Lemvig Idræts- og Kulturcenter

The Lemvig Idræts- og Kulturcenter is a multi-purpose venue. Where a football stadium is an open bowl, this is a box.

The ground belongs to the handball club, not the footballers. Lemvig GF plays its matches at a separate outdoor venue with artificial turf. Here, the game is played on a hard court. The capacity is 1,400, but you would not call it a sell-out unless the entire town turned out. The seating is divided into 500 places, with the rest standing. It is not a comfortable experience for the away fans.

The building has worn many names, each one a reflection of the local economy. For a decade it was the Vestjysk Bank Arena, named after a bank that no longer exists in its original form. Then came the insurance firm, and now the energy provider. The name changes every three years, a reminder that sponsorship money has come for the hosts, but the structure remains the same. The official title is the most boring of them all: a description of function rather than a brand.

There is nothing romantic about the architecture. It was built in 2007, replacing an older hall that had seen better days. The surface is wood, not turf, and the acoustics are sharp. When the crowd is quiet, you can hear the squeak of shoes. When they shout, the sound bounces off the high ceiling. It is not a temple of sport. It is a place where people come to watch a game on a Tuesday night because there is nothing else to do. The football crowd does not come here. They stay at the stadium down the road.