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.

@KatherineofGaunt Yes, thank you! Baby was all fine, and she loves the story now.

Hope your recce goes well next week!

I typed out a reply and think I forgot to press post. Apologies if this posts twice. My club has so far added an astro pitch, and covered a stand. It's applied for planning permission to extend the Away end, change classrooms and the bar. If accepted, they will be cutting into the surrounding parkland. And it will be accepted ££££ talks !

Used to live literally two roads away from Highbury.

No issues for me as I'm a big Arsenal fan / non driver.

Only time it was ever a bit iffy was Derby day (THE derby) and some shops used to board up their shop windows. Other than that it was always such a lovely atmosphere on match day.

I used to plan things like food deliveries and getting the bus on match day but it was honestly no trouble.

Don't thingk my Chelsea supporting flatmate felt quite the same way about it though

I live about half a mile from a league one ground. We’re just off the main walking/driving route but we hardly notice it from where our house is and we don’t get people parking up on our road. The local chippy gets busy at about 5.30 so we time it to avoid and we do notice more of a police presence on match days into the early evening.
We can hear the crowd from our house and see the flood lights of an evening if playing then.
We’ve been here 8 years and never had an issue.

The derbies aren’t necessarily local rivals.

Our league 1 team have many rivalries which mean much larger attended matches and potential for more trouble.

Although to be fair any trouble tends to be in the town centre or in certain pubs as the area around the ground is well policed.

We live 5 minutes from the Arsenal stadium and it doesn't really impact on us much (DP likes it as he shares a season ticket so easy to get to the ground).
Traffic on match days is busier. There are extended parking restrictions on match days and some people use blue badges to park in the resident bays which can have an impact sometimes. If there are no resident permits, unless you have a drive, this could be an issue. Obviously, tube stations are busier or closed but if you avoid kick off/final whistle times, it's okay.
Noise isn't much of a problem, we do sometimes hear crowd noise. The main noise issue used to be the Sky Sports helicopter but that never seems to be around now.
Pubs and restaurants are busier on match days but you can always avoid them on those days.
There's not usually any trouble on or around our street but fans wouldn't generally walk this way.

I live near a local football club ground (not premier League!). I can see one of one stands from the end of my garden; distance wise it's about half a mile as the crow flies.

It's fine - I can hear cheering when a goal is scored on match days, and traffic can be busy, but it's fine.

I have previously lived a quarter of a mile from a premier league ground which was a pain. Mostly due to drunk blokes at kicking out time. Traffic would be gridlocked as well.

I also live near arsenal stadium (there seem to be a lot of us!) and it's mildly annoying but fine. Tubes are a bit busy and they close our station which can be irritating if you are late for something but not really an issue.

I don't have a car which probably helps. We are also a bit out of the way so wouldn't really get many people walking directly past.

There are houses that are much more effected but even then i don't think it seems that bad. To be honest I have considered buying one of the houses on the roads the fans go down as I'd need the £££ off to be able to afford one!

Not football but I live near an international cricket ground. The games go on for 4 million years so it can be annoying but it's never that bad. You just have to get used to lots of people traipsing past your house.

More excellent feedback, thank you.

The house isn't on a through-route and there are no pubs within reasonable walking distance of the house or the ground (sounds odd, I know, but true!). Plus, it's not London. So I'm hoping that much of what's negative about living near one simply isn't a problem!

Best of luck OP, I hope you get the house!

I’ve lived close to both Maine rd and Old Trafford. At Maine rd I was on the first road not to have parking permits, so I used to keep cones to reserve my space on match days. Hated by MN, but it worked. At OT we had permits so parking wasn’t an issue but traffic on match days could be a major pain.

We lived a very short walk from Arsenal’s football stadium in North London about 10 years ago.

On match days:

• ridiculous traffic, both vehicle and pedestrian
• parking a nightmare
• football fans throwing rubbish and pissing in people’s front gardens
• pubs with signs up saying “home fans only”
• posses of men wandering the streets drunk looking for a fight
• loud noise (drumming, chanting, shouting) audible for a long distance from the stadium
• thefts and damage to parked cars, fronts of houses, gardens etc

I don’t like football anyway and this experience put me off the fans for life. Rude, selfish, rough and very very very (can’t say it enough) racist.

@Glitterspy

We lived a very short walk from Arsenal’s football stadium in North London about 10 years ago.

On match days:

• ridiculous traffic, both vehicle and pedestrian
• parking a nightmare
• football fans throwing rubbish and pissing in people’s front gardens
• pubs with signs up saying “home fans only”
• posses of men wandering the streets drunk looking for a fight
• loud noise (drumming, chanting, shouting) audible for a long distance from the stadium
• thefts and damage to parked cars, fronts of houses, gardens etc

I don’t like football anyway and this experience put me off the fans for life. Rude, selfish, rough and very very very (can’t say it enough) racist.

I was living very locally to Highbury between 2004 and 2006 (when they moved to The Emirates) and can't say I saw any of this type of behaviour. Granted I didnt drive.

Only time it was ever unsavoury was when it was derby day. Some local shops and restaurants boarded up windows. There was never any trouble but it felt a bit more menacing than usual match day.

Can't comment on living as close to The Emirates as I did to Highbury though.

Just came on again to agree with @Crunchymum that we never saw much of the antisocial behaviour behaviour @Glitterspy has described around Highbury or the Emirates. (I think we must have been almost-neighbours back then!)
Parking was certainly tricky and I had forgotten about the 'home fans' signs, but I don't recognise the rest of it. We left about 10 years ago though so it may have got worse since then. But generally football has been progressively cleaning up its act, I think. I was at a local, non-league match recently and a couple of men made some comments about the female physio and were told off by the spectators around them.

I’m probably predisposed to notice poor behaviour by football fans, I really am almost pathologically unimpressed by football in general!

I'm right there with you, @Glitterspy! I find football (professional, really, not grass roots) pretty much underwhelming and full of its own sense of self-importance.

However, for a lovely house in an otherwise good location, I'm prepared to compromise. And perhaps my DS will benefit in the years to come!

I have read all your answers to DH, who was a bit more blasé than I and is saying "I told you so!"