Murrayfield Stadium

Ground: Murrayfield Stadium

Visits: 1

Date: 22nd July 2014

Match: Celtic - KR 4-0 (Champions League, 2nd qualifying round)

Attendance: 39 099

Murrayfield Stadium is Scotland´s national stadium for rugby. 10 years ago Hearts played a few UEFA-cup matches at the ground but otherwise no football matches are played at Murrayfield Stadium. Due to the Commonwealth Games being held in Glasgow and Celtic Park (as well as Hampden Park) being used Celtic had to play their Champions League qualifying matches somewhere else. The choice was to be Murrayfield Stadium and for me this was of course good news. When the match was confirmed as being on Tuesday evening it meant I could fly in from Dublin, watch the match and then fly back home on Wednesday. The weather was really nice during the flight and I had some stunning views of Scotland as we approached Edinburgh Airport. Around 12.30 I was then at my hotel in central Edinburgh. My room was not ready and I went to have lunch instead of checking in.

Dirk had travelled to Edinburgh early in the morning and we had arranged to meet each other at Haymarket station at 4pm. Another German groundhopper, Bastian from Dresden, showed up as well and the three of us then walked towards Murrayfield. An hour later Celtic fan Jonathan showed up as well and we all had a drink in the Roseburn pub. Since this was a unique opportunity there were plenty of other groundhoppers at Murrayfield as well. My friend Maik was one of them. He had a late flight to Edinburgh but arrived in time for the match and we met inside the ground. My seat was in the upper tier of the West Stand. As soon as I entered I was impressed with what I saw. Murrayfield Stadium has 68 000 seats and is well worth a visit. It feels more like a big "continental Europe" ground than a British ground but nevertheless an impressive ground.

The match itself was very one-sided. KR (Knattspyrnufelag Reykjavikur) are in the middle of their season but Celtic were still far too strong for them. Having won the first led 1-0 Celtic only needed to score in this game to be more or less certain of winning the tie. After 27 minutes it was already 3-0 to Celtic. 3-0 at half-time and at full-time it was 4-0 (5-0 on aggregate). In total around 40 000 were inside Murrayfield Stadium for this match. I didn´t expect much regarding the atmosphere but was positively surprised. It was a warm day in Edinburgh and I guess people had been drinking all day, maybe that helped creating a decent atmosphere. After the match I walked with Dirk and Maik to the city centre, said good-bye to them before quickly falling asleep at my hotel. Another great trip for me and hopefully some more interesting trips coming up for me in the near future.

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