De Grolsch Veste

The De Grolsch Veste (previously called the Arke Stadion) is the official ground of football club FC Twente. It is located in Enschede, Netherlands, at the Business & Science Park, near the University of Twente. It has a spectator capacity of 13,250 with a standard pitch heating system and has a promenade instead of fences for the tribunes.

The Arke Stadion replaces the old Diekman Stadion as FC Twente’s home ground on 22 March 1998. Plans have been afoot to expand and to renovate the old and now demolished Diekman Stadion, however, with a growing fan capacity and with arguments that the location of the Diekman stadium was not strategic enough, the idea was conceived to build a new arena for the Twente fans. The Diekman ground had also faced problems with its seating plans as a result of the FIFA regulations which imposes a necessity to construct a seating tribune behind each goal post.

The cost of the construction was estimated to be around 33 million guilders and took fourteen months to complete, with its foundation stone having been laid on 31 January 1997. Due to the tight budget available, the layout of the stadium was constructed in such that future expansions may be made possible without the necessity to tear down entire tribunes.

The first match played at the stadium was a historic 3-0 victory by the home team against PSV on 10 May 1998 in an Eredivisie match.

On October the first 2006, the stadium got updated with two big flatscreen video-walls.

In 2006 plans have been unfolded to increase the stadium capacity to 24,244 seats. The expansion is expected to be ready in August 2008. There are also future ideas to expand the stadium even further to 36,000 spectators.

(source .. wikipedia) reproduced under GFDL

[ Anything to add? Spotted an error? Click here to improve this entry ]