Hohe Warte Stadium

Hohe Warte began as an ambition, not a ground. When First Vienna FC opened it on 19 June 1921, it was built to be the largest, most modern football venue on the continent, and the numbers backed that up: a crowd of roughly 70,000 turned out on 15 April 1923 to watch Austria play Italy. That scale is long gone — a 1953 rebuild cut capacity to 32,000, and a 2005 safety directive from the city council, which barred standing on grass embankments, brought it down to the 5,500 it holds today. What survives is the record. Austria's Wunderteam era took shape here, and the 5-0 win over Scotland in 1931 is remembered as the moment that side announced itself. The same year, the ground hosted the Mitropa Cup final between First Vienna FC and Wiener AC, and it staged Austrian Cup finals in 1929, 1930 and 1937.

Away from football, the pitch has carried strange traffic. In 1924, Pietro Mascagni conducted a performance of Aida for 20,000 spectators, and the same year a boxing card brought Georges Carpentier to face Arthur Townley. Floodlights went up in 1956, and outdoor film screenings drew crowds here in the post-war years. First Vienna FC has stayed the tenant throughout, alongside spells for the club's women's side, the Vienna Vikings American football club and Austria's rugby team. The naming has drifted with sponsorship — Casino-Stadion, then Care Energy-Naturarena — before settling back to Hohe Warte once that backer went under in 2017. The grass pitch remains, as it always has.