The 'AWD-Arena' is a
football stadium located in
Hanover,
Germany. The 49,000 capacity stadium is the home ground of the
Bundesliga club
Hannover 96.
History
The stadium was originally known as 'Niedersachsenstadion' (Eng: ''Lower Saxony Stadium''), built between 1952-1954, with an original capacity of 86,000. Huge amounts of debris from the houses in
Hanover destroyed during
World War II, were used as the fundament of the stadium, that had a construction cost of 4million DM. The stadium officially opened on September 26, 1954.
Hannover 96 moved permanently to the stadium from the
Eilenriedestadion in 1959. Other local clubs, such as
Arminia Hannover,
OSV Hannover,
TSV Havelse and Sportfreunde Ricklingen have also held matches there. In addition, the stadium has hosted numerous international matches, 4 (old) league championship games (1955,57,58,61), 2
DFB Supercup finals (1991-92) and 8
DFB Cup finals (1962,63,65,70,72,75,77,79).
Aside from football, the stadium was also the scene of several German athletics championships, the German Turnfest (a sports festival), Field Handball finals, Rugby and American football.
Since the performance of the
Rolling Stones in 1982, the stadium has developed into the premiere open air concert venue in Northern Germany. After the stadium underwent extensive revelopment in 2003/04, the open air tradition was revived again with a concert again by the
Rolling Stones in the new arena. It has since hosted performers such as
Madonna and
Genesis.
Since 2002, it had carried the name of sponsor and financial services provider
AWD.
International football tournaments
1974 FIFA World Cup
The stadium was one of the nine venues chosen for (West) Germany's first hosting of the
World Cup. This event saw the number of seats increase to 38,000, which entailed a decrease in the overall capacity to 60,400. In addition, the upper rank of the west grandstand was completely roofed. These alterations cost 26million DM. Newly modified, the arena featured in both the first and second group phase.
The following games were played at the stadium during the World Cup of 1974:
1988 European Championship
When Germany hosted its second international tournament, the stadium was again chosen as a venue. By now, due to the conversion of 8,000 terrace spots into single seating, the capacity stood at 55,000. It hosted two group matches:
2006 FIFA World Cup
The stadium was one of the venues for the
2006 FIFA World Cup. However, due to FIFA sponsorship contracts, the arena had to officially be called ''FIFA World Cup Stadium Hanover (FIFA WM Stadion Hannover)'' during the World Cup. The stadium also had to convert its remaining standing areas into seating, thus reducing the capacity for the tournament to 43,000.
The following games were played at the stadium during the World Cup of 2006:
Modern redevelopment
The redeveloped AWD-Arena
Although the stadium has seen many changes through the years, none were as extensive and impacting as the redevelopment of 2003/04, which cost 65 million euros.
There had been much controversy within the club's fanbase over suggestions of building a new football arena for many years before. Eventually this led to the decision to preserve and comprehensively redevelop the existing stadium in 1997/98. When Germany was somewhat unexpectedly awarded the hosting of the
2006 FIFA World Cup, the major stadium work was finally put into action.
During 2003/04, major parts of the stadium were rebuilt and thus the maximum capacity was reduced to 49,951 (of which around 8,000 are standing spaces). Before 2003, the stadium had had high floodlight masts (referred to by locals as 'toothbrushes'), track and field facilities inclusive and about 60% was open plan. The redevelopments transformed it completely into a football arena and removed approximately 70% of the previous building. The roof and about 25% of the area at the outer edges of the west grandstand were demolished like the north, south and east grandstand.
Instead of the previous scoreboards, the arena gained two modern video boards and replaced the old floodlight masts with 160 modern single headlights, which were integrated into the roof structure, supplying a light density of 1500 lux.
The pitch, under which a high performance drainage system and a cabin ground heating system was installed, was moved closer to the spectators than ever. With the removal of the track and field facilities, the pitch was moved directly to the west grandstand and the remaining grandstands were then built around it. This necessitated the stands behind the goals be designed in such a way that the upward gradient becomes larger gradually from west to east, creating a rather peculiar asymmetry, as the original west grandstand possessed such small angles of inclination and the new east grandstand was as constructed as steeply as possible.
The new inner roof was constructed using ETFE (Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene) to allow sunlight through and thus allow the grass the grow naturally, whilst also protecting all spectators from bad weather
[1]. This care for the pitch helps avoid the constant need to re-lay it as in many other roofed stadiums.
The new business and corporate packages of the AWD-Arena are just like the press area in the east grandstand. There are approximately 1,250 business seats, 29 VIP boxes for 10-12 people and 96 press places.
Work on the stadium finished ahead of schedule in December 2004. The first football match held following the redevelopment was on January 23, 2005, where
Hannover 96 lost 0-3 to
Bayer Leverkusen in the
Bundesliga.
External links
Official website
Fan photos from the old Niedersachsenstadion
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