Suzhou Sports Centre Stadium

Suzhou keeps two grounds whose names run into one another. The older Suzhou Sports Centre Stadium stands in Gusu District and takes about 35,000; the newer bowl sits well to the east, in the Suzhou Industrial Park on Zhongxin Avenue East, and carries the Olympic Sports Centre name. Suzhou Dongwu have played at both, which does nothing to keep the two apart in print.

The Industrial Park ground went up between 2015 and 2018, designed by the German practice Gerkan, Marg and Partners with structural engineering by SBP and construction supervised by AECOM. The wider complex opened to the public in June 2018, but the pitch waited until 13 October that year, when China met India in a friendly and neither side scored. The formal inauguration came later again, in January 2019.

By then the first occasion of any weight was already close. On 23 February 2019 the ground took the Chinese FA Super Cup , Beijing Guoan against Shanghai SIPG; 25,132 came through the gates. Earlier in the decade Jiangsu Sainty and Dalian Sidelong had both been tenants in the city.

Football is not the only draw, and on some counts not the main one.