Vonovia Ruhrstadion

The stadium was not always this shape. The old athletics track, which once allowed the crowd to see a running event before a football match, has been stripped away. What remains is a pure arena for the game, four tiered sections built between 1976 and 1979 by the municipal works office. The record for attendance still sits at 50,000, a number that belongs to the day the new stands opened, when the local team played SG Wattenscheid 09. It has not been approached since, as safety rules and all-seater mandates have tightened the numbers to 26,000 for domestic matches.

The ground has hosted its share of heavyweights. It held the 2004 UEFA Under-21 final, a tournament final played out under floodlights in the Ruhr region. It also saw the German national team beat Finland 7–1 in a World Cup qualifier, and Rangers travel all the way from Scotland to face CSKA Moscow in the Champions League.

Beyond the football, the concrete bowl has echoed with other sounds. David Bowie played here in 1983, and the Monsters of Rock festival brought KISS and Iron Maiden to the city in 1988. The site has lived through different eras, moving from the Stadion an der Castroper Straße to the Ruhrstadion, and finally to the Vonovia Ruhrstadion, a name that reflects the commercial reality of modern sport.