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