🇩🇪 I FOUND AN ABANDONED GERMAN FOOTBALL STADIUM!

The abandoned stadium in the north of Cologne was formerly the home of VfL Köln 99, Cologne's oldest football club. The club is now called 1. FSV Köln and plays in the amateur league (Kreisklasse). Viktoria Köln, the club from the right bank of the Rhine, has a rather complicated history. It was formed from several clubs that merged over decades. Actually the name Viktoria Köln was not used until the 1950s. Over many decades the order of the Cologne clubs used to be: 1. FC Köln (Bundesliga) followed by Fortuna (second league) and behind them Viktoria. But times have changed: In the meantime Viktoria has overtaken Fortuna and plays in the third league, while Fortuna went down to the fourth league.

Germany is my favourite country for groundhopping by a mile, spent a long weekend in Hamburg in April and it was just brilliant, at all different tiers!

hey sam! the fc koln training stadium that you sat in is where the us national team is training this week for the upcoming friendlies!

If you ever come to the Netherlands again. Go to the Wageningse berg. Most Beautiful abandoned stadium of the the Netherlands.

This brings back some great memories. I lived in Cologne back in the late 1990's and a very short walk from the Dom is some great pubs where I would spend many a Sunday reading the English papers and watching the EPL

Hi Sam, Any chance you could cover the ownership model of German clubs? I doubt it'll ever catch on in the UK but it's interesting. Keep those abandoned stadiums coming!

Wow!!!This is an extremely so fantastic abandoned stadium in Germany and I hope to see to more of the respective abandoned stadiums,mainly in Europe,good friend Sam!!!🏋‍♂️

If you come back to the Netherlands their are also a few abandoned stadiums: Wageningse Berg stadium (Wageningen) and Sportpark Berg en Bos (Apeldoorn)

I had my very first training session as a child on the pitch you were standing on in this video. At that time, the VFL still existed and I had a test training there. At that time, the club still used the area as an ash field, but unfortunately I can't remember more than this one training session. After that, I went to train across the street at what was then FSV Köln Nord and spent many years of my youth soccer time there. The merging between FSV Köln Nord and VFL happened a little bit after I left the club. Really cool to see that there are videos like yours that really bring me back to those days, thanks for that! Also I just used to live like a 15min walk from that pitch, so this video feels like home 😄

Love your vlogs..enjoy discovering many football stadiums and their cities....not only in Germany, even though there are soooo many stadiums to be found!

You need to see a match in Rheinenergiestadion

yet again another brilliant video.

Loved the video, it was very interesting to watch.

Hi Sam, love your video's. I follow them all. Especially those about the abandoned stadiums i like a lot. If you decide to come to Belgium, go and check out the "Drie Lindenstadium" in Watermaal-Bosvoorde in the Brussels area. It's a great stadium with a great history. The great Torino-team played there in 1948, just 4 months before they were killed in the Superga disaster. Also the "Ganzenvijver (Goose Pond)" in the nearby Ukkel has a great history. It has the oldest still existing concrete stand of the European mainland, dating from 1901. And on 1 May 1904 the ever first international game, played between Belgium and France, was played there and which led to the establishment of the FIFA-organisation.

as a Jamaican we've had Jamaican internnationals play for a few of these clubs in Koln Micheal Seaton played a few seasons ago for victoria Koln and Zander Bicknell Jamaican u20 player is currently playing for Fortuna in the youth ranks

It’s so Crazy That i‘m an Hearts Fan and found You’re Channel on YouTube because of the Hearts content… AND THIS STADIUM is about 20 mins away from where i live in Germany :)

Dritte ('third') Liga 👍. Great stuff as always!

Have you thought of finding the stadium Stade Yves-du-Manoir where Escape to Victory was filmed, e.g Pele Bobby Moore Ardilles and that well known famous goalkeeper Sylvester Stallone played.

The ending was hilarious to me 😂 ..I was like "wait, I know these woods.. you're at the wrong place!" ..well, you were 😂

You have to come to Duisburg too . :) we have the biggest stafium in the third league. Nearby is another stadium for athletics and an icehockey Arena . You can also see see the training grounds if you want there is also an old stadium of the Club which now is used for the youth Clubs