Berne Stade de Suisse Wankdorf – Switzerland EURO 2008

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The Swiss capital of Berne is located on the River Aare. The Stade de Suisse Wankdorf is a football stadium in Bern, Switzerland. Stade de Suisse Wankdorf is the home ground of the Swiss football team BSC Young Boys, and is currently the second biggest all-seater football stadium in Switzerland. The Stade de Suisse is one of the venues for the Euro 2008. This stadium will host Group C matches between heavyweights Holland, Italy, France and Romania.

History

The Stade de Suisse was built on the grounds of the former Wankdorf Stadium , which was the venue of the 1954 World Cup final, the famous “Miracle of Berne” where Germany defeated Hungary. The old stadium was demolished in 2001 and opened again in July 2005. The new stadium has a capacity of 32,000 spectators, all covered seats. Like the St. Jakob Park in Basel, the Stade de Suisse has solar panels in the roof which supply much of the stadium’s power needs. Integrated into the roof are solar panels with a yearly production of 700,000 kWh . An interesting feature of the stadium is a single red seat among the other black and yellow seats (the colours of the home team Young Boys). The stadium was officially opened on July 30 , 2005 , although the first match in the new stadium had already taken place on July 16 2005. Young Boys played against Olympique Marseille and lost 2-3 with 14,000 spectators watching. The match was considered an “infrastructure test”, which is why no more than 14,000 tickets were sold.

Other features of the stadium include apartments, a shopping centre, restaurants and even a school integrated into the stadium site.

The stadium was used by FC Thun for three Champions League home matches in 2005, and for one home match in the UEFA Cup Round of 32 this year.

The Hot Seat

A peculiar feature of the Stade de Suisse is the presence of a single, red seat (the other seats are black and yellow). This was the first seat installed at the new stadium, on January 20 , 2005 , and the honour of unveiling it was given to former Young Boys player and manager Walter Eich . There are no tickets available for this seat; every game the seat is occupied by a notable personality, often with ties to Young Boys.

Ice hockey attendance record

The Stade de Suisse with its artificial turf surface was an ideal candidate to provide Europe its first “new era” outdoor attendance record for ice hockey. The idea of playing high profile ice hockey games in a larger venue was first realised with The Cold War between Michigan State and Michigan in 2001.

January 14, 2007, the massive local rivalry of SC Bern and SC Langnau managed to fill the Stade de Suisse with 30,076 fans, an event which was sold out within 53 hours of tickets going on sale. These two rivals regularly fill SC Bern’s home venue Bern Arena with over 16,000 spectators.