That’s a question I tried to answer a few years back when I created a list of the most famous sporting stadia in the world and since then, I’ve been on a Tom Cruise-esqe mission impossible to visit them all.

Last time out I explained why I’d chosen 8 football venues and why a few others didn’t make it. The Millenium Stadium might feel a bit left out but it’s not my fault it wasn’t built when I created the list!

So without further ado, here’s what was selected to represent cricket on the list – there aren’t as many as football but that’s simply down to the fact there aren’t as many cricket grounds as football stadiums.

The Cricket List

Lords (London, England): The Wembley stadium of the sport and is known as “the home of cricket”. Named after it’s founder (Thomas Lord) and is also the home of the MCC. England are particularly rubbish here and usually lose, one of the reasons the first test of the Ashes 09 series has been moved to Cardiff.

Edgbaston (Birmingham, England): As bad as England are at Lords they are good at Edgbaston. When the list was created I lived 5 minutes walk away from it so it got put onto the list to get some easy points.

MCG (Melbourne, Australia): If I could pick one holiday destination it would be christmas in Melbourne to watch the boxing day test there. It’s also one of the 7 wonders of the sporting world so a no-brainer as to including it.

Antigua Recreation Ground (Antigua, West Indies): Brian Lara has scored a 375 and a 400 there. Viv Richards hit the fastest test hundred and Gravy used to be in residence there  so it’s on the list.

Newlands (Cape Town, South Africa): There aren’t many cricket grounds in the world like Newlands. Table Mountain stands watch over proceedings and was one of the first grounds I thought of when going through this whole process.

Eden Gardens (Kolkata, India): It’s a cauldron and the atmosphere is amazing. It was also where India came back from the brink to beat Australia in 2000/2001 and everyone loves watching the Aussies get beat.

Notable mentions

Headingley (Leeds, England): This one almost made it onto the list at the expense of Edgbaston down to Ian Botham’s heroics in 1981 (and Graham Dilley – everyone forgets Graham Dilley).

Wanderers Stadium (Johannesburg, South Africa): Hosted the greatest one day international of all time with South Africa chasing down 434 to thrash Australia.

The Oval (London, England): Devon Malcolm destroyed South Africa here in 1994. Legendary stuff from the man who said “You guys are history”. Love it.

That’s cricket done and dusted and I’d like to hear your thoughts on it – are there grounds that should be on it and have I included a few that shouldn’t?

If you can do better than my score of 4, and you should because 4 isn’t that impressive, let me know and I’ll create a leaderboard!

No related posts.

Loads of sporting venues from all over the globe, plotted on a huge list in order to prove who’s more of a sports fan. There’s a multitude of power-ups, bonuses and extras that bump up your score – it’s so complicated it’d make Carol Vorderman wince.

Each sport has it’s own mini-list of venues – but instead of printing them all out as a big long undigestible list that would be about as exciting as reading through the Encyclopedia Britannica, I’ll go through each sport one by one.

This time it’s football and below is a breakdown of the 8 that made it onto the list plus a few others that didn’t – for those who missed it, you get a point if you’ve been to the venue and another one if you’ve seen a match there (max of 1 extra point). Oh, and if the stadium has been bulldozed you get an extra brucie bonus point.

The Football List

Wembley Stadium (England): The home of football. I’ve been there loads of times, had a guided tour and lifted the FA Cup in front of the royal box. (It was a replica and there was no royalty that day).

Hampden Park (Scotland): Not 100% sure why this made it. Either it’s a nod to our friends north of the border, or it’s hosted the biggest crowd on UK soil, it’s most likely be the latter.

The Camp Nou (Barcelona): It’s massive. And massive doesn’t cover the half of it. I only went half way up the stand and had vertigo – the seats just went up, and up, and up……

Azteca Stadium (Mexico): The World Cup in Mexico 86 was the first world cup I remember. I have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of that tournament and can tell you without hesitating the England starting lineup against Argentina (Shilton, Stevens, Sansom, Fenwick, Butcher, Hoddle, Reid, Hodge, Steven, Lineker, Beardsley with Waddle and Barnes off the bench). The game was one of the best ever and was played at the Azteca. As was the final. It’s on the list.

Maracana (Brazil): It once had a game there with nearly 200,000 people! That’s immense and a list of famous football venues wouldn’t be complete without it.

The Bernabeu (Real Madrid): This one is in mostly because of Real Madrid and the fact that when the list was being drawn up I was watching a lot of spanish football and was supporting Real. But it’s held the World Cup Final and that’s nothing to be sneezed at.

San Siro (Milan): Not on the list for being a famous sporting venue, but for being the background image when managing Internazionale or AC Milan in Championship Manager. And I spent a LOT of time managing AC Milan on championship manager.

Hidegkuti Nandor Stadium (The Allies): What’s the greatest football film of all time? Mike Bassett England Manager? Maybe? But not far behind (and possibly a little bit ahead) is Escape to Victory. Any film that has Sylvester Stallone playing in the same team as Pele, Ossie Ardiles, Bobby Moore and Michael Caine is genius. It was on all the time when I was younger (along with Swiss Family Robinson) and the final is played at the Hidegkuti Nandor Stadium. Sly saves a penalty in the last minute, he doesn’t escape at half time (who can forget Russell Osman telling him “but we can win this”) and Ardiles scores with a bicycle kick. Forget the greatest football film of all time, I’m upgrading it to the greatest film of all time!

The nearly list

Old Trafford (Man Yoo): The theatre of dreams? Pah, Man United play there so only likely to get onto the B list.

Millenium Stadium (Wales): Not built when the list was created – would definitely be on it if I was creating it today.

La Bombonera (Boca Juniors): Diego Maradona used to play there and has an amazing atmosphere. On the B list.

Molineux (Wolves): Would love to have this on the list, but I’d used up my 2 wildcards!

That’s the football list done and hopefully you’ll see why I picked some and not others. Feel free to leave comments with your football stadia recommendations,  I’ll collate them all and maybe create another list based on suggestions!

Also, if you can beat my score of 5 I’d love to hear what you’ve seen and where!

Next up, cricket with Lords, Edgbaston and the SCG. What made it and what didn’t?

Related posts:

1. Sporting venues from around the world
2. Cricket grounds and legendary tour guides

I’d been to Yankee stadium, he’d been to the Crucible. I’d taken in a match at the old Wembley stadium but he’d been to the Azteca stadium in Mexico.

As is usual in things like this (or maybe it’s just me), I drew up a list so we could keep score..

Every sport had it’s place and against each one, we came up with what we thought were the major venues.

It had to be famous for sport, obviously, but why we thought it was famous was pretty open. For example, Dallas Cowboys used to play at Texas Stadium and this was featured in a flyover in the opening scenes of the TV show Dallas. The most famous American Football stadium in the world? Perhaps not, but for us it was iconic and was on the list.

Every sport we cared about was featured. And we care a LOT about sport.

Points

Each ground you visited got you a point, but just visiting grounds may get a bit boring and might make you look like a bit of an anorak so we spiced things up a bit by giving an extra point if you saw a match whilst you were there.

We designated a few special events too, as they’re, well, special. The Super Bowl gets you 10 points, the FA Cup final likewise. The World Championship Snooker Final nets you 15 and the mens final at Wimbledon gives you a cool 25.

If you’d been to an Olympics opening ceremony venue you got a point but see the opening ceremony take place in the stadium and you got an extra 10! Infact, each event at the Olympics gets you a point so when London got the Olympics for 2012, my eyes lit up for a potential points bonanza!

Football was naturally at the top of the list but we didn’t want to put too much emphasis on it so we limited ourselves to a couple of UK venues and a few others from around the world. Wembley was in as was Hampden Park and the Maracana, but Old Trafford and La Bombanero didn’t make the cut.

The List: Football

I’ll write a post about each sport, detailing why each venue made it and why some didnt, but to start off, here’s the football ones that were deemed important enough to feature on the list:

• Wembley Stadium – London
• Hampden Park – Glasgow
• The Camp Nou – Barcelona
• Azteca Stadium – Mexico City
• Maracanã – Rio de Janeiro
• The Bernabéu – Madrid
• San Siro – Milan
• Hidegkuti Nandor Stadium – Budapest (it’s the stadium where the final game in Escape to Victory was played)

I’d love to say that this list is open to suggestion and could change, but it won’t. That’s not because I’m stubborn and am not willing to listen to reason, but down to the fact that the list has been laminated. If you think my list is naff please post a comment as to what you think should be on there!

Once I’ve gone through each sport, I’ll post the whole list maybe in PDF format so you can print it off and keep score with your mates. I’ll be posting mine as I go along as well – I’ve got 5 from football, how do you fare?

Related posts:

1. Sporting Stadia – Part I: Football
2. Cricket grounds and legendary tour guides