Stadiums I’ve been to for Sporting Events:
Ullevaal Stadion
Eden Park
Wellington Regional Stadium (aka Westpac Stadium)
FMG Stadium Waikato
Stadiums I’ve been to for tours/museums:
Estadio Alberto J. Armando (aka La Bombonera)
Beijing National Stadium (aka Bird’s Nest aka 国家体育场)
Stadion Narodowy (aka PGE Narodowy)
Camp Nou
Holmenkollbakken
Other/Misc:
Donington Park
Stadion Miejski Legii Warszawa im. Marszałka Józefa Piłsudskiego (aka Stadion Wojska Polskiego)
Circuit des 24 Heures du Mans (aka Circuit de la Sarthe)
The Dell
Lancaster Park (aka AMI Stadium)
@Bandage’s tale of seeing the Monaghan team having a kickabout as he passed in a transport vehicle brings to mind the evening of August 23rd, 1998. It was a Sunday and roughly three hours after the Galway-Derry All-Ireland football semi-final had finished. I was on a Bus Eireann bus from Dublin to Galway which was passing through Enfield. As you enter the village of Enfield going west, there is a GAA pitch on the left.
That evening there was a match taking place as I passed, which I had sight of for maybe seven seconds (as Neneh Cherry and Youssou N’Dour once sang) as I looked out the window to my left. In those seven seconds there was a goal scored - not just any goal, but one of the finest goals I’ve seen in any match - a chap sprinted through from around 40 metres out, beat two players Eoin Mulligan-style but at greater pace, and from what looked to be around 16 metres out, hit an absolute rocket of a shot with the outside of his right boot which arced devastatingly into the top right hand corner of the net, giving the goalkeeper no chance at all. It was a stunning goal and no doubt all those who witnessed it would never forget it.
To witness a full seven seconds of that match and in that time to witness the standout score not just in that match but in Meath club football probably in the whole decade felt very special, and I felt very lucky. Had, say, the traffic light sequence coming down the Quays that evening been slightly different, I would never have witnessed it. I wasn’t to know it at the time, but that traffic light sequence was a sort of sliding doors moment.
I’m sure people remember that Lansdowne Road stadium had an “open” corner where train passengers could see into the stadium as it passed. If there was a match on, train drivers would usually slow down to a crawl to let the passengers see in for a few moments.
It’s a little known fact that when Paul McGrath scored his great volleyed goal against Hungary in 1989, there was a DART train passing that corner on a go slow at that very moment, and the passengers on it who could see into the stadium witnessed one of the great goals of Irish association football history by pure chance. Imagine being on that train and seeing, perhaps, five seconds of action, and seeing McGrath’s goal, for free. How lucky would you have felt.
That’s how I felt that evening passing that pitch in Enfield.