Stadion Eden, officially named Stadion Dr. Václava Vacka, was a multi-use

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 completely or partially surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit ...

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. It was initially used as the stadium of

Slavia Prague Sportovní klub Slavia Praha – fotbal (Sports Club Slavia Prague – Football, ), commonly known as Slavia Praha or Slavia Prague, is a Czech professional football club in Prague. Founded in 1892, they are the second most successful club in t ...

matches. It was replaced by the current

Eden Arena Fortuna Arena (formerly known as Sinobo Stadium, Eden Arena and Synot Tip Arena) is a football stadium, in Prague-Vršovice, Czech Republic. The stadium has a capacity of 19,370 people and it is the biggest and the most modern football stadium ...

in 2008. The original capacity of the stadium was 38,000 spectators, mostly standing terraces.

History

In the early 1950s, Slavia was forced to leave its

Letná Letná is a hill overlooking Prague historic centre and Vltava River just besides Prague Castle. It neighbours Stromovka, the largest park in Prague. The hill belongs to Holešovice and Bubeneč quarters of Prague 7. The main part of Letn� ...

and a new stadium was built at Eden in the Vršovice district, known as Stadion Dr. Václava Vacka after Prague mayor

Václav Vacek Václav Vacek (11 September 187718 January 1960) was a Czech communist politician. He served as a Senator in the National Assembly of Czechoslovakia and after the Prague Uprising as the Mayor of Prague. He was also a founding member of the Commun ...

. Its capacity was about 38,000 (mostly for standing) and the stadium also featured an athletics track. The wooden western (main) stand was taken from the old stadium at Letná, the rest of the stands were made of concrete. The first match at this stadium took place on 27 September 1953, Slavia drew 1–1 against the team of Křídla vlasti Olomouc.

Josef Bican Josef "Pepi" Bican (25 September 1913 – 12 December 2001) was an Austrians, Austrian-Czechs, Czech professional Association football, footballer who played as a Forward (association football)#Striker, striker. He is regarded by some to be the ...

scored the home team's goal. In the 1970s, it became apparent that the stadium did not provide sufficient comfort for the visitors and planning started to build a new stadium at the same site. However, under the communist regime, the planning went quite slowly. Several projects were made, and construction was finally due to start in 1990. In 1989, Slavia moved temporarily to nearby Ďolíček stadium (then home of FC Bohemians Prague) and the eastern stand was torn down. However, the overthrowing of the communist regime in 1989 delayed the construction. In the meantime, Slavia moved to

Stadion Evžena Rošického Stadion Evžena Rošického, also known simply as Strahov, is a multi-purpose stadium in Strahov, Prague in the Czech Republic. It hosted the 1978 European Athletics Championships and for many years this was the venue for main annual internati ...

, a stadium on the Strahov hill, which is large but uncomfortable and poorly accessible. In the early 1990s, the whole construction was cancelled and Slavia moved back to Eden. A temporary stand was built in the place of the former eastern stand, but it was clear that Eden was outdated and Slavia needed a new home ground. Several more projects were proposed, but Slavia was unable to raise sufficient funds and there were some legal problems, as the premises were owned by the government and it took a lot of effort to transfer them to Slavia. In 2000, the stadium was ineligible to host Czech league matches, so Slavia moved to the unpopular Strahov again.

New stadium

In December 2003, the old and abandoned Eden stadium was torn down. 2006 saw the beginning of construction of a new stadium, which opened in May 2008 as the

References

External links

Stadium information
{{SK Slavia Prague Defunct football venues in the Czech Republic Sports venues in Prague SK Slavia Prague