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    Save the San Siro

    Inter and Milan want to tear it down.

    Hope they get relegated.

    #2
    Given my only experience of the place is 90 minutes of being subject to all manner of unpleasant fluids I care not to speculate on, coins, lighters, general abuse and nazi salutes from the Italian fans in the tier above I'm inclined to agree with them.

    That said I wouldn't mind a chance to take the place in for what it is as a football stadium properly before it does go.

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      #3
      Are Milan or Inter fans worse (in general)?

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        #4
        Originally posted by Sporting View Post
        Are Milan or Inter fans worse (in general)?
        The Inter ultras have friendships with the likes of Lazio, so make of that what you will.

        I'm a Channel 4 era Milanista, and went along to watch them regularly when I lived over there for a few years at the start of the last decade. Never really witnessed any major unpleasantness to speak of, other than one extremely notable time (possibly because of its rarity) in the last game before the derby one year – with that game already put to bed, thoughts were obviously turning to the impending derby and all the anti-Inter songs started to come out, culminating in the final minutes of the match (and on the way out and all round the surrounding streets afterwards) with a fairly overtly racist song about Samuel Eto'o being sung repeatedly and joyously by pretty much the entire stadium.

        So, neither of them are complete sets of angels, but I think you'd find far worse in many other places.

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          #5
          When I saw that Uros had contributed to the thread I thought it might concern his recent visit to Welling. Back in the 90s the car dealership opposite the ground went by the name San Siro and the firm also advertised on the stand, so the stadium was known affectionately by some Welling fans as the San Siro.

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            #6
            Only time there was when I got my brother a trip to Milan v Roma in 2002, the game was a boring 0.0 draw, but the atmosphere was incredible. We got there over an hour before kickoff, and in the taxi out to the game we saw loads of fans heading to the game carrying what looked like Milan branded lunchboxes. When we got to our "seats ", two pieces of moulded plastic screwed into the concrete step, we realised they were cushions. Two hours later my arse was numb. The highlight was the four grumbling old men behind us, you didn't have to speak Italian to know a group of Bitter and Twisted Old Fashioned Football Fans, "Bastardo " and "Cretino " were easy enough to translate.

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              #7
              Went there a couple of years ago - didn't get to see a game but did the stadium tour. It's an amazing place but a bit weird how it just seems to stand alone from everything around it. It feels like a cathedral has been dropped into the middle of an abandoned industrial estate. As someone who loves poking around the non-public bits of arenas and stadiums I can see why the clubs want something new - in terms of layout and facilities to work in as opposed to attend for 90 minutes every fortnight, it doesn't feel like a modern stadium.

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                #8
                I thought the plan was to build a new football-specific stadium next to the old one, while developing the original into a multi-purpose venue.

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                  #9
                  I always found it odd that they'd build a roof that caused the grass to die.

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                    I always found it odd that they'd build a roof that caused the grass to die.
                    That could have been due to lack of, at the time, expert turf technology. San Siro wasn't the only culprit.
                    Last edited by Sporting; 17-12-2020, 12:03.

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                      #11
                      I agree, agree :-)

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Sporting View Post

                        That could have been due to lack of, at the time, expert turf technology. San Siro wasn't the only culprit.
                        Newer stadia haven't exactly avoided that either - Wembley and the Johan Cruijff Arena come immediately to mind.

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                          #13
                          Originally posted by Snake Plissken View Post
                          Went there a couple of years ago - didn't get to see a game but did the stadium tour. It's an amazing place but a bit weird how it just seems to stand alone from everything around it. It feels like a cathedral has been dropped into the middle of an abandoned industrial estate. As someone who loves poking around the non-public bits of arenas and stadiums I can see why the clubs want something new - in terms of layout and facilities to work in as opposed to attend for 90 minutes every fortnight, it doesn't feel like a modern stadium.
                          One of the very few stadium tours I've done. I found the differences between the three dressing rooms (Milan, Inter and away team) really interesting. The Milan one was probably what you'd expect of a modern big club dressing room – all branding and plush individual chairs for the players that looked like they'd come from business class on a plane. By notable contrast, then Inter manager Jose Mourinho had theirs laid out with just rows of stark benches – no individualism permitted, clearly.

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                            #14
                            I've been there twice, once in the mid-90s for the Milan derby and then again in 1999, for a Milan-Chelsea game.

                            In the first instance, with Milan the home team and the Inter fans crammed in a lower tier section, I was amused to see the reaction of the latter when the former scored, which they did twice. Basically, as the ball hit the back of the net the Inter fans at the front of the seating legged it towards the back, which was overhung by the tier above, PDQ as a Milan goal was the signal for a torrent of firework and missiles to rain down on the opposition fans below.

                            As others have mentioned, the stadium's isolation stood out but also it's sheer size. What is/was the capacity back then - ~88k? Whatever it was it looked as though, with some extra seating at the front, levelling up at the top and some judicious filling in, that you could fit another 40k in.

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                              #15
                              Originally posted by Belhaven View Post
                              I thought the plan was to build a new football-specific stadium next to the old one, while developing the original into a multi-purpose venue.
                              Well, the clubs want the "multi-purpose venue" to be a collection of office buildings and hotels on the site of the demolished San Siro.

                              Unfortunately the Italian authorities ruled that the stadium has no significant cultural/architectural heritage.

                              Perhaps a Covid19 will hit the finances of the clubs sufficiently enough to cancel their plans.

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                                #16
                                Two proposed designs here: https://www.nuovostadiomilano.com

                                Both involve keeping bits of the old stadium as the shell around which a park/office development is built, but ripping the 1990 World Cup third tier off the existing stadium (the huge columns holding up the top tier and red roof). The architects who did the 1990 expansion really did a wonderful job in blending in with and respecting the original structure below.

                                The new plans involve planting lots of trees (which will never be planted of course).

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                                  #17
                                  It is worth noting that this is the fifth or sixth proposal for a new ground for one or both of the clubs in the last twenty years, and that Roma's project, which appeared to be infinitely more advanced and was announced to have "been approved" on several occasions, has ground to a halt due to a combination of bureaucratic and financial issues, with that halt ultimately being the key factor in Roma's US owner throwing in the towel (in favour of another US owner). Fiorentina's plans also came to nothing, which was a prime factor in their Italian owners selling to an Italian-American. Every Serie A club realises that Juventus' ground gives them a major economic and competitive advantage, but none of the big city clubs have been able to replicate Juve's success.

                                  The Meazza is a wonderful place to watch football and will always hold indelible memories of the four years that ursus minor and I spent there watching Inter, but (like most Italian stadia) has suffered terribly from very little investment since a World Cup that is now 30 years ago.

                                  It is also worth keeping in mind that the ownership of both clubs is much less grounded in Italian and Milanese life than was the case during the Berlusconi-Moratti era and that Elliot in particular (which acquired Milan through what was essentially foreclosure) explicitly do not have an interest in operating the club for the medium to long term.

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                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by Nocturnal Submission View Post
                                    As others have mentioned, the stadium's isolation stood out but also it's sheer size. What is/was the capacity back then - ~88k? Whatever it was it looked as though, with some extra seating at the front, levelling up at the top and some judicious filling in, that you could fit another 40k in.
                                    Never quite that much as far as I know – think it was more like 82K. The big issue they have with further expansion, which is why it looks a little lopsided with one side only having 2 tiers while the others all have 3, is that it was built right next to the racecourse, who absolutely refuse to cede any ground. So it can't realistically go any higher/wider as it currently is, but yes it would be interesting to know how many extra seats they could add if they'd put seats in all the way down to pitch level (or rather if they hadn't taken them out, as you can see that in photos of the ground pre-1990 the seats did go all the way down).

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                                      #19
                                      There was a period in the 50s/early 60s when the largely non-existent security arrangements allowed for up to 100,000, though I'm not sure that number was ever recorded at a match.

                                      It was reduced to the mid-80s after that, to 82L (as Jobi notes), and is currently at 76K

                                      The World Cup configuration meant that the Italia 90 attendances never reached 75K

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                                        #20
                                        Just had a quick scan of Wikipedia – according to that I was in two crowds of 80,018 there in the 2010/11 season (the derby and the final home game of the season at which Milan were presented with the league championship trophy). Seems slightly unlikely, so I'm guessing that's what the official capacity was that season and those games were both designated sell-outs. Must say it is an absolutely magnificent sight when it's packed to the rafters. And unlike a lot of grounds where you feel they look better during night games, somehow a packed San Siro on a sunny afternoon seemed even more iconic to me.

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                                          #21
                                          Part of that is that the area is quite susceptible to fog at night during the season, to the extent that it wasn't unusual for us not to be able to see part or all of the third tier from the lower half of the second.

                                          Ever derby we attended had a considerable number of people sitting on the walkway steps or otherwise not occupying the place for which they may have had a ticket. Attendance figures were always approximate.

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                                            #22
                                            A friend who was involved with the Curva Sud often said to me that if there was ever a game I wanted to go to that I couldn't get a ticket for, I should just turn up early with him and "help carry the banners" into the ground, and then just...not leave again before the match. So yes, I can't imagine the official attendance figures are 100% precise counts!

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                                              #23
                                              The only semi-semi-semi chance I had to save a World Cup venue stadium was when the Pontiac Silverdome sold for $583,000 USD.

                                              ​​​​​​https://youtu.be/XpmEaSi5YNw

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                                                #24
                                                I'm afraid that the book I originally saw it in is in storage, but it is from the early 50s (maybe even 1950) after Inter moved to the Meazza from the Arena after the war but during a period when the fields on the side of the ground opposite the horse racing track were still used by shepherds for seasonal grazing.

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                                                  #25

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