Some of the TV shots from the upper stands of the Stade Velodrome on tonight's Euros coverage just made it look like a valley with a pitch at the bottom of it. A really fucking steep-sided valley!
So are there any stadia you've been to that have made you feel particularly vertiginous due to their inclines or just imperilled by their lack of safety?
The first time I went to the old Wembley was to see the Raiders vs. the Saints(?) in one of the 'American Bowl's (a friend offered me a ticket). When we got there, I headed straight for one of the main entrances, but the family I was with smiled and said "We're up here, Clive!". I hadn't looked at the ticket or bothered researching the seat layout. (It was pre-internet.) We were 'up in the gods'.
I walked out onto that narrow top tier and instantly just about grabbed onto the nearest solid object to me! The rake of that balcony had to be about 45 degrees, with merely knee-high barriers at the bottom of its few rows to stop you plummeting to your doom. I felt like I was going to trip and roll to my death at any moment, as if in some inescapable nightmare. In time I loosened up and I might have even stood up to watch some of the plays, by the end of the game.
I've never flown (and I'm not afraid to do so) but that felt like the closest I've ever got to flying ...only far less safely!
So are there any stadia you've been to that have made you feel particularly vertiginous due to their inclines or just imperilled by their lack of safety?
The first time I went to the old Wembley was to see the Raiders vs. the Saints(?) in one of the 'American Bowl's (a friend offered me a ticket). When we got there, I headed straight for one of the main entrances, but the family I was with smiled and said "We're up here, Clive!". I hadn't looked at the ticket or bothered researching the seat layout. (It was pre-internet.) We were 'up in the gods'.
I walked out onto that narrow top tier and instantly just about grabbed onto the nearest solid object to me! The rake of that balcony had to be about 45 degrees, with merely knee-high barriers at the bottom of its few rows to stop you plummeting to your doom. I felt like I was going to trip and roll to my death at any moment, as if in some inescapable nightmare. In time I loosened up and I might have even stood up to watch some of the plays, by the end of the game.
I've never flown (and I'm not afraid to do so) but that felt like the closest I've ever got to flying ...only far less safely!
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