European Cup Trivia

[Alex Anderson]

Atatürk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul staged a final, it's been home to Istanbul Büyükşehir Belediyespor, now called Başakşehirspor, as well as Galatasaray and Beşiktaş.

Cheers, sir. That's me now officially thrown back out onto the street where this thread found me punting stuff like "who scored a hat-trick in the European Cup final but ended up on the losing side?"

I had thought Besiktas and Gala used it for bigger games and/or when their current stadiums were being built but did Büyükşehir Belediyespor attempt to move in there permanently?

Antepli has gotten another I reckon.

I didn't look far enough back into Basaksehir'a history. That said, I don't think that the Ataturk meets the permanent home criterion for either of the other clubs.

Given the very large number of lower league clubs in Berlin, I wondered if any of them had called the Olympiastadion home, but cannot find any evidence to that effect.

Yeah, I was working on the basis that they would be at least attempting to be permanent residents at the time of the final played there. I didn't know I was working on that basis when I asked the question. I've decided it retrospectively. And I'm bloody clinging to it now.

I'm sure I read in Tor! about hungover Berliners watching Tennis Borussia or Tasmania playing home games at the Olympic on a regular weekend morning slot during the cold war. But it was only Hertha there in 2015 ... wasn't it? Give me that. Please.

Right now I'm off to bed to fully contemplate what I've done today.

[ursus arctos]

Tasmania played their single 1. Bundesliga season at the Olympiastadion, going from an opening crowd of 80,000 to fewer than 1,000 for a home match with Gladbach at one point.

But that whole story was so much of a one-off that I don't think it really counts.

I don't believe that TeBe ever played home matches there.

And yes, Hertha BSC were the sole club tenants in 2015

[Antepli Ejderha]

I had thought Besiktas and Gala used it for bigger games and/or when their current stadiums were being built but did Büyükşehir Belediyespor attempt to move in there permanently?

Beşiktaş used it for a time when their stadium was being rebuilt but played some of those games around the country. Galatasaray used it for at least a season while their new ground was being built. Apart from the derby games crowds did fall as low as hundreds.

IBB were permanent residents from their debut in the Süper Lig until last season when they moved into their new stadium in the suburb of Başakşehir named after Fatih Terim. The only time they didn't play there was after a U2 concert when the pitch had been ruined.

[Various Artist]

Careful AE, I think Alex may be on the verge of spontaneously combusting here.

Apologies for bringing in the quarter-finals thing by the way AA. And yes, I too was disappointed during my eliminations of possibilities re the 2 x 2 semi-finals question to discover that Turin (my first second-choice Italian city for the category) wouldn't even make the QFs variation of the list since Torino have failed to grace even that advanced a stage in any EC/CL competition.

[Alex Anderson]

Careful AE, I think Alex may be on the verge of spontaneously combusting here.

Nothing spontaneous about it, Various - this is a culmination of 48 years of supermarket own-brand chicken wings, various-sized KFC buckets, large donners (salad and sauce, please, yes) under-a-fiver Côtes du Rhône ... and just so much Tennent's Lager. And then, when I finished nursery school ...

Ah, the bantz - it's as moribund as my ECCC/UCL knowledge.

Of course I'm actually humouring them, VA - there is nothing beyond my ken ... I'm playing the long game: See, just last week I was forced to admit I'd looked up wiki for the purposes of the general European Cup trivial knowledge. Now I need to be seen to be getting stuff wrong, to prove that I'm on the straight and narrow again ... to put them off the trail of my cheating. This European Cup Final Venues list question is like Lance Armstrong's charity work.

Wear my bracelet. Wear my elastic wrist band of deception.

But phrases like "my first second-choice city" - as I'm still trying to get my head round the initial question I set myself ...? Yeah. That'll combust me like a wobbly chair in the sit-in Greggs on Sauchiehall Street.

[Alex Anderson]

IBB were permanent residents from their debut in the Süper Lig until last season when they moved into their new stadium in the suburb of Başakşehir named after Fatih Terim. The only time they didn't play there was after a U2 concert when the pitch had been ruined.

Brilliant stuff, Sir. Thanks. Had no idea Besiktas had moved around a few grounds. Big regret of mine not getting to the old, proper İnönü Stadium - it always looked magical.

Do you know when IBB made their Süper Lig debut? If it was after the 2005 Champions League final, it's possible that knowledge might just save my life. (I never had a reputation anyway)

Yeah - U2. Always the same. Them, the Pope, Bruce Springsteen and the Rolling Stones must have caused more games to have their venues shifted than any "crowd trouble at a previous fixture".

[Alex Anderson]

Tasmania played their single 1. Bundesliga season at the Olympiastadion ... But that whole story was so much of a one-off that I don't think it really counts[/url].

And yes, Hertha BSC were the sole club tenants in 2015

I'm starting to feel not so much empathy for Tasmania in that season, as a sort of symbiosis.

But I still reckon Spartak Moscow is my only 100% confirmed mistake.

I might yet be allowed to stay here, in the warm, rather than back out there in the dark and cold, peddling "What turns up at the European Cup final every year but is never used ..."

I've been in the Mommsenstadion [sic?]. No game on; just stood on the spot of terracing nearest the open gate. Feel I've done that at a million identical German sportsplatz ...es ... sesss. (it's half a dozen at most)

Have a fat photo of me next to their crest on an exterior wall (well, I'm fat in the photo- and the crest was on an exterior wall of the stadium . I don't mean the front of my house is decorated with a two storey mural of me and a Tennis Borussia Berlin crest. No. That would be silly. Plus there'd be no room for it next to my 20 x 20 ft mural of Gerd Mueller in a Rangers shirt cradling the baby Jesus).

Think it was the same day I did the tour of the Olympic stadium - must be close by - near the big block of Le Corbusier council flats? Also found the shopping centre where Hertha played when they won the German title back in the day. But only football I've seen in that great city was at the stadium in the forest. Before the terracing was roofed. Only football you need to see there. Fantastic experience. "Aye-Sern On-ion" they chanted.

But, I digress. Paris. Parc des. What d'ye reckon? Just waiting on word from Istanbul and we can get this job finished before the end of the week. Maybe knock off at lunchtime Friday ...

[Antepli Ejderha]

According to Wikipedia in Turkish these are the tenants. Sivasspor also played a number of games there due to their ground being unsuitable in the winter and the huge number of people from Sivas living in Istanbul.
Galatasaray (2003-2004)
İstanbulspor (2004-2005) their last season in the SüperLig
İstanbul B.B. (2007-2013) from their debut until the name change
Beşiktaş (2013-2016)
Ümraniyespor (2016-)

So it looks like I've got my dates wrong Alex.

[Alex Anderson]

But, I digress. Paris. Parc des. What d'ye reckon? Just waiting on word from Istanbul and we can get this job finished before the end of the week. Maybe knock off at lunchtime Friday ...

Sorry, ursus - you'd already dealt with this. In my desperation to obfuscate I missed your Paris verdict ...

I'd be inclined to include Paris FC.

They were the ground's inaugural club tenant (the first time that PSG played at the Parc was in a second tier curtain raiser to a Paris FC match).

And they were actually the first PSG, having merged with Stade Saint-German in 1970, only to de-merge after their relegation.

And they were ejected from the Parc by the local council against their will.

Though there is the complication that when they played in the Parc, they called themselves Paris Saint-Germain Football Club. But they are clearly NOT the current PSG. Then again, some people consider them the successors to Racing Paris 1.

Maybe 12 and a half?

As to TSV 1860 Munchen, they played in both the Olympiastadion and der Stadion an der Grünwalder Straße before the Allianz Arena was built, but the consensus seems to be that the latter was their primary home ground until 1995. In addition, the rather remarkable on-line club "museum" includes tickets and programmes from Grünwalder Straße for both the 1978-79 and 1992-93 league campaigns.

Accordingly, I think the answer is Olympiastadion 1997 and Allianz Arena 2012 and this is again supported by the evidence in the "museum"

Holy shit. That's some serious knowledge, sir. The bit about them de-merging ... de-merging??!! ... I mean, what the?! Have these people got some sort of psychotic contempt for those of us who like a bit of trivia. So there have been TWO PSGs? Jeezus. I have read this before but I now know I just read over it. Ignored it.

As I gushed after that picture you posted earlier in the thread of the second Parc des Princes, Paris and the romance of that city is central to everything that intoxicates me about the European Cup. Corny but I even have a L'Equipe front page headline blu-tacked to the wall of my spare room. Gabriel Hanot and all that.

But a big part of romance is mystery - and mystery requires a wee bit of ignorance ... and now I'm paying the price for my shocking ignorance on fusion des équipes professionnelles ...

For them to make this list, I want any club to be tenants at the time the final was played at the venue in question. So that makes the differentiation between the old, second Parc and the 70s refurbed third Parc irrelevant. However ...

The final was played at a Parc des Princes in 1956, 1975, 1981. This makes the current PSG - who moved in in 1974 - a definite for the latter two. But Paris FC, oh-so-handily, seem to have played there right up to even perhaps the same season as the 1974-75 European Cup final between Leeds and Bayern (no wonder there was a near-fucking riot. It wasn't the ref - it was people freaking out at the complexity of the stadium's tenancy history).

But are you including Paris FC as having incorporated Racing Club de whatever, so they get the 1956 final?

To answer this question - or to help me understand the question - I did what I should have done long before I ever opened my big mouth on the entire subject: I dug out my copy of Simon Inglis's seminal Football Grounds of Europe. Job done. On all Parisian scores:

The final para of page 122 states that Red Star's merger crazy history incorporated two seasons at the Parc between 1950 and 52. They returned to their Stade de Paris ground thereafter and so can't have been tenants at the Parc des Princes for the first ever European Cup final. Third-last para of page 125 also says, on the subject of the 1967-72 reconstruction, "The so-called Borotra Law stated that no sports facility in Paris could be lost through development, even temporarily."

In the eyes of Inglis himself - the world's leading stadium expert - and those crazy French legal types, all three incarnations of the Parc des Princes are the same stadium. This is good to know. But it gets better ...

Page 124, fourth paragraph (same chapter on the Parc des Princes):

"From 1932-67, after having been substantially rebuilt, it was both cycling venue and home to the capital's leading professional football outfit, Racing Club de Paris". So they were the tenants for the 1956 final. they go on the list. And I could cry at knowing, finally, what to call that gorgeous blue-and-white-hooped club from Paris we all see in those black and white pics.

I mean, the Argentine connection is exciting enough - tango-dancers in Paris - but when I think of the Argentina Rugby team, in their hoops, crowning their greatest IRB World Cup by winning the third place play-off ... against France ... at THE PARC DES PRINCES!! ... wow. Too much. (I always had it in my head that I saw Racing's rugby union side in the Stade Yves du Manoir, in Colombes - which I have visited when empty - as I flew out of Paris last time I was there, but I'm now thinking that was a dream influenced by reading Inglis's book twenty years previously...)

Inglis readily admits the whole Paris scene is confuddling and cites Paris FC as the forebears of the PSG we have today but, as you were explaining yesterday, Racing Club de Paris died in the 1960s and Racing de Paris "... no links whatsoever with the defunct Racing Club de Paris", 4th para, page 127) weren't formed until 1982 (becoming Matra racing from 1987) - a year after the last time the Parc staged the final.

One other thing I thought I'd cleared up through cold, hard research was the exclusion of the Ataturk in Istanbul (sorry, Antelpi Ejderha - thought I couldn't trouble you anymore. Thought I'd probably scared you off anyway): From The Stadium Guide website:

"In 2005, the stadium hosted the 2005 Champions League final, in which Liverpool beat AC Milan on penalties after having drawn 3-3 in regular time.

One year later, in 2006, Istanbul BBSK made the stadium their permanent home, but moved away again in 2014 to Fatih Terim Stadium."

The "one year later" part nailed it.

But, then, as I finally posted this rant we're on right now ...

...
İstanbulspor (2004-2005) their last season in the SüperLig ...

Brilliant work, sir - and don't ever apologise to me for getting anything wrong. You and ursus are the ones doing the research before posting! Im just blurting stuff out that sends everyone round the houses.

The Ataturk goes back on the list ... In the shape of İstanbulspor? I don't know. If I can trouble you again, AE, did İstanbulspor have that one season - the very season it hosted the Champions League final too - at the Ataturk because their own stadium was being rebuilt? Was it a temporary arrangement?

All help gratefully received.

And great work on TSV 1860 too, ursus:


So then, troops, what do you reckon to this so far?*:

VfB Stuttgart (1959 and 1988)
AS Roma (1977, 1984, 1996, 2009)
SS Lazio (1977, 1984, 1996, 2009)
Schalke 04 (2004, Porto v Monaco)
Sevilla (1986, Steaua v Barca)
Hertha Berlin (2015, Barca v Juve)
Young Boys Berne (1961, Benfica v Barca)
Paris St Germain (1975 and 81)
Racing Club de Paris (1956)
Queens Park (1960, 76 & 2002)
Bari (1991, Red Star Belgrade v Marseille)
TSV 1860 Munich (1997 and 2012)

*further İstanbulspor info pending.

And please don't say "I don't really care anymore, Alex...". It would break me. And just as I've found a new reason to live too:

[Various Artist]

But phrases like "my first second-choice city" - as I'm still trying to get my head round the initial question I set myself ...? Yeah. That'll combust me like a wobbly chair in the sit-in Greggs on Sauchiehall Street.

Ah yes, I must confess to a smidgeon of mischief in referring to Turin as my first second-choice double-two-semi-finalist-city-country city previously. Sorry bud.

And, er, for that one too.

[Alex Anderson]

See - much clearer. Was that so hard?

All I had before now was Budapest. And that's a city with three quarter-finalists. Like London. Not a city which can lead to a country that has three cities each providing two quarter-finalists. Like England with London, Liverpool and Manchester.

After the intricacies of Parisian club mergers - and de-mergers - this is a dawdle.

Ish.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Istanbulspor played the previous three seasons at Mimar Yahya Baş Stadyumu in Güngören then moved to the Atatürk Olympic Stadium for the following season. They were in a difficult financial situation and have played in numerous grounds in Istanbul since Cem Uzan nearly destroyed the club.

Before these two grounds and after they were based at Bayrampaşa Çetin Emeç.

I think the Olympic Stadium was not just a one season deal but due to their relegation they moved back to a cheaper option. The Olympic Stadium has been in almost constant use since it was built to avoid it going to ruin. Every time I've visited the ground as an away game we've been inn different parts of the stadium to avoid it going into disrepair. IBB had less than 100 fans before their rebranding and move to Başakşehir.

[ursus arctos]

Alex, the introduction of the requirement that the club in question be a tenant at the time of the Final both makes a lot of sense and eliminates a good deal of the Parisian confusion.

Here's how I would summarise the state of play at the time of each of the Parc finals.

1956 - Racing Club de Paris are the only permanent club tenants and are universally recognised as the city's leading football club. In fact, just a few months after the 1956 Final, RCP organised the first Tournoi de Paris at the Parc, featuring guests Real Madrid, Vasco de Gama and Rot Weiss Essen. Vasco de Gama won the final 4-3 over a Madrid side that included most of the players who had just won the European Cup against Stade de Reims.

The European Cup winning side was: Alonso; Atienza, Marquitos, Lesmes; Muñoz, Zárraga; Joseito, Marchal, Di Stéfano, Rial, and Gento
The one that lost the final of the Tournoi de Paris was: Alonso; Torres, Marquitos (Santamaría), Lesmes; Muñoz, A. Ruiz; Kopa, Mateos, Di Stéfano, Rial (Marsal), and Gento

The only other professional clubs in Paris at the time are both in the second tier: Stade Francais, who play at the Stade Jean Bouin (essentially across the street from the Parc) and Red Star, who play at their historic (and current) home of Stade Bauer in Saint-Ouen, just outside the Peripherique and adjacent to the famous flea markets. Stade Francais will disappear from the professional ranks after being relegated from the top tier in 1965-66, though not before competing in two editions of the Fairs Cup.

1975 - There are two professional teams, both in the top tier. Paris Saint Germain have just completed their first season of residence at the Parc, while Red Star (who are relegated at the end of the 74/75 season) are at Stade Bauer. Having been relegated the previous season, Paris FC lose their professional status and their tenancy at le Parc, being exiled to the Stade de la Porte de Montreuil, a tiny ground on the extreme eastern edge of the city with a capacity of around 1,000. They finished 15th in Groupe A of the then-regionalised D2, just avoiding relegation.

1981 - PSG are the city's only top tier team and the Parc's only club tenants. Paris FC have regained their professional status, but still play in D2 at the Stade de la Porte de Montreuil. Red Star are promoted from the fourth tier to the third, and are still at Stade Bauer.

[Alex Anderson]

Absolutely brilliant, Antepli Ejderha. I thought my having travelled from Valencia to Villarreal and back was the best piece of direct research on this thread but you've just taken it to a whole new level. Could never have established this without you. The essential detail there was the fact Istanbulspor moved into the Atatürk with no intention of moving out.

We did establish long ago, however, that my initial list was a lot of rubbish, and I'm putting fresh sudden emphasis on these provisos to distract from my incompetence, but - hey - we got there in the end thanks to your good self, and ursus and the rest of the lads: We've got a great team spirit and I reckon we could go all the way in this tournament if we get the breaks ...

Love the fact they put you in a different part of the stadium every time you go there - to keep it all ticking over. Very jealous too. I've never been to Turkey, far less any stadia there (seen Gala and Fener at Ibrox in Europe and the national team at Hillsborough and City Ground at Euro 96 but that's it).

Only seen the Atatürk on TV but I've seen enough of it's big wide open spaces to know it must be surreal when the crowd's anything less than 30-40k, far less down into the hundreds. Istanbulspor, in that respect, made themselves the Queen's Park of Turkey - as well as getting themselves on the list which, having just glanced ursus' most recent post, I reckon we are almost in a position to reveal (someone phone Reuters!) ...

[Alex Anderson]

Ursus. You're killing me here man. A four team tournament with Racing Club de Paris, Vasco da Gama and Real Madrid. Chuck in the first foreign team ever to play European Cup football on British soil - those red and whites from Essen - and I'm fit to burst. I was just getting over AE's tales of the Atatürk too...

Fantastic research again. Bloody fascinating. We should submit this as a paper. Bagsie I'm Rosalind Franklin to your Crick, AE's Watson and everyone else's Maurice Wilkins.

It seems, in Paris, one club has to be forming and another disappearing as the Parc des Princes is rebuilt and/or hosting the European Cup final.

So, if I can just treble-check - because the world is watching - you are saying Paris FC had left the Parc des Princes the season PRIOR to 1974-75?

[ursus arctos]

Oui, monsieur

The council turfed them out in the spring/summer of 1974, so that they could install their new BFFs from PSG.

[Alex Anderson]

Oui, monsieur

The council turfed them out in the spring/summer of 1974, so that they could install their new BFFs from PSG.

Fucking GET IN! (or "get out!", as was the case in 1974 - WHY DID THEY HAVE TO DO ALL THIS SO NEAR TO STAGING THE EUROPEAN CUP FINAL??!! Inconsiderate bastards...) That's our double helix.

Ladies and gentlemen of ursus arctos's European Cup trivia thread, by way of making a public excuse for setting a question to which I didn't know the answer and taking no responsibility for my ignorance, here is the CONCLUSIVE and FULLY-COMPREHENSIVE, £250 excess LIST of ...

... clubs whose ground has hosted the final but they themselves have never won the European Champion Clubs' Cup/UEFA Champions League:

Racing Club de Paris (1956, Real Madrid v Stade de Reims)
VfB Stuttgart (1959 and 1988)
Queen's Park (1960, 76 & 2002)
Young Boys Berne (1961, Benfica v Barca)
Paris Saint-Germain (1975 and 81)
AS Roma (1977, 1984, 1996, 2009)
SS Lazio (1977, 1984, 1996, 2009)
Sevilla (1986, Steaua v Barca)
Bari (1991, Red Star Belgrade v Marseille)
TSV 1860 Munich (1997 and 2012)
İstanbulspor (2005, Liverpool v Milan)
Schalke 04 (2004, Porto v Monaco)
Hertha Berlin (2015, Barca v Juve)




Good luck phrasing that as a question for your mates ... but there are THIRTEEN answers.

I'd just like to thank everyone for their hard work. Couldn't have done it without you ("patently!") ... I'm tearing-up here but - *sniff* - these flowers are for you, ursus ... Antepli Ejderha, please accept these chocolates with our gratitude; and love and peace to everyone who helped us all through this dark time. There's too many to name (ad hoc, denishurley, blameless, VA, Wouter D and Satchmo) ... but, please, everyone - just remember ... we'll always have Racing Club de Paris.



And, of course, PSG could remove themselves from this list this very season ... just as Red Star Belgrade (1973, Ajax v Juve) did in 1991 ... and Barcelona (1989, Milan v Steaua) did in 1992 ... ENOUGH! STOP!

[Antepli Ejderha]

Great work Alex. Istanbulspor appeared in the Intertoto in 1997/8 and the UEFA Cup in 1998/9 and have finally got back to the second tier of Turkish football. Looking at the list of 13 how many of those sides were worse?

[Sam]

Have a fat photo of me next to their crest on an exterior wall (well, I'm fat in the photo- and the crest was on an exterior wall of the stadium . I don't mean the front of my house is decorated with a two storey mural of me and a Tennis Borussia Berlin crest. No. That would be silly. Plus there'd be no room for it next to my 20 x 20 ft mural of Gerd Mueller in a Rangers shirt cradling the baby Jesus).

Think it was the same day I did the tour of the Olympic stadium - must be close by - near the big block of Le Corbusier council flats? Also found the shopping centre where Hertha played when they won the German title back in the day. But only football I've seen in that great city was at the stadium in the forest. Before the terracing was roofed. Only football you need to see there. Fantastic experience. "Aye-Sern On-ion" they chanted.

Yeah, they're very nearby. When I went with my best mate in 2008 we watched TeBe one evening (my birthday, funnily enough; the away side had a man sent off early on and went on to win 5-0 anyway), and then Hertha in the Olympiastadion the next day. They're basically across the train tracks from one another, I think we got off one stop earlier for TeBe.

[ursus arctos]

Not as close together as the Parc des Princes and Stade Jean Bouin

[Kevin S]

Hang on, you seem to have started a new list of clubs whose first win came after the final was played at their stadium...

[Various Artist]

*grabs popcorn*

This should be fun to watch. Alex?

Alex?

*grabs fire extinguisher*

[Kevin S]

Milan yes, but Inter no, interestingly.

Ha, no, that's bollocks! *Ducks*

[Satchmo Distel]

Of the stadia that have hosted the final, has any waited longer than the 35 years that Old Trafford did after their resident team had first won it?

Which winners had the smallest home capacity at the time? Was Chelsea's lower than Nottingham Forest's?

I have only visited a dozen or so grounds that have been in their domestic top flight but five of those belong to finalists Leeds, Liverpool, Forest, Barcelona and Ajax.

[Alex Anderson]

Hang on, you seem to have started a new list of clubs whose first win came after the final was played at their stadium...

As Julie Burchill said of her many overlapping affairs, you don't get out the bath til the central heating's on. There's no way I'm finishing one list without starting another in the same breath. So it has to be the list which perfectly compliments the last one. This is the list which all thirteen of those clubs we fought so hard to find over the past few days would just love to jump across to.

[Oh yeaaaaah. Trying to make it sound sexy. When, really, it's the very opposite ...]

Appreciate you noticing Kev, but I seem to have finished it as I started it. The new one is a two-club list. In the space of a year Red Star Belgrade then Barcelona became the only clubs to win the European Cup/UCL after hosting the final.[/B] That's it.

The rest, as they say, is mere detail. But us adults just luuuuurv that detail. Chidren, look away now. Coz this here's gown get naaaaasty:

*********************************

Even the Bernabeu, hosting just the second final ever staged, is scuppered from joining this new list by Real Madrid having won the first final ever played ... at the home of, let us not forget, Racing Club de Paris (Ahhhhhh. Gorgeous.)

Ernie Walker, the SFA's Goebbels and UEFA's former stadium dictator, declared Benfica's original stadium of light didn't have enough, erm, lights so even though the old place got the 1992 Cup-Winners' Cup final, and had hosted the home leg of the 1983 UEFA Cup decider, it wasn't til Benfica had their whole, new, Euro 2004-final-hosting Estadio da Luz that they got to host the Champions League final. In 2014. A mere 53 years after Benfica first won the European Cup.

Milan yes, but Inter no, interestingly.

Ha, no, that's bollocks! *Ducks*

Just to rub it in, neither of Milan's big two had won the European Cup by 1962 and the San Siro was due to stage the final for the first time in 1965: AC won the European Cup in 1963 and Inter in 64, before retaining it on their own shared ground the following season.

Not many people know that Manchester United won it for the first time at Wembley. It's been seriously under-publicised, that final. But I'm here to say that Wembley 68 wasn't "home" enough. Old Trafford didn't stage the final til 2003, by which point Alex Ferguson (he used to be their manager. Scottish bloke. Big red nose. You'd recognise him if ye saw him.) had added another ECCC/UCL to the Man U trophy cabinet. (Again, a woefully un-reported evening that. They were actually trailing Bayern until ...)

Feyenoord won it at the San Siro in 1970 and De Kuip hosted the first of its European Cup finals two years later.

Ajax , who first won The Cup With the Big Ears in 1971, is where we could have had some quibbles. The famous Benfica v Real Madrid final of 1962 being staged at Amsterdam's beautiful Art Deco Olympic Stadium where Ajax played all their big European (and other midweek games). But De Meer was always their official home ground. The Olympic Stadium was never Ajax's proper home. By the time the ArenA was opened and staged the 1998 final between Real Madrid and Juve, Ajax had their four European Cups/UCLs safely registered.

Bayern Munich won their first in 1974 and co-hosted the final in 79, Steaua Bucharest's "home stadium" situation - even Steaua's identity/existence - is of Parisian-level complexity but is thankfully made moot by the fact the first European club final of any kind played in Bucharest - the 2012 Europa League final - came 26 years after Steaua won the only competition this thread's concerned with.

*grabs popcorn*

This should be fun to watch. Alex?

Alex?

*grabs fire extinguisher*

Oh yeah. You like watching don't you ... playing with yer little nozzle ... You'll need that extinguisher - coz this page is on fayur with the European Cup trivia ...

The stadiums that it's now too late for, their clubs having annoyingly won the European Cup/Champions League already:

Celtic Park, The City Ground and Stamford Bridge have never had a European final; Anfield's only had the home legs of the 1973 and 76 UEFA Cup finals, Villa Park had the last ever Cup-Winners' Cup final but nowt else, and the Volkspark Stadion had the home leg of the UEFA Cup final just the year before HSV won the European Cup (as well as the first ever Europa League final in 2010).

Nether Das Antas nor Do Dragao, amazingly - like the Stade Velodrome so far - ever hosted a European final; the Philips Stadium hosted only, I think, the home leg of the 1978 UEFA Cup final and the entirety of the 2006 UEFA Cup final and - equally unbelievably - the Westfalenstadion has never had the ECCC/UCL final (only the home leg of the 1993 UEFA Cup final and all of that same final in 2001, Liverpool v Alaves).

But the "one" I find most stunning is two seriously refurbished stadiums in Turin. The Delle Alpi had Torino and Juve's home legs of UEFA Cup finals in successive seasons in the 90's, and the old Communale - the current Stadio Olimpico - had the 1965 Fairs Cup final and the home leg of Juve's 1977 and 90 UEFA Cup final appearances. The Juventus Stadium, on the site of the delle Alpi, hosted the 2014 Europa League final but neither venue in Turin has ever hosted the biggest European club final of them all.

[And, no, just in case anyone's interested in my mentions of other European club finals, as I always tell my grandchildren, THE SUPER CUP DOESN'T COUNT].

Of course, by the end of the current season, PSG will want to join Crvena Zvezda and Barca on the shorter list - and, remove themselves from the last list we all lovingly put together with absolutely no tension, swearing or nervous breakdowns incurred. But, if Neymar does make the historic difference in the final match of this season's UEFA Champions League - or if Sevilla or AS Roma destroy the form book and lift the big one - Dynamo Kiev will, on the same night, keep the members of that hard-won list of ours at thirteen.

Spartak Moscow - let us be clear - have fuck-all to do with it.