Hanzas vidusskolas stadions

The address gives it away before the gates do: Grostonas iela 5 sits in Skanste, the flat stretch of Riga that spent decades as scrubland behind the exhibition halls and is now being built over. The pitch here belongs to a school. Rīgas Hanzas vidusskola opened on 1 September 1995, with President Guntis Ulmanis at the ceremony.

That order of events explains most of what the venue is. Virsliga football is played here — FK Metta use it as a home ground, and Skanstes SK from the First League do the same. No record attendance has been logged, which is what happens when the ceiling and the average sit more or less on top of each other.

It has taken bigger fixtures when the calendar asked. In March 2014 and again in March 2015 the ground hosted the Federation Cup, the under-18 tournament that brought Latvia, Ukraine, Poland and Georgia to Skanste in weather nobody chooses for football. In the 2014 last sixteen, Metta/LU met Skonto here and lost 2-0.

The name has not moved — no sponsor has been attached, and the older forms, Hanzas stadions and Rīgas Hanzas vidusskolas futbola laukums, still turn up. There are no concerts.