in 2028.
8 min read →Wrexham stadium guide — Racecourse Ground, Wrexham
Wales have played internationals here since 1877, which makes it the oldest international ground still in use — and since Hollywood arrived, the hardest ticket in Britain for its size.
8 min read →Notts County stadium guide — Meadow Lane, Nottingham
Founded in 1862, the oldest professional football club in the world, the reason Juventus wear stripes, and three hundred metres from a Premier League ground.
7 min read →Accrington Stanley stadium guide — Crown Ground, Accrington
The smallest ground in the Football League, two thousand standing places, and a club that folded in 1962 and rebuilt itself from nothing.
8 min read →Leicester City stadium guide — King Power Stadium, Leicester
Champions of England in 2016 at pre-season odds of 5,000–1, and in the third tier ten years later. A Premier League stadium with a League One fixture list.
7 min read →Sheffield Wednesday stadium guide — Hillsborough, Sheffield
Forty thousand seats in the third tier, at the ground where English football was forced to change after 1989 — and where every all-seater stadium in the country begins.
8 min read →Portsmouth stadium guide — Fratton Park, Portsmouth
The oldest surviving Archibald Leitch truss in Britain, a mock-Tudor pavilion given to the club in 1905, and a chant older than most football clubs.
8 min read →Bradford City stadium guide — Valley Parade, Bradford
Twenty-five thousand seats in the third tier, a UNESCO village three miles away, and the fire of 1985 that ended wooden stands in British football.
8 min read →Plymouth Argyle stadium guide — Home Park, Plymouth
The longest journey in English football, the harbour the Mayflower sailed from, and a statue that took ninety-seven years to be built.
8 min read →Grimsby Town stadium guide — Blundell Park, Cleethorpes
The lowest football ground in Britain, two feet above sea level, in a town the club is not named after — with a stand named after a frozen fish company.
7 min read →Oldham Athletic stadium guide — Boundary Park, Oldham
Five hundred and twenty-six feet up on the edge of the Pennines, the coldest ninety minutes in England, and the first Premier League club ever to fall out of the Football League.
8 min read →Tranmere Rovers stadium guide — Prenton Park, Birkenhead
A club that moved its home matches to Friday nights so its own supporters could watch Liverpool or Everton on the Saturday. The most sensible scheduling in English football.
8 min read →AFC Wimbledon stadium guide — Plough Lane, London
Founded by supporters in 2002 after their club was moved sixty miles away, promoted five times in nine years from the ninth tier, and back on the road they were taken from.
8 min read →FC United of Manchester stadium guide — Broadhurst Park, Manchester
Two thousand owners with one vote each, a ground they paid for themselves — and, because this is the seventh tier, a beer you can drink where you can see the pitch.
8 min read →Dulwich Hamlet stadium guide — Champion Hill, London
Eighty-five per cent terrace, the biggest crowds in the division, a developer who locked the club out of its own ground — and a pint you can drink watching the match.
8 min read →Lewes FC stadium guide — The Dripping Pan, Lewes
A club bought for one pound by six supporters, the first anywhere to pay its women what it pays its men, and a ground dug out of the chalk called the Dripping Pan.
8 min read →Marine AFC stadium guide — Rossett Park, Crosby
Neighbours' gardens back onto three sides of the pitch, five in six people stand, and in 2021 they drew Tottenham in the biggest mismatch the FA Cup has ever produced.
8 min read →Maidstone United stadium guide — Gallagher Stadium, Maidstone
A club rebuilt from a junior side after the original went bankrupt, four in five people standing, and the best FA Cup run non-league football has produced in half a century.
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