Stadiums or Stadia

I've been working at a lot of football stadiums recently. Delivering Premier League Reading Stars training days.

What is it about going to work in a stadium?

Even if it's only in a room on the outside of the stadium without a view of the pitch. Even if it's only the training ground. Either way, it's thrilling.

I like being in football stadiums.

I have taken groups of children to stadiums too. It always grips the children. Just like it grips me.

Today it was QPR. Last week it was Wolves and Blackburn.

Stadiums I have worked in: Man C, Man U, Spurs, Newcastle, Norwich, Everton, QPR, Wolves, Blackburn, Bolton, West Ham, Cardiff, Hull, LEEDS UNITED, Leicester, Barnsley, Derby, Pompey, Forest, Charlton, Huddersfield, Sheff U, Carlisle, Preston, Scunthorpe, Crewe, Northampton, Plymouth, Bradford.




Sometimes I even get to sleep at stadiums. Tonight I will be getting my head down at Leicester's Walker Stadium. Last month I slept at Carrow Road. Both have Holiday Inn hotels attached. At Norwich you even get a sheet of paper telling you not to gesture or shout abuse out of the hotel window.

That cuts down on the evening's entertainment.

I am going to be writing a story about an abandonded stadium soon. A ghost story. A group of boys camp inside a football stadium. Then night falls... I would love to research it in a real abandoned stadium.

By the way, don't try that at home! It is illegal to enter abandonded stadiums and camp in them.

And that goes for the adults as well as the children.