Ruhrstadion (), known as Vonovia Ruhrstadion for sponsorship reasons, is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

stadium A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...

Bochum Bochum ( , also , ; wep, Baukem) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population of 364,920 (2016), is the sixth largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg) of the most populous Germany, German federal state o ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. It is the home ground for the

VfL Bochum Verein für Leibesübungen Bochum 1848 Fußballgemeinschaft, commonly referred to as simply VfL Bochum (), is a Football in Germany, German association football club based in the city of Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club has spent 35 seas ...

and has a capacity of 27,599. It was known as rewirpowerSTADION (or, rarely, ) from 2006 to 2016, also for sponsorship reasons.

History

In 1911 the Spiel und Sport Bochum leased a

meadow A meadow ( ) is an open habitat, or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non-woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as these areas maintain an open character. Meadows may be naturally occurring or artifi ...

from a local farmer as their new home ground. The club played the first match at the new venue against the VfB Hamm in front of 500 spectators. The

TuS Bochum Turn- und Sportverein Bochum 1908 was a German association football club from the city of Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. History The club was established in 1908 as ''Spiel und Sport 08 Bochum''. The first football match at the ''Castroper Str ...

did not build a stadium until after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

as late as 1921. The stadium has a capacity of 27,599 people. The original capacity was over 50,000 but was decreased by numerous modifications. The stadium was expanded between March 1976 and July 1979 and the first game was between the VfL Bochum and

SG Wattenscheid 09 SG Wattenscheid 09 is a German association football club located in Wattenscheid, Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club claimed an official founding date of 18 September 1909 as Ballspiel-Verein Wattenscheid out of the merger of two earlier ...

on 21 July 1979. This expansion could technically count as a complete rebuild; legally, it is officially an expansion.

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...

performed at the stadium during his

Serious Moonlight Tour The Serious Moonlight Tour was a worldwide concert tour by English musician David Bowie, launched in May 1983 in support of his album '' Let's Dance'' (1983). The tour opened at the Vorst Forest Nationaal, Brussels, on 18 May 1983 and ended in ...

on 15 June 1983.

Herbert Grönemeyer Herbert Arthur Wiglev Clamor Grönemeyer (born 12 April 1956) is a German singer, musician, producer, composer and actor, popular in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Grönemeyer starred as war correspondent Lieutenant Werner in Wolfgang Pete ...

performed multiple sold out concerts at the stadium in 1985, 1994, 1998, 2003, 2007, 2009, 2012, 2015 and 2019. Additionally, his song Bochum is sung before the kickoff of every home match of VfL Bochum, with the final line before the final chorus of the piece bearing special significance to the club. Herbert has been an honorary member of the club since 2006. The stadium hosted a

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

match between

CSKA Moscow CSKA Moscow (russian: ЦСКА Москва) is a Russian sports club based in Moscow. It was created in 1911 in the Russian Empire on base of OLLS (Skiing Society, founded 1901). Later, during the Soviet Union, Soviet era, it was a central piece ...

and Rangers in December 1992 because the teams weren't able to play in Moscow for weather reasons. In 2006, a five-year naming rights deal was struck with Stadtwerke Bochum to rename the stadium "rewirpowerSTADION". In 2016 the name of the stadium was officially changed to "Vonovia Ruhrstadion", with the first part of the name being its new sponsor, the German housing association

Vonovia Vonovia is a German real estate company based in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. Its history goes back to Deutsche Annington, which merged with GAGFAH and was subsequently renamed Vonovia. The company currently owns around 400,000 apartments in ...

, located in Bochum.

References

External links

Ruhrstadion picture
Football venues in Germany Sports venues in North Rhine-Westphalia VfL Bochum 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup stadiums Buildings and structures in Bochum {{NorthRhineWestphalia-struct-stub