Zentralstadion (1956)


Central Stadium was a stadium with a capacity of 120,000 in Leipzig which was initially used for matches of SC Rotation Leipzig. It was renovated in 2004 and renamed the Red Bull Arena.
About 1.5 million cubic metres of debris from the World War II bombing of Leipzig was used in the stadium's construction. Its name derives from the Soviet "Central Stadium", a title used throughout the Eastern Bloc.

Background

After the 1896 Summer Olympics, the city of Leipzig begun to plan a stadium. The Zentralstadion was built first for the sports students in the Sportforum Leipzig, with a capacity of 100,000. Next to it was an Olympic-style swimming stadium. After the sports university, rowing channel and the swimming stadium were established, plans were made for a new stadium downtown; Leipzig wanted to be awarded the Olympic Games. Blueprints by architect Werner March, the architect of Berlin's Olympiastadion, were used. Finishing the plan took 15 months, with 180,000 volunteers. Walter Ulbricht called the stadium "Stadion der Hunderttausend", and made it the home of the German Gym and Sports Celebrations.
The first visiting soccer teams were Honved Budapest and 1.FC Kaiserslautern, followed by the Friedensfahrt. The semifinal match of the 1986–87 European Cup Winners' Cup was played there. Until 1987, the stadium was well-maintined. Brighter floodlights were installed in 1977; however, neighboring houses experienced brownouts during matches. It remains the best-attended German stadium, drawing 80,000 to 120,000 spectators for East German national-team matches.

Construction

Part of Sports Forum Leipzig

After the War of the Fourth Coalition, educators Ernst Moritz Arndt and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn wanted German national sports celebrations to train the Lützow Free Corps to defend against the French. Leipzig became one of the wealthiest cities in Germany, with a number of sports festivals; the only larger sports gathering was the 1936 Summer Olympics. Leader Walter Ulbricht wanted a national-class stadium to commemorate the 100,000 fallen soldiers in the Battle of Leipzig.
Free German Youth regional leader Heinz Haferkorn was tasked with finding 200 volunteers per day, and work on the stadium began on August 2, 1955. To save money, debris from the 1945 bombings was used. Its architect of record was Karl Souradny, who only completed the ground drawings and never visited the site. A total of 180,000 volunteers worked for 735,992 hours on the stadium, which cost M28 million. A small train brought debris to the stadium, which was mixed with ash, soil and water and compressed into bricks.

Replacement

In 1990, due to riots in other European countries and in Leipzig's Alfred-Kunze-Sportpark, access to Zentralstadion was banned to reduce further rioting. The bell in the stadium's Werner Seelenbinder Tower was silenced.
After German reunification, the stadium was underused; none of Leipzig's football clubs played in the Bundesliga, Germany's top soccer league. Due to the rising maintenance costs, the city decided to build a smaller, soccer-only stadium in 1997. The Red Bull Arena, with a capacity of under 45,000, was built inside the old stadium.
According to critics, Berlin's similar-size Olympiastadion was renovated at the same time and the Zentralstadion could have been saved. Germany won the right to host the 2006 Fifa World Cup in 2000, prompting renovation of many German soccer-specific stadiums. There were up to 70,000 ticket requests for later World Cup games at the Red Bull Arena, questioning the wisdom of reducing stadium capacity.

National-team international matches

Between 1957 and 2004, all matches were broadcast by the Deutscher Fernsehfunk and Eurosport; they had a total attendance of 2,812,000. The Soviet Union national football team was the most-frequent visitor. Average attendance was 63,909. The East Germany national football team won 20 matches, with 13 draws and 10 losses. Twenty-one matches were qualifiers, and 23 were exhibition matches.
DateHomeFinal scoreVisitorTypeAttendance
19 May 1957East Germany2-1 Goals:Charles 6', Wirth 21', Tröger 61′Wales1958 FIFA World Cup qualification – Referee: Nikolay Latyshev 105,000
27 October 1957East Germany1-4 Goals: Kraus 4′, Moravčík 23', Müller 23′, Novák 43', Kraus 88′Czechoslovakia1958 FIFA World Cup qualification – Referee: Pierre Schwinte 110,000
9 November 1957Poland0-2 Goals: Streltsov 31′, Fiedosov 75′Soviet Union1958 FIFA World Cup qualification – Referee: Clough John Harold 110,000
14 September 1958East Germany3-2 Goals: Schröter 25′, Penalty Constantin 27′, Penalty Assmy 57′, Ene 61′, Wirth 76′RomaniaExhibition match – Referee: Nikolai Balakin Goals: Assmy 4′, Müller 12′, Hennum 42′, Schröter 56′, Müller 65′NorwayExhibition match – Referee: Antonín Vrbovec 60,000
12 August 1959East Germany2-1 Goals: Schröter 3′, Franz 44′, Kadraba 53′CzechoslovakiaExhibition match – Referee: Nikolai Latychev 100,000
17 August 1960East Germany0-1 Goals: Ponedelnik 75′USSRExhibition match – Referee: Josef Stoll 70,000
14 May 1961East Germany1-1 Goals: Groot 63′, Erler 80′Netherlands1962 FIFA World Cup qualification – Referee: Carl Jorgensen 70,000
14 May 1962East Germany4-1 Goals: Schröter 8′, Madsen 20′, Ducke 29′, Schröter 56′, Schröter 88′DenmarkExhibition match – Referee: Józef Kowal 30,000
14 May 1963East Germany2-2 Goals: Zambata 20′, Jerković 43′, Wirth 45′, Schröter 52′YugoslaviaExhibition match – Referee: Václav Korelus 35,000
23 May 1964East Germany1-1USSRExhibition match80,000
23 May 1965East Germany1-1 Goals: Vogel 17′, Bene 28′Hungary1966 FIFA World Cup qualification – Referee: Fredrik Johansson 110,000
31 October 1965East Germany1-0 Goals: Nöldner 1′Austria1966 FIFA World Cup qualification – Referee: Samuel Carswell 95,000
27 April 1966East Germany4-1 Goals: Ducke 2′, Nöldner 23′, Kindvall 43′, Frenzel 57′SwedenExhibition match – Referee: Laurens van Ravens 50,000
2 July 1966East Germany5-2 Goals: Nöldner 3′, Frenzel 44′, Tobar 62′, Vogel 72′, Fräßdorf 79′, Marcos 81′, Geisler 86′ChileExhibition match – Referee: Per Engblom 45,000
5 April 1967East Germany4-3 Goals: Mulder 10′, Keizer 12′, Vogel 50′, Frenzel 62′, Keizer 65′, Frenzel 69′, Frenzel 85′NetherlandsUEFA Euro 1968 qualifying – Referee: Hannes Sigurðsson 40,000
11 October 1967East Germany3-2 Goals: Dyreborg 25′, Körner 35′, Søndergaard 38′, Pankau 59′, Pankau 73′DenmarkUEFA Euro 1968 qualifying – Referee: Ryszard Banasiuk 25,000
29 October 1967East Germany1-0 Goals: Frenzel 51′HungaryUEFA Euro 1968 qualifying – Referee: Robert Helies 110,000
24 April 1968East Germany3-235,000
25 July 1969East Germany2-2 Goals: Löwe 6′, Puzach 35′, Khmelnytskyi 59′, Frenzel 87′Soviet UnionExhibition match – Referee: Gyula Emsberger 90,000
9 May 1971East Germany1-2 Goals: Filipović 11′, Džajić 19′, Puzach 35′, Löwe 70′YugoslaviaUEFA Euro 1972 qualifying – Referee: Paul Schiller 100,000
18 September 1971East Germany1-1 Goals: Borja 50′, Löwe 80′MexicoExhibition match – Referee: Gyula Emsberger 20,000
27 May 1972East Germany1-0 Goals: Irmscher 81′UruguayExhibition match – Referee: Bohumil Smejkal 20,000
26 March 1973East Germany2-0RomaniaExhibition match95,000
29 May 1974East Germany1-1 Goals: Streich 66', Channon 68'EnglandExhibition match – Referee: György Müncz 100,000
7 December 1974East Germany0-0BelgiumUEFA Euro 1976 qualifying – Referee: Sergio Gonella 35,000
12 October 1975East Germany2-1 Goals: Bathenay 50′, Streich 55′, Vogel 77′FranceUEFA Euro 1976 qualifying – Referee: Erik Fredriksson 35,000
7 April 1976East Germany0-0Czechoslovakia1976 Olympic qualifier – Referee: Vladimir Rudnev 45,000
28 July 1977East Germany2-1 Goals: Häfner 8', Bubnov 22', Sparwasser 90'Soviet UnionExhibition match – Referee: Marian Kuston 95,000
12 October 1977East Germany1-1 Goals: Hattenberger 43', Löwe 50'Austria1978 FIFA World Cup qualification – Referee: Ian Foote 100,000
4 April 1978East Germany0-1 Goals: Åslund 75'SwedenExhibition match – Referee: Bogdan Dotchev 25,000
6 September 1978East Germany2-1 Goals: Pommerenke 20', Eigendorf 66', Ondruš 84'CzechoslovakiaExhibition match – Referee: Franz Wöhrer 15,000
18 April 1979East Germany2-1 Goals: Boniek 7', Streich 50', Lindemann 63'PolandUEFA Euro 1980 qualifying – Referee: Azim Zade 55,000
21 November 1979East Germany2-3 Goals: Schnuphase 17', Streich 33', Thijssen 45', Kist 50', Kerkhof 67'NetherlandsUEFA Euro 1980 qualifying – Referee: António Garrido 100,000
16 April 1980East Germany2-0 Goals: Weber 64', Streich 69'GreeceExhibition match – Referee: Torben Månsson 20,000
15 October 1980East Germany0-0SpainExhibition match – Referee: Jan Veverka 30,000
10 October 1981East Germany2-3 Goals: Szarmach 2', Smolarek 5', Schnuphase 53', Smolarek 62', Streich 63'Poland1982 FIFA World Cup qualification – Referee: Augusto Lamo Castillo 85,000
14 April 1982East Germany1-0 Goal: Hause 20'ItalyExhibition match – Referee: Dusan Krchnak 28,000
30 March 1983East Germany1-2 Goals: Elst 35', Vandenbergh 70', Streich 82'BelgiumUEFA Euro 1984 qualifying Group 1 – Referee: John Carpenter 75,000
26 June 1983East Germany1-3 Goals: Blokhin 10', Streich 24', Oganesyan 35', Yevtushenko 64'Soviet UnionExhibition match – Referee: Károly Palotai 70,000
20 October 1984East Germany2-3 Goals: Glowatzky 11', Baždarević 30', Vokri 48', Ernst 59', Šestić 80'Yugoslavia1986 FIFA World Cup qualification – Referee: Horst Brummeier 63,000
11 September 1985East Germany2-0 Goals: Ernst 53', Kreer 81'France1986 FIFA World Cup qualification – Referee: Pietro D'Elia 78,000
28 July 1987East Germany0-0HungaryExhibition match – Referee: Jan Damgaard 71,000
20 May 1989East Germany1-1 Goals: Polster 3', Kirsten 86'Austria1990 FIFA World Cup qualification – Referee: Alphonse Constantin 22,000

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