7 Significant Stadiums

The first impression on visiting Rio de Janeiro’s Estádio Jornalista Mário Filho—more commonly known as Estádio do Maracanã (Maracanã Stadium) after the Rio de Janeiro neighborhood in which it is located—is its sheer size. It is one of the biggest football (soccer) grounds in South America. When it was built for the World Cup in 1950, however, it could hold significantly more spectators than it does today. The final of that year’s World Cup between Uruguay and Brazil attracted officially 173,830 fans, although some estimates put the actual attendance at close to 210,000—a record attendance at a World Cup match and one that is unlikely to be broken. Brazil lost the game in a shock defeat, and soccer-mad Brazilians still remember the upset as the Maracanaço (the Maracanã blow).

The stadium, which was designed by two Brazilian architects, Raphaël Galvão and Pedro Paulo Bernardes Bastos, has also been used for exhibition matches for other sports, as well as for a mass conducted by Pope John Paul II and as a regular concert venue.

The stadium’s raison d’être, however, remains soccer, and, appropriately, it is inextricably linked with one of Brazil’s, and indeed the world’s, greatest players, Pelé. It was here that he made his debut for the national team against Argentina in 1957, scored the 1,000th goal of his career in 1969, and played his last game for Brazil against Yugoslavia in 1971. (Andrew Smith)

The Nazis were determined to make the 1936 Berlin Olympics a memorable showcase for Aryan physical superiority, and with this in mind the architect Werner March was commissioned to build the massive stadium (Olympiastadion), the centerpiece of a sports complex in the Grunewald forest to the west of Berlin. As well as the central Olympic stadium, there was a vast athletics field, the Mayfield (Maifeld), with a capacity of 500,000, the Waldbuhne amphitheater that held 25,000 spectators, and more than 100 other buildings to accommodate the various Olympic sports.

Work on the Olympic stadium began in 1934 and was completed in time for the Games in the summer of 1936. Taking the symmetrical form of a large oval, it was built in the monumental Neoclassical style favored by the Nazis and was capable of holding 110,000 spectators. The structure was partially dug into the ground so that the field itself was some 40 feet (12 meters) below ground level. Its sheer scale was intended to impress the world and inspire awe, and in this it certainly succeeded. Although Germany topped the medals table, the Games were most memorable for the performances of the black American athlete Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals in the track and field events—the myth of Aryan superiority completely undermined.

After World War II the stadium was taken over by the British and became part of their military occupation headquarters, where it was used for general sporting activities as well as acting as the home for the local football (soccer) team, Hertha BSC Berlin. After the British withdrawal, the German authorities decided to redevelop the stadium. A new high-tech stadium was opened in 2004 and used as one of the main venues for soccer’s 2006 World Cup. (Adrian Gilbert)

One of the world’s most historic and ancient cities, Athens is home to two Olympic stadiums. It is a city that has embraced the new and the old alike, and within its glittering midst rise shining, modern buildings alongside ancient classical monuments.

The first documented evidence of the Olympic Games dates back to 776 BCE, though they had probably been in existence for many years before that. The Games were held every four years until they were abolished by either Emperor Theodosius I, in 394 CE, or by his grandson Theodosius II, in 435 CE, on the grounds of paganism. The Games were revived in 1896, and the site of the classical Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens, which seated 50,000 spectators, was the location chosen for the new stadium.

Begun in 566 BCE, this stadium, built from white marble, had been the scene of the Panathenaic Games, which were modeled on the Olympics. The site was excavated in 1870, and in 1895 the new stadium was built. The massive project was financed by George Averoff and built by the architects Anastasios Metaxas and Ernst Ziller. It followed the layout of the ancient stadium closely but seated 80,000 people. Although the 1896 Summer Olympics were a success despite a lack of adequate financing, the Games would not return to their country of origin until the summer of 2004, for which another new stadium was built. The 1896 stadium, however, was the venue for the archery competition during the 2004 Olympics. The 1896 Olympic stadium, built on the site of the ancient Panathinaiko Stadium (also known as Kallimarmaron), is an important historical building that acts as a bridge between the ancient past of the city of Athens and its modern reincarnation. (Tamsin Pickeral)

In Scotland, as in England, football (soccer) developed out of a ferocious game played across the country by huge numbers. At the first Scotland–England match on record, in 1599, one player was (reportedly) disembowelled and sewn back up again. Modern-style soccer clubs developed in the later 19th century, and the Glasgow amateur club Queen’s Park, founded in 1867, dominated Scottish soccer until eclipsed by the rival professionals of Glasgow Rangers and Glasgow Celtic, founded in the 1870s and 1880s.

The original Hampden Park in Glasgow was the Queen’s Park ground opposite Hampden Terrace. In 1884 the club built a new stadium on Cathcart Road. In 1903, in a bold bid to maintain its position in Scottish soccer, the club moved to yet another arena, designed by a specialist stadium architect, Archibald Leitch, in the Mount Florida area in the south of the city. By a long way the country’s biggest and best-equipped stadium, it became the accepted place to stage internationals and other major matches. By 1910 it had been enlarged to hold 125,000 spectators, and it was the biggest soccer stadium in the world until the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro was opened in 1950. Hampden’s north stand was built in 1937, and in that year a Scotland-versus-England international was watched by 149,500 spectators, the record attendance figure in British soccer.

After 1945, however, the stadium became dismayingly decrepit, and in 1980 the Scottish Football Association and the Queen’s Park club launched an appeal for money for modernization. The north stand was demolished and other improvements made, which, by the early 2000s, had reduced the all-seater ground’s capacity to 52,000. However, it has remained Scotland’s treasured national soccer stadium. (Richard Cavendish)

Some 10 miles (16 km) northeast of downtown Los Angeles is the town of Pasadena, California, which juts up against the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The town’s name means “of the valley.” It is a beautiful area with a thriving tourist season, but it is perhaps best known for its annual Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl stadium.

The first parade was held on New Year’s Day in 1890, organized by the Pasadena Valley Hunt Club. Horse-drawn carriages were driven in grand style, with the horses and riders decorated in flowers, in a procession through the local streets. This parade was followed by tug-of-war games, polo matches, and other festivities, all designed to celebrate the clement winter weather of the area. The Rose Bowl stadium was designed in 1921 by the architect Myron Hunt and was built in 1922, with its opening game being played on New Year’s Day, 1923. The stadium was originally built in a horseshoe shape but has been added to over the years and is now a complete “bowl.” In 1923 the tradition began of holding the annual Rose Bowl college football game after the parade—a game that became the most famous and historic of the bowl games; it is commonly referred to as the “granddaddy of them all.” Apart from the historic Rose Bowl college football games, the stadium has hosted numerous other major sporting events, including Super Bowls, World Cup football (soccer) finals for both men and women, and Olympic soccer events.

The Rose Bowl stadium has a seating capacity of more than 90,000 people and continues to hold prestigious sporting events. It is one of the most historic of the great U.S. stadiums and remains one of the most elegant. (Tamsin Pickeral)

The large expanse of green on the north side of Chicago that makes up Wrigley Field is in fact relatively small for a baseball stadium, and the historic site is one of the smallest active baseball stadiums in the United States. It is located in the largely residential area of Lakeview, but the neighborhood is more commonly referred to as “Wrigleyville.”

Wrigley Field is among the most treasured of baseball parks in the United States. It was designed in 1914 by Zachary Taylor Davis, who had worked with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. The site was originally built for the Federal League baseball team the Chicago Whales and was called Weeghman Park, after Charles Weeghman, who owned the team. The following year the Federal League folded, and Weeghman, with nine others (including William Wrigley, Jr.), bought the Chicago Cubs. In 1920 the Wrigley family bought the Cubs outright, and the park was renamed Cubs Park. It was not called Wrigley Field until 1926. Over the course of the years, the stands and the layout of the field have been considerably added to, but perhaps the most significant additions were those made in 1937. This was the year that Bill Veeck, the Cubs’ treasurer, planted the park’s famous ivy on the outfield wall. The ivy thickly covers the wall during the summer, and if any ball is hit into the ivy and lost, it is ruled a “ground-rule double.” Veeck also erected the manual outfield scoreboard.

Numerous baseball traditions have started up at Wrigley Field, including singing the national anthem before a game and the song “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” (Tamsin Pickeral)

Australia is famously a sports-mad nation, and there is no more-famous sports ground in the country than the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the MCG as it is affectionately known. Although little remains of its original structure, the ground embodies the history of sport in Australia.

The Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) was founded in 1838 and was granted the land on which the club now stands in 1853, when it was forced to move from its former site to make way for Australia’s first steam train. An 1876 stand—now long gone—was reversible, allowing spectators to watch cricket at the ground in summer or football (soccer) in the park in winter. Only the historic members’ stand now remains, because the ground has been consistently redeveloped and expanded over the years to a seating capacity of about 100,000 people.

The MCC has played a major role in Australian cricket because it was the first club formed in Victoria and in 1856 hosted the first match between New South Wales and Victoria. In 1862 the MCC hosted the first match against an England team and, most famously, in 1877 the first game of Test cricket between Australia and England, won by Australia by 45 runs. England won the second match by four wickets, thus drawing the series. The club also hosted the first one-day international cricket match in 1971 and the 1992 World Cup cricket final. As well as cricket, the ground is home to many other sports. The MCC was involved in drafting the first set of rules for Australian Rules Football in 1859 and has hosted numerous soccer matches. The stadium was also the centerpiece of the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games. Pope John Paul II held a mass here when he visited the city in 1986, and numerous rock bands have performed on this hallowed ground. (Simon Adams)