To not want to live next to a football stadium?

[Nataliaa]

We’ve found a house that in all ways is perfect for us. In terms of price, close to work, size, minimal work needed - we could happily live with the interior, as it is- so no rush to put our stamp on it. No renovations needed. However, it is very close to a football stadium. My DH is saying if I let that one negative sway my decision, we would be turning down our dream family home and as we have been house hunting for 6 months and have not come close to finding any house that ticks so many of our wants, we would regret not going for this one.
My DH says that whilst there may be some disruption on match days, it’s not going to be every single weekend, and therefore minimal.
Am I really being picky, or would this be an issue for others?? Would you happily live near a football stadium?

This sounds like my worst nightmare. I would pay not to live there.

My son lives close to millwall ,loves the area and never had a problem

Is this why the house is on the market now - when season hasn't started? I don’t think I’d want the noise or disruption - if you have stuff to do at weekends but can’t get out while the match is on or feel like you’re in a football match every time you go in your garden type thing?

I lived near a stadium. It was very well managed, we had special passes for our cars as they would block off the streets which still allowed us to drive home. They were very quick at emptying the stadium after a match.

It entirely depends on how close and which club. Context needed

@Boreded The op has already said the club is Milwall

Imagine if you read the thread and found this information out 10 pages back.

Haha I actually realised who it was from this.

Millwall are a club with (at times) awful fans, but I’ve been there personally in the away end after beating them in the playoffs first leg, and it wasn’t that bad.

the road gets pretty crowded when exiting the stadium, but I don’t think it should put you off buying at all. you should find that traffic isn’t an issue because people will get there on public transport, with those coming from the north getting on official coaches.

Knock on the neighbouring house and ask them for their thoughts. Also, no way are they getting 20k in there, they had their highest attendance since the 50s this year and it was closer to 15k. The club isn’t doing particularly well and could very easily get relegated in the next few years, zero chance of promotion to premier league where they could actually increase fans

Honestly, people get around it. Only residents, blue badge holders and cars with resident visitor vouchers were permitted to park on the streets around us on game days. It was very intensely patrolled by the council as well.

Despite this there was a thriving black market in selling resident visitors vouchers to the point that our street would be a car park for big black Range Rovers.

Given the local demographic was decidedly not big black Range Rover territory, it was surprising how many residents had friends with luxury SUVs who only seemed to visit them on game days.

Plus, blue badge fraud is pretty much endemic at this point so there’s that as well.

It didn’t bother me much without children, but it would be a pain with kids on the weekends.

Imagine if you didn’t see the number of pages at the time of responding, and were unable to delete your post on mumsnet.

did your post make you feel good though…I bet it did. I can feel the glee in your words as you found someone to chastise on an anonymous forum 😘

Yeah, I replied without seeing the number of pages. Bit of a slow day today for me 🫣

I can’t answer about football stadiums, but I used to live near Twickenham rugby stadium. We were not on the main route back to the station so didn’t have people walking past our house. You learn to time your journeys around match times. I lived in a cul de sac and found that the professional drivers who would park upon our road were the most annoying 5hing.

I live right next to a stadium - our garden backs onto it. Happy to answer any questions! It's league one (I think), so prob about about 10k crowd?

Bad things:

• Parking. Fairly obvious! No drive (nor does anyone round here), the hour before kick off is terrible. What we've learnt is not to be arriving/leaving at this time. Have been caught out a couple of times in the 15 years we've lived here but it's easy to work around. Also, in a city so walking default option for most activities anyway. Talk of residents parking scheme but I'm not sure it's worth it for a couple of hours disruption a week.
• Noise - not so much the crowd noise, which I actually love, but the general tannoy testing, stadium music, entertainment etc. Again, it's a few hours a week and bar a couple of occasions where it coincided with a migraine, easy enough to work around.
• Unknowns. E.g. stadium enhancement vs selling up to a housing developer. It's a big bit of land on which anything could happen. Guess same applies to people who live next to a field on outskirts of town/village.
• House selling. People think it's going to be terrible (see thread above) so factor into house price.

Good things:

• Cheaper! We got a much better house and bigger garden than we could have afforded even a couple of streets away.
• Easy to find on a map!
• Quiet... yes, sounds wrong, but it's completely quiet 98% of the time. In a terraced house, so on neighbouring roads, another terrace will back onto it - that's potentially 10+ properties making noise, having parties, shouting, barking dogs, etc that we just don't have. From May to end of August, nothing happens.
• Similar neighbours - not scientific, but our neighbours are all decent, reasonable, tolerant people. You wouldn't buy a house next to a stadium if you were an uptight people-hater!
• Security - more so than e.g. a park or industrial estate

I'd prefer a stadium over noisy neighbours, supermarket, pub ... go and knock on some doors and ask the current residents what they feel and you might be pleasantly surprised!

I grew up in the shadow of a (now) premier league football clubs ground and I wouldn’t live near one now if you paid me.

Match day is carnage. Traffic is horrendous, everywhere locally is chocka with home and away fans plus police redirecting everyone.

Yes there was a fun atmosphere at times but the negatives far outweighed the positives. Though since they moved to a new out of the way stadium, the area is a ghost town.

Don't do it.

DD used to live near a stadium. Never again. Match days were an absolute nightmare, not just crowds, but the litter, men weeing in the streets, shops boarded up.

The opposing fans would use different gates, and the police would let the visiting fans leave first and vacate the area before the home fans leave. It’s very well policed as no one wants a riot after the match.

Will also add, parking is a nightmare round here all the time anyway, match day just tips it over the edge. I also don't recognise the drunken fans element to this. Bar a couple of promotions where there were 'jubilant scenes', in the most part, fans are cleared out of the ground quickly and presumably dispersed int he many pubs around here. I've never once in 15 years notice any problems with drunken fans (local drunks, another story!).

I’ve been there as an away fan, and had no trouble, although we had our own escort from the station.

I wouldn’t worry about trouble, more about parking and traffic. It’s c25 - 35 games a season based on league and cup games, and some will be midweek evenings. Due to TV there will also be some earlier KOs on a Saturday.

Ive been to a lot of away games and the issues around the grounds vary hugely. Some are gridlocked roads and cars everywhere Wycombe for example). Some are fine as the parking is better organised and most come by public transport. I would suggest you ask some of the people in the road.

My first flat was next to Selhurst Park (I’m always amazed how many of us SE25ers post on these threads!) I’m a football fan but not Palace. I think the best bit was probably watching them film Ted Lasso’s first season!

I lived in 4 different places within a mile or two, but only one of them had an SE25 address. That was a flat in a modern block that had quite a long driveway. Everyone got so pissed off with getting blocked in (or out) by football parkers that the management company installed a barrier and got someone to come out on matchdays and lock it from around 11-5. It only worked for around 3 games before the locking mechanism was hacksawed off, and all the parking spaces were blocked in again.

The first flat I rented was just off Selhurst Road and we'd often have puke on our front path or just outside the gate (this was the 70s, and drunkenness and football went hand in hand).

I live in Sussex now, but am still inconvenienced by bloody football. I check the fixtures before shopping for anything I can't buy locally, because the traffic on the dual carriageway past Falmer stadium is awful on match days so I avoid Brighton, and I won't go out in Brighton when there's evening games because fans stampede through the station in their eagerness to get to a pub after the match and I nearly got sent flying twice last time I was there.

I wouldn't mind, because I like football.

However, it definitely won't be just every 2 weeks. You will have potentially:

First team matches. Saturdays and one night in the week.
Training.
Corporate events.

Women's team matches.
Training.

Youth team matches.
Training.

Academy matches.
Training.

Does it have a bar or pub attached because that will be well used by people watching other matches on Sky.

Visit on a match day and see what it's like.

Oh, I've just read that it's Millwall.

Fuck that.

We live about 10 mins walk from Elland Road, Leeds stadium. Never had a problem with fans, only issue would be if you didn't have your own parking. To us it's not an issue.

Not being a football fan, I had no idea they have a close season😂. That being said, I'd still want to see for myself.

I live near Watford Football stadium - it’s been premier and now championship
we have parking permits so the area doesn’t get swamped, you just need to be aware of match days as it can get very busy - we have pubs for away fans only- of course there is a bit of trouble now and again but there is always a police presence
the hospital is next to the stadium - and the night I gave birth I was able to hear the Elton John concert perfectly 😁