Mikkelin Urheilupuisto

The pitch at Mikonkatu sits inside a municipal sports park that the city of Mikkeli has owned and run since the ground was laid out in the Hänninhauta district in the autumn of 1916 — first as a 300-metre running track with a football field inside it.

What a visitor notices before the football is the architecture at the edges. The gates into the park and the functionalist kiosk were built in the early 1930s to designs by Martti Välikangas. The main stand went up in 1959. In 1984 a statue of the Olympic champion Eero Lehtonen was placed in the grounds.

Mikkelin Palloilijat are the home side, and MiPK have played here too. The ground's biggest football crowd came on 16 May 1993, when 6,678 watched MP against TPV in the Veikkausliiga. Finland's national team drew 0-0 with Denmark here in a friendly on 29 August 1979, in front of 4,900.

The park's oddest entries are on ice. It staged matches at two bandy World Championships: Sweden against Norway in 1967, watched by 1,421, and games involving the Soviet Union, Finland and Sweden in 1975.