Mestský štadión

From this angle the pitch is a blank sheet. Mestský futbalový štadión in Lučenec is a stadium. The main stand runs long and low, while the opposite terrace leans back at a sharper angle.

The floods of June 2010 did not merely water the pitch; they swallowed the changing rooms and floated the wooden floors out from under the players. The club had to rebuild from the mud, and the pitch itself was stripped and relaid. You can still sense the effort in the way the stands sit close to the touchline, intimate rather than grand. There is no purpose in pretending this is a shrine; it is a place where the local team, MŠK Novohrad Lučenec, has done its work since the older clubs faded away.

A runner-up finish in the second tier brought the crowd through the gates, though no one has kept a tally of the day. The surface is natural grass, cut short and patched where the winter frost has torn it. When the wind comes off the hills behind the stadium it goes straight through the open terraces, and the players on the far side have to adjust their passes. That is enough to tell you what kind of place it is.

The flood damage was repaired, the interior rooms refreshed, and the seating returned to its colours. The town still gathers here on matchdays, and the stands fill when the team needs it most. The rest is noise.