I’ve previously covered Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium as well as its smaller sister that was previously used for reserve and ladies team fixtures. However they’ve recently outdone themselves.
Last season City moved their teams into the Academy Stadium, which is housed within the Etihad Campus, their training ground. It seems pretty ridiculous to have your own custom-built ground purely for second-string fixtures, but they’ve definitely pulled it off.
One of my favourite features is the big windows that you can see straight inside from. It’s a really nice touch, and ideal for we’re after on this blog. Thumbs up for that.
The outside is also reasonably interesting, with beautiful sweeping curves everywhere, this is the sort of ground you can imagine a lower league club feeling pretty chuffed with. It’s always a bonus to see random storage areas for things like goalposts on view too.
The only small negative was the appearance of the Christ the Redeemer statue in a City-themed mural. I’m not sure what the link is between Rio and Manchester, barring city having had a couple of Brazilians playing for them, but it seemed odd.
It would be harsh to mark it down just for that. The futuristic self-service ticket machines also nearly knocked it down, but I’m saying the big windows do more than enough to score this favourably. A definite thumbs up from me.
Football Grounds I Can Be Bothered To Visit 