Living near a football stadium?

[KatherineofGaunt]

Does anyone live near a football stadium and could offer their views on what it's like, particularly if you're not a football fan? We have a choice of two houses and I like one better and the local school seems better too, but it's fairly near a football stadium (not a massive capacity, I think - about 24000). It's about a third of a mile, I'd say.

Can I ask for your experiences of living near one, please? TIA.

I used to live right near Carrow rd, so not an enormous stadium. There would be lots of foot traffic on match days but there were parking restrictions for street parking so that wasn't a problem.

Though I would avoid the pubs nearby on match days. There would usually be police about so there wasn't too much antisocial behaviour.

Parking might be an issue on match days which is easy enough to check out. I can't think of anything else.

We live about a mile from two stadiums (stadia?) and it's not too bad. Things to consider though:

• People do park on our road and the roads around us and walk to the ground, so if you don't have off street parking it may be a problem on match days.
• Traffic is bad if you get your timing wrong coming home from the shops on a Saturday afternoon (but now I tend to check ahead and avoid driving at those times).
• You can occasionally hear some crowd noise from the garden.

I'd drive around the area on a match day and see what it's like to get an idea of parking and traffic.

A relative of mines lives in Finsbury Park where the arsenal stadium is. When there's a home game, the streets/pubs are all packed. Very loud. Roads have permits.

Depends on the level of football! I don't but am a football fan and there can be a bit of antisocial behaviour as well as congestion.

Thanks for replies. Yes - will have to go round on a match day! Off-street parking so hopefully that won't be a problem. Is it one home match every week? Do you think evening noise will be a problem if the match starts at half 7/8pm? Perhaps I'm overthinking, but I'm really not a fan!

I live a 3 minute walk to a 50,000 seater football stadium, they were in the Premiership but not now. The only problem is parking on match days, as long as you are already parked about an hour or so before kick off it tends to be ok after that iys a case of finding a spot and walking home but its never too far away. Just a few streets back from ours and you tend to find a spot ok. If you are the kind of person who can't handle not being able to park right outside your house then I'd maybe give it a miss. It doesn't bother me at all and now my 14 year old is a season ticket holder I actually really like it as he can walk over and back and there is always a lot of people making the walk so I know he is safe even on the evening matches.

Noise won't usually be a problem after the match, people leave pretty quickly, especially with evening kick offs.

Ah as for noise if its a really calm day and you are sat outside you can sometimes here a faint noise if a goal is scored but in general you can't hear it. The stadium near us have had Take That and Beyonce playing there and we didn't even hear that. The noisiest bit is the car doors opening and closing when they come back from the match and even that doesn't really impose and our house is straight on the pavement no front garden or anything. Very very rarely will a few still be singing etc but they mostly have that out if their system by the time they get here. I've lived near a pub before and living near the stadium is a lot quieter.

I could hear the crowd noise/tannoy from outside my house, but not from indoors.

It would be a No from me. I live relatively close to Hampden, and have also driven through/near Ibrox often enough on match days. Parking clogging up local streets, horrific tailbacks, public transport being overcrowded before/after matches, pissing in street/gardens, rubbish, large crowds of people drinking in the street etc etc.

I used to live half a mile from the Emirates. I loved it but there are definitely pros and cons and things to check-

• parking on match days. Is it controlled? If not, might be an issue.
• fans arriving by public transport will generally be directed to take a particular route to the stadium. Is your house on that route? Where we were, houses on that road went for £50-100k less than the surrounding streets
• which roads are closed to traffic on match days?
• difficulty of driving in local streets immediately before and after matches due to the number of pedestrians
• noise- obviously the Emirates is a much bigger stadium but we could definitely hear when a goal was scored. Not unpleasant at all but worth bearing in mind if it’s likely to bother you.
• where are the burger vans etc located?
• which pubs are affected?

Overall I’d say our proximity to the stadium was a good thing but I quite like football so that’s a factor. I loved the sense of connection people locally felt to the club and the club also engaged with the community really well, sending coaches to help out in local schools, getting players to do appearances for fetes and charity events etc. We only ever experienced anti-social behaviour once when a load of Dortmund fans arrived for an international game, were dropped in Finsbury Park and ended up coming down our street (where there was no police presence)- a failure of planning and policing which only happened once in a decade.

I think the best thing to do would be to go there on a few match days and see for yourself. Stand outside the house and listen, watch the routes fans walk etc.

@weebarra

Depends on the level of football! I don't but am a football fan and there can be a bit of antisocial behaviour as well as congestion.

It's one is the lower divisions, not Premier League. Will that make a difference?

Also, I've just done some looking on Google maps and no pubs around in this area, certainly not within reasonable walking distance. So hopefully that will limit antisocial behaviour!

Never thought about if my DS ends up being a fan, @NamechangedforthisillgowithBob, so it's good to know your son gets a lot out of living nearby.

It's one is the lower divisions, not Premier League. Will that make a difference?

Yes it will make a huge difference, lots less people attending, also a lot less away fans tend to go to the lower league games. Also they won't host international games.

@Umbella

I used to live half a mile from the Emirates. I loved it but there are definitely pros and cons and things to check-

• parking on match days. Is it controlled? If not, might be an issue.
• fans arriving by public transport will generally be directed to take a particular route to the stadium. Is your house on that route? Where we were, houses on that road went for £50-100k less than the surrounding streets
• which roads are closed to traffic on match days?
• difficulty of driving in local streets immediately before and after matches due to the number of pedestrians
• noise- obviously the Emirates is a much bigger stadium but we could definitely hear when a goal was scored. Not unpleasant at all but worth bearing in mind if it’s likely to bother you.
• where are the burger vans etc located?
• which pubs are affected?

Overall I’d say our proximity to the stadium was a good thing but I quite like football so that’s a factor. I loved the sense of connection people locally felt to the club and the club also engaged with the community really well, sending coaches to help out in local schools, getting players to do appearances for fetes and charity events etc. We only ever experienced anti-social behaviour once when a load of Dortmund fans arrived for an international game, were dropped in Finsbury Park and ended up coming down our street (where there was no police presence)- a failure of planning and policing which only happened once in a decade.

I think the best thing to do would be to go there on a few match days and see for yourself. Stand outside the house and listen, watch the routes fans walk etc.

Amazing, thank you, lots of things to look for. The house is kind of in a dead end, driving-wise, so not on any routes to the stadium from public transport. And I doubt any burger vans hang out down there!

I'm quite excited to go and look on a match day now - if it doesn't seem too bad I think we'll go for it! I do really like the house.

we used to live near one (less than half a mile).

very briefly champions league.
but most of the time championship league.

was quite busy on match day, but was well communicated by the club (home game schedule posted through door).
you were not able to take car shopping on that day though due to parking issues.

very little disturbance by fans other than foot traffic befor/after match.

hearing the chants during the game was lovely - there is nothing quite like being cheered on when hanging out the washing

As an ethnic minority, I'd never buy near a football stadium.

Is it a ground that’s only used for football or does it get used for concerts or other events?

Our local stadium isn’t big and the team are league one, but the ground is used for lots of other things than football so that might be worth thinking about too.

I used to live a short walk from a football ground (major city, championship league) and it was amazingly fine on match days. No parking problems as I think the road was so close people assumed they couldn’t park there.

I wouldn’t want to live too close to the pubs where you get a lot of the crowds pre- and post- game and people hanging around drinking whereas I was on a road where people just walked through.

I lived on a street just off from the stadium in my city. Once a year the local Derby caused some drama, mainly a massively increased police presence as our road was used to funnel the away fans to and from the stadium avoiding the home pub.

Other than cheers for goals etc, I never even really noticed it.

Most notable was the day I went to put the bins out and found a police horse munching the grass in the front garden, waiting for the end of the match.

I also used to live half a mile from Emirates but in a different direction to the poster above.

The problems we had:

• Traffic is insane on game days; despite being inner London, people still drive and park so it’s hard work getting in/out of the area
• Even controlled/resident only parking gets extremely crowded because mini cabs use spaces (sitting in their cars so they can leave if a traffic warden comes around); also residents sell visitor permits on the black market (on game days, all “visitors” seemed to own black Range Rovers)
• Any nearby public transport nodes become very crowded. Our particular tube would shut for an hour before and after the game

On the upside, as long as you’re not on a walking route to the stadium, there’s very little disruption. We could just about hear if a goal was scored & the windows were open. We were near ish a big pub but just far enough in the wrong direction from the Tube that we didn’t get many passers by.

I have a dim view of football and celebrated every Arsenal loss (meant fewer games) but our experience definitely wouldn’t put me off living near a stadium as it wasn’t bad at all.

Not a football stadium, but I live right next to a famous racecourse.
TBH I absolutely hate race days. Its noisy, the roads are shut, people are totally wankered at 4pm. I imagine it would be similar.

I used to live near a Championship football ground. Obviously some noise, which didn’t bother me too much. Traffic & parking was an issue on match days. The odd person urinating in the garden/vomiting on the pavement. Wouldn’t choose to do it again TBH.

@Pearlyqueen21

It would be a No from me. I live relatively close to Hampden, and have also driven through/near Ibrox often enough on match days. Parking clogging up local streets, horrific tailbacks, public transport being overcrowded before/after matches, pissing in street/gardens, rubbish, large crowds of people drinking in the street etc etc.

I've got a friend who unfortunately😉 lives beside Ibrox. The shouting and singing of offensive Sectarian songs on match days is disgusting.