Some of us went to Qatar. Others went to Swansea. Swansea.com Stadium (as Liberty Stadium is known these days) is home to Wales Premier League Football (aka Soccer) team, the Swansea Swans. They were good enough to compete in Qatar, albeit not for long, but earlier, on a random night in Wales, they lost in the last minutes of a regular season game. With all the hoopla over Qatar's "no alcohol" policy for World Cup games I was pleased that the stadium sells alcohol even if they don't allow it into the stands. The result? Hundreds of men - almost 100% men - file into the bar at halftime, no Covid-era masks in sight. The stadium itself is immaculate, with comfortable enough seating, and reasonable prices when compared to pro baseball in the US. Mid-field front row seats, mere feet away from the playing field, ran me £32.50 per person. A few other things to know: * Food is permitted inside and I can vouch for the fact that the fries with nacho sauce are quite a junk food delight; * There's on-site parking and probably public transit as well however, there were no taxi stands. It was suggested I walk to a nearby pub and summon a cab from there; and * The stadium entrances are the oddest, narrowest I've ever experienced and some may be unable to make their way through. I imagine there's different access points for those folks but if you think it might be a problem, some advance recon may be useful. Bottom line? Swansea.com Stadium is a swell place to see a live soccer match. read more

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If you are Anthony Hannibal Hopkins and like to extract livers from your victims and then make tea out of it, then you'd be better off at the Livertea Stadium. However if you want to see the prettiest sexiest football in Wales, you've found your home. First-Hand Experience: More info about my personal experience at this stadium - my first visit here was in 2011 when I was on tour in the UK. I was very impressed by how shiny and new and modern it was. The fans are absolutely rabid and create a great atmosphere. I was most recently here in 2014 and it looks as shiny and new and impressive as ever, a real highlight of the Swansea landscape. I've been to virtually every significant stadium in the UK & US, due to a lifelong obsession with travel, sport & especially footy (soccer to Americans). Born and raised in England, I followed Oxford United (my hometown team) to many stadiums all over the country at away games, and later followed Liverpool (my fave team) around. Every stadium review - like all my reviews - are from personal experience at these stadiums from multiple visits. In 2011, I was on music tour in the UK, and visited these stadiums then, also. As recently as Fall 2014, when I was "stuck" in the UK for 3 months, I visited all of the stadiums as I travelled around the country. I have pictures of many of them which I will post in future. Also, when I'm back in the UK I plan to take more pictures, and add more stadiums too! So watch this space! *** return to regular review *** It's the second smallest Prem stadium (sometimes the smallest, depends which teams are up here), located in the beautiful hills just North of Swansea, and it's very new and a fantastic stadium with a rabid support for this team. When the stadium was built the fortunes of the club took a massive upturn and they are now an established Prem team, playing to 20k people. It was known as the White Rock Stadium, which basically means that it's not in Black Rock, Buffalo. It cost 27 mil and opened in 2003. It has held Wales games here, including a Euro qualifier in which they beat the Swiss, and a World Cup qualifier in which they lost to the Croats. The Who, Elton John, Pink, Rod Stewart and Kings Of Leon have all played here too. read more

We visited the Liberty Stadium for the first time earlier this month. As travelling Sheffield United fans we've been to a number of new stadiums and so were expecting another of the identikit bowl type, soulless affairs. We arrived early and ended up parking in the park and ride a few hundred yards from the ground. This service has many signs to the effect of no football parking, but many seemed to ignore them and as we were going into the centre before hand anyway, so did we. To park and get a return bus ride into the centre was a mere couple of pounds. We were shocked we'd managed to park so close to the ground, in a proper manned car park for as little as this. The ground itself is everything you'd expect from a new build. It has a business park/retail park feel to it with plenty of car parking and outlets such as Frankie and Bennys. It's also the first ground I recall visiting that has a hair dressers built into the actual stadium! Inside the ground, the concourse is large and accessible, with the usual refreshment facilities which appeared to be well staffed and dealt with the queues more quickly than most. The seating is comfortable and the legroom is very good. Like the majority of new grounds, it would appear the view from anywhere in the stadium is a good one. The only slightly bizarre part of the stadium is that it has a scoreboard on either side behind the goals, however one is bigger than the other. The one opposite the away end seemed as if they'd chosen the smallest possible option they could go for. All in all a decent visit to a good new ground, unfortunately getting out of the park and ride afterwards was an absolute nightmare, but other than that, all was good. read more

Liberty Stadium - Photo from our trip to watch the Blades take on Swansea (13th Dec 2008) - Stadiums & Arenas Near Me - Swansea, SWA

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As a huge Ospreys fan I am a bit biased with regard to the Liberty Stadium. When getting the train back to Swansea the train rolls past the stadium and it always makes me feel excited to be back home to see the bright clean lines of the newly built stadium. It's like a mini Millenium. I took my cousins to see the Christmas match against the Scarlets - buying tickets in the family stand is pretty good value - and as someone else pointed out in their review, the design of the stadium means that nearly every seat has a terrific view. The park n ride is convenient and efficient, although the traffic when leaving is unbearable - so I'd suggest grabbing a drink or bite from one of the nearby restaurants before attempting to leave. I just walk to my gran's house of course. The superstore sells a fabulous range of Swansea City FC and Ospreys merchandise. read more

The Liberty Stadium is Swansea's new Rugby and Football stadium, as well as hosting other events including Elton John this summer. As a Swans fan I've spent a lot of time at the stadium and it is a great new venue for Swansea. Seating is pretty comfortable with reasonable legroom and views are good from all area of the stadium. There isn't quite the atmosphere of the Vetch but when you get a big crowd it can get close. The West stand is generally drier than the East stand but the East, for the football, does have more atmosphere(possibly too much seating close to away fans!!). Catering isn't great and tends to consist of kept warm burgers, chips and hotdogs-the last time I tried a burger it was so tough it was almost inedible. Definitely better to have something from outside the ground, there's a good choice for snacks with Rossi's for chips, Vesusvio's for pizza and Starbucks. read more

Hi Having visited F&B's in Cardiff west for a few years we eventually gave up going as standards slipped beyond expectations, this was a real shame as it was very convenient place to eat. The property look got older, warn out and dated, whilst the staff got younger and less enthusiastic (put these two together and the prices seemed over the top). I would compare it to a road side burger van with a 2 star hygiene rating charging like a raging bull, or a better comparison charging like the Celtic Manor Hotel on steroids. Anyway, enough of the past. We moved to Swansea 2 years ago and thought that we'd give F&B's another chance and tried the branch in Wind Street, what a mistake to make! Cardiff west was a palace compared to this cold, dirty hovel. Obviously F&B's management team have forgotten that Wales existed on their refurbishment programme (assuming they know what a refurbishment programme is) we said as we vacated the restaurant (for want of another name) to try and keep our clothes clean. So lets move on to the here and now having just tried the branch of F&B's close to the Liberty Stadium. I must admit that we only went there out of desperation as the restaurant next door was full and we didn't have time to wait. Where do I start? Outside will do. The whole of the building is dirty, the blinds over the window are green with slime and the facade could really do with a clean. The approach to the building is through a door on the side, not at the front. To get to this door we had to pass through a dirty and broken impersonation of a gazebo, which I can only assume is some sort of smoking cover. The clue to the use as a smoking cover was the carpet of cigarette ends we waded through on the way to the door. Not put off by this reception, with great trepidation we ventured in. We were greeted by a very nice young lady. Never in a million years would I have guessed that she worked there, she had nothing on that would suggest she worked for F&B's. She was dressed more like she had just finished a shift as a motor mechanic in a local back street garage that doesn't provide its staff with overalls. But perhaps I'm a little old fashioned about restaurant staff appearance ? I have no objections to rings in places where God did't intend there to be rings, tattoos, strange coloured , foreign accents (even English!) so i don't think my perception of what restaurant staff is that old fashioned. Enough, I'll stop there before I get personal, as I said she was very nice. I'll move on to the interior. Ceiling tiles missing or broken, broken light fittings, uncomfortable and tiered seating, shabby tables, grubby carpets........ I didn't venture to the little boys room as I was scared what I'd find. It was on the whole not somewhere i would venture in full daylight. Oh, nearly neglect to say it was freezing in there as well. We were given the dirty dog eared menus to peruse and left with a glass of ice with the gaps grouted with a little Pepsi, I'm sure we asked for a Pepsi with a little ice?? They say that there is nothing like a well presented meal, by now you should guess whats coming next, what we received was nothing like a well presented meal. They also say you eat with your eyes, well perhaps they thought they were serving Stevie Wonder, unfortunately not. I ordered: DOUBLE BACON CHEESE at £13.95. Double burger, double bacon, double cheese - two 6 oz beef burgers, two streaky bacon strips and two slices of Monterrey Jack cheese. Here we go. It consisted of two halves of soggy bun, two of what I think were bacon frazzle crisps masquerading as tiny pieces of bacon (still undecided on this though), i think the cheese was there somewhere but still an left wondering where, one slice of tomato and a little bit of curled up lettuce and yes, two burgers. What french fries there were were spread randomly over the cold plate in a vain attempt to hide the blank spaces where you would normally expect to see something edible. Oh, I nearly neglected to mention the little eggcup of sauce which was the highlight of the meal. i was asked by the nice waitress would I like anything to go on the meal? I found this strange as every table bar ours had a little tray with a random selection of sauces which I would have expected to arrive with the meal. Never the less I said yes and she delivered a plastic bottle of tomato sauce which looked like the top had been chewed by a hungry child. Now to the wife's meal. She ordered MEATBALL SICILIAN CALZONE. A folded pizza, filled to the brim with beef & pork meatballs, pepperoni and mozzarella, with Cousin Mario's Bolognese sauce. This resembled a dish that Tom Daley had thrown together from the 10m diving platform whist the plate was at the bottom of the swimming pool. Once again, cold plate, cold sauce (i think it must have become cold whilst Cousin Mario was delivering it from Sicily), but on the bright side the meatballs were edible. She also had the ice cream as it was read more

As good as the previous ground, the Vetch was, it had started to fall apart and was in dire need of updating. A lot was expected of the new Liberty Stadium and thankfully it didn't disappoint. I was there for the Swans first home game and it was a great atmosphere. I agree with the previous review that the atmosphere is different to the Vetch but its still a great place to see your football or rugby team. Now we are a championship division team and thankfully we have a stadium to match. Food is expensive and not great quality but is expected at pretty much any football ground. As was said before, there is a nice choice of places to go for food including Frankie and Benny's. read more