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You Could Fit the Whole Town

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    You Could Fit the Whole Town

    Inspired by the thread in football, towns with stadia that are completely disproportional to their size:

    Some early contenders

    Thurles - population 8,000; Semple Stadium (GAA) holds 53,000

    Guingamp - population 7,500; the Stade du Roudourou holds over 18,000

    State College, Pennsylvania - population 42,000; Beaver Stadium (Penn State gridiron) holds 106,500

    Auburn Hills, Michigan - population 21,000; The Palace at Auburn Hills (home of the NBA's Detroit Pistons) holds 22,076

    #2
    You Could Fit the Whole Town

    Don't US College stadia do very well at this?

    Somewhere like Ole Miss has a stadium that fits 60,000 in a town, Oxford, with a population of 20,000

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      #3
      You Could Fit the Whole Town

      That's why I mentioned State College.

      Quite a few SEC stadia are bigger than the towns that host them. In addition to Old Miss: Alabama and Auburn for sure, Georgia and Florida come close.

      Though I should have picked

      Clemson, South Carolina: population 14,000; Memorial Stadium (Clemson college football, 81,500)

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        #4
        You Could Fit the Whole Town

        I presume that you wouldn't allow the US satellite-town thing to count here, would you? Something like the MetLife stadium is in a "town" with a population of only 8,000 but a metropolis of 20 million...

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          #5
          You Could Fit the Whole Town

          Thurles is the biggest, but there are loads of these in GAA. It's because they're small towns hosting a team representing the whole county, or even province, rather than just the town itself.

          Others:

          Killarney: 14,219 Fitzgerald Stadium: 43,180
          Castlebar: 10,826 MacHale Park 38,000
          Clones: 2,500 St Tiernach's Park 36,000 (!!!)
          Cavan: 10,767 Breffni Park 32,000
          Port Laoise: 20,145 O'Moore Park 27,000
          Omagh: 21,297 Healy Park 26,500
          Kilkenny: 24,423 Nowlan Park 24,000

          etc.

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            #6
            You Could Fit the Whole Town

            There's a couple in Scotland.

            Ross County: population of Dingwall 5491, Victoria Park 6541
            Brora Rangers; population 1160, Dudgeon Park 4000

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              #7
              You Could Fit the Whole Town

              Victoria Park (capacity 6,540) could accommodate the population of Dingwall (5,500) but not of Ross-shire.

              ETA: Too slow!

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                #8
                You Could Fit the Whole Town

                Felcsut Hungary. Population 1688. Stadium capacity 3500.

                Orban's folly

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                  #9
                  You Could Fit the Whole Town

                  For whatever reason this sent me down the path of abandoned football stadiums, particularly Pripyat. FC Stroitel Pripyat played at what was the Avanhard stadium - can't find any capacity information but the images of the abandoned stadium are typically mindblowing similar to anything within the exclusion zone.

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                    #10
                    You Could Fit the Whole Town

                    The baseball stadium in Fukushima holds 30,000.

                    They have applied to host baseball matches at the Tokyo Olympics.

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                      #11
                      You Could Fit the Whole Town

                      Drnovice (pop 2000) played in a ground that held 6,500. So three times over. Which doesn't compare with the Irish exmaples, but then as Toro pointed out the resident of those grounds is meant to represent and draw from something with a much wider population.

                      Drnovice's ground also hosted a full internaional match, I believe. Which must have been a bizarre experience for all involved.

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                        #12
                        You Could Fit the Whole Town

                        longeared wrote: There's a couple in Scotland.
                        Ross County: population of Dingwall 5491, Victoria Park 6541
                        laverte wrote: Victoria Park (capacity 6,540) could accommodate the population of Dingwall (5,500) but not of Ross-shire.
                        I'm fascinated – does it come down at the end to whether one fat bloke or two thin ones turn up?
                        Still, glad to see the stadium won't be oversized for long, as the fecund folk of Dingwall evidently managed to pop out nine new babies in those three minutes between posts.

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                          #13
                          You Could Fit the Whole Town

                          Drnovice have had a fascinating history

                          I was previously unaware of the Caramel Affair.

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                            #14
                            You Could Fit the Whole Town

                            Velvet Human gets a wee LOL there.

                            These ground capacities depend on local regulations, don't they? I've been to venues in NZ which would "hold" a town of 15-20000, and I'm sure they'd be severely downgraded in the UK. Partly issues like segregation, but also complacency, which is worrying.

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                              #15
                              You Could Fit the Whole Town

                              Didn't spot this when I posted in Football, but Hoffenheim have a 30,000 capacity stadium and Hoffenheim itself has a population not much over 3,000. It is part of the bigger Sinsheim which in has a 35,000 population.

                              Gretna (pop 2,700 - capacity 3,000) qualifies and would have done so with a wider margin if they'd got permission to extend their ground, and then they could have given away even more free tickets to fans of Carlisle United, Queen of the South and Annan Athletic, but the bubble burst anyway.

                              * excluding neighbouring Springfield and Gretna Green.

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                                #16
                                You Could Fit the Whole Town

                                Southern league Bashley has a population of 348 yet it's ground has a safety licence for 4250 spectators.

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                                  #17
                                  You Could Fit the Whole Town

                                  TSG Hoffenheim's Wirsol Rhein-Neckar-Arena holds 30,150 for a village with a population of 3,272.

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                                    #18
                                    You Could Fit the Whole Town

                                    Do racecourses count? Surely you could fit the whole population of most of those towns in there.

                                    Actually, checking out some of the populations, I would estimate that Fontwell Park racecourse could hold more than the 2174 population of Fontwell village, while Market Rasen has 3230 residents.

                                    The winner, surely, in that category is Plumpton, a village of 1644 folk. Unless anyone can find the population of Catterick Bridge.

                                    Difficult to verify as it seems that racecourses do not list their capacities anywhere. (Wikipedia does not tell me the population of Cartmel - does TRL know?).

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                                      #19
                                      You Could Fit the Whole Town

                                      1,831 according to this.

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                                        #20
                                        You Could Fit the Whole Town

                                        If you're going to start including racecourses and other non-stadium venues, then you're on dodgy ground, as the next step would be motor racing circuits.

                                        Silverstone village: a little over 2000 (1,989 in the 2001 census)

                                        Silverstone circuit: 150,000

                                        (More here.)

                                        I think we should stick to stadia.

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                                          #21
                                          You Could Fit the Whole Town

                                          ursus arctos wrote: State College, Pennsylvania - population 42,000
                                          Hold on, there is a town called State College? What?

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                                            #22
                                            You Could Fit the Whole Town

                                            Yes, that's what it's called.

                                            I used to deal a fair bit with the American Philatelic Society who're based there. Frequently, when I had to mail something, my local post office wouldn't believe it either. "You've missed part of the address," "That can't be a real place name." etc.

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                                              #23
                                              You Could Fit the Whole Town

                                              Big Boobs and FIRE! wrote: Southern league Bashley has a population of 348 yet it's ground has a safety licence for 4250 spectators.
                                              There are quite a few non-league grounds like that dotted about. Emley has a population of less than 1,900, but the ground holds 2,000. Tow Law Town has a capacity of 3,000 but the town numbers less than 2,000 souls.

                                              I suppose the UK version of Green Bay would be Aston. Which has a population of 28,000, but Villa Park holds 42,788.

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                                                #24
                                                You Could Fit the Whole Town

                                                It's Reed's hometown.

                                                I imagine that fussbudget will be more concerned about the numerous US towns named "Normal", as they once housed teachers' colleges that were so named to distinguish them from the agricultural and mechanical colleges.

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                                                  #25
                                                  You Could Fit the Whole Town

                                                  College Station, Texas is also another strangely-named university town. I read that it got that name because it was a stop along a railroad, and it was chosen as the site for Texas A&M, so they just named it "College Station."

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