I attended the John Smith's Stadium for Manchester City's 0-0 draw with Huddersfield in the FA Cup…read more5th round, it has a record-breaking capacity of 24,139 on my visit, out of a full capacity of 25,000 which as I recall included over 3,000 City fans, with it just being a short trip down the M62 or half an hour on the train from Manchester.
The stadium for sponsorship reasons is called the John Smith's Stadium, but when built in 1994 it was known as the Kirklees stadium, a reference to the stadium being in the Kirklees Council area, although owned by Huddersfield Town, Huddersfield Giants in a 40:40 share, with Kirklees Council owning 20%.
The stadium is quite small and in a way it feels new, such as the cool arch shaped roof, but in other ways it feels so old, such as going into the ground from the outside and all the concourses being outside, which even older stadiums such as Anfield don't have, instead there are more inside concourses, which obviously makes the ground seem a little colder and it certainly doesn't make you feel like getting chips, pies and co when it is raining etc.
The atmosphere at the stadium was average, there wasn't much to shout about from both sides, there were only 3 shots on target for Huddersfield and 5 for Manchester City with no goals from either side.
The stewards around the stadium seemed helpful enough, although I was confused and annoyed to have the lid taken off my bottle which I frankly couldn't understand, they didn't search my bag but they found it more important to take the lid of my Iced tea bottle and even come over me and take it off me myself, hence I felt like a child in a school having their phone taken off them, annoyed, confused and untrusted.
The stadium seats seemed quite old, and the wheelchair bays were unmarked and it did feel quite squashed at times, most areas of the stadium felt old, which is frustrating considering this stadium is from 1994, albeit it isn't the most modern and new of stadiums, there are much older ones that do a better job, as much as it pains me to say it, for some facilities Anfield, Old Trafford seem to do it better. There were often people standing and getting in the way, which was difficult and although the stewards did move them, when fans were coming in for the second half it did really obstruct the view of the goal, which was hard to see at most times anyway due to the location of my seat and the overall setup of the stadium
The view is also quite poor with no raised platforms, which even Hull manage to do.
Huddersfield as a Championship team, can't be expected to compete with the Premier League teams, but with the club standing third in the Championship, they still are fighting for promotion and as one of the Championships larger teams this year, they should be doing better but still this is cushioned by the fact they haven't been in the topflight since around the 1970's (Correct me if I'm wrong)
The food situation here is alright, the chips were a huge portion, albeit I was angry that they didn't have any pepper which was also confusing and frustrating that they would run out with pepper.
The stadium is also quite unusual, on one side it feels like you're in a hill, a forest and on another side, you can see houses and it feels like a town.
Overall, this stadium just doesn't impress me and it is a good stadium for a lower division side, which Huddersfield were when it was built, but now with the features mentioned including the open corners, this just isn't a stadium suited to a Premier League team elect?, or even a high flying Championship team, so sadly deserves a single one star.
