SC Freiburg – England expert: I am crying for the old stadiums – Bundesliga

I was around 800 kilometers from Freiburg at the weekend, but I could almost feel Christian Streich’s tears after the final whistle. I like this man instinctively because he put blood, sweat and now tears into his club for eleven years. Now the farewell to “his” Dreisamstadion with the crooked place and the cute grandstands in a new, modern different arena.

The saying “My home is my Castle”, which the English like to try, applies not only to life, but also to sport.

Freiburg’s Dreisamstadion is history. The Bundesliga team played their home games there for 67 yearsPhoto: picture-alliance / dpa

It’s not about the buildings, it’s about memories. Many English stadiums were a century old. Some of them still exist. They look and feel that way too.

If our clubs do what Freiburg intends to do now – leave an old stadium and put the team in a new cube made of glass and steel – then they will destroy the unbelievable ups and downs of emotions that every fan knows.

Football is an expression of life. I’ve seen clubs like Coventry City or Derby County move out of their outdated stadiums and the connection between fans and team was forever lost.

I see clubs that once played in rundown old stadiums and are now housed in huge glass buildings – complete with cushioned seats and four-star restaurants for those who can afford it. Arsenal, Tottenham and West Ham now have space for over 60,000 fans. That is twice as many as before – and the prices for the tickets are twice as high as before.

The new Spurs stadium – the new name of which will not be certain until a suitable sponsor has been found – cost over a billion pounds. But the team is struggling at the moment. Like boxer Anthony Joshua, who lost his heavyweight title to Oleksandr Usyk in this stadium on Saturday.

The cost is high. The old stadiums, built in Queen Victoria’s time in the 1880s, were designed for football.

The cost of the new stadiums that have replaced them must be recouped by renting them out for concerts, football games, and other sporting events, as well as any mass events.

West Ham gave up cozy old Upton Park in east London, where fans cheered players like Bobby Moore and Trevor Brooking. Instead, the club moved to the Olympic Stadium, which was built with taxpayers’ money for the 2012 Olympic Games. In the old stadium, the spectators were so close to their heroes that they could almost touch them. In the new stadium, they separate the running tracks from the action.

Modernization measures also mean more security. This often comes at the expense of intimacy. I have nothing against modernization. Unless it’s all about money.

Arsenal played at Highbury Stadium for 93 years. Then in 2006 the property was sold and the Emirates Stadium was built a few hundred meters away. Alright But the new arsenal is not as successful as it used to be under Arsène Wenger from 1997 to 2004.

The move broke the spell. The facade of the old east stand is still standing – like a museum piece. But behind this wall there are now 650 luxury apartments. Under these apartment buildings are buried dreams that will be completely gone when the old fans are no longer alive.

Mr. Streich, I cry with you!

.
source site