Norrby

Ground: Ryavallen/Borås Arena

Visits: 1

Date: 23rd May 2010

Match: Norrby - Kristianstad 1-0 (Division 1 Södra)

Attendance: 609

Norrby normally play at Borås Arena but since that ground was being prepared for X-sports (motorshow) the match against Kristianstad was moved to Ryavallen. As you can see below Ryavallen and Borås Arena are situated right next to each other. Borås Arena, with a capacity of 16 900, was opened in 2005 and replaced Ryavallen as the major football ground in Borås. Nowdays Ryavallen is almost solely used as an athletics ground and to my knowledge this is the first time since 2005 Elfsborg or Norrby has played a game at Ryavallen. I never visited the "old" Ryavallen but when I found out Norrby were to play my local team at this classic old ground I finally got my chance. Ryavallen was opened in 1941 and hosted mostly athletics and football. In the 1958 World Cup two matches were played here but as the ground was ageing Borås city council made the decision to build a new purpose built stadium for football. In its final years Ryavallen had a capacity of around 17 000 but since the stand on the far side was demolished in 2005 the capacity is around 8 000 nowdays. A match between Norrby and Kristianstad don´t attract that many but 609 is still a decent attendance for this level. Norrby won Division 2 last season and have had a good start to the season as well. They were second in the table before this match but after a home player got red card in the second half Kristianstad were by far the better side and it seemed a matter of time before the visitors shold score. They didn´t and in the 89th minute Norrby got a penalty. Another red card, this time for a Kristianstad player, and when Norrby scored from the penalty spot the game could only have one winner. Even if I was a bit disappointed to see Kristianstad lose I was still happy I was given the chance to attend a game at this classic ground.

Pictures from Borås Arena can be found at the Elfsborg page.

two grounds