What's your favourite abandoned stadium in the world?

Played over 300 games for the club. Captained them for 5 seasons during first ever promotion to Premier league. Fantastic set up. Sad to see it how it is! Great memories of a scenic Riverside Stadium!

Wow. Great seeing our old stomping ground. So sad seeing it though many great memories there. You are correct, we had our 1st ever promotion to the premiership at the ground. We stayed there for a few years before yo yo-ing between there and championship. When we moved to the brandywell we were a premiership club. At 7.48 you are correct that was the media room. And even more amazing at 10.59 that blue seat was my seat that I sat in every week beside my Dad who until recently was secretary of Institute. Thanks for the vid haven't seen it since we left in 2017

Great seeing all these stadiums over in Ireland. They have a lot of character and reminds me what grounds used to be like in Scotland. I am going to go to a game at the oval in Belfast. Lovely old stadium. Loved the red and green colours

I'm with you Sam on the experience of visiting abandoned stadiums, but you do crack me up with the sheer joy you express at seeing these half-destroyed places, which are normally the result of devastating circumstances for a poor unlucky football club. Well ... not always !... But you get my drift ...

Brilliant as always Sam , love your insights , unbiased opinions and enthusiasm for these abandoned gems of stadiums 👍⚽

seen loads of videos of abandoned stadiums but don’t think I’ve seen this one before, another great video Sam

Great video Sam. Having watched your videos since the beginning it was quite poignant to see you in the village i grew up in Drumahoe and visit the old stadium i used to stand on the terraces with my Uncles and enjoy many of 'Stutes league and cup games. So many happy memories. I moved to Scotland quite a few years ago but friends and family in that area have told me that the club are currently in the process of relocating to a new stadium a few miles away and i very much look forward to visiting them. Hopefully you'll be able to do a follow up video to this whenever that happens :-)

Great vis Sam, amazing to find the stadium still looking so good and they had great facilities.

i always enjoyed visiting the riverside. it was a well kept little ground with friendly people there. a real shame this happened to the club.

Remember travelling down here to follow Portadown, always was a superb wee stadium close to the action. Always hard fought to get results down there, small tight pitch and ground held atmosphere well.

Great video mate well done on the excellent work

Your videos never fail to interest! Great video as always 👍

Probably the best abandoned video you’ve done! 👏

The pitch has never been recovered due to a Japanese Knotweed infestation. It would take between 5 to 10 years to treat. That along with further flood risk is the reason Institute decided to leave.

Sam, great vid as always. One you could do in future is, in Dundee there are 10 clubs in the pyramid, dundee and united, lochee united, lochee Harp, violet, north end, downfield, east cragie, St James and Broughty. Can all be done in a few hours, also your more than welcome to come and watch lochee united if you ever get chance, a warm welcome always guaranteed

Hi sam great video as its good to see were teams played once and to get more of a history of them as well

What a fantastic setting for a stadium. It's a shame that they had to abandon it due to flooding.

Another great vid Sam! Amazing the changes in five years. Terrific work visiting disused stadiums. An atmospheric venue!

I was expecting an Institute FC supporter to appear and tell you about the club history. A shame the place has been abandoned so long. By the way, Great Yarmouth FC's stadium is worth a look; its main stand is one of the oldest in England.

Great video. I watched you for over a year now. Great to see you in Ireland and the North. UCD Vs Bohs tonight. Come on bohs.

I believe it was an insurance issue that prevents them from moving back into that ground.

When they were in the top division. Was always one of my favourite away days. The furthest away match for Glenavon

I played in the youth teams back around 2005-2008 and I remember on Friday nights, the pitches next to the stadium (which were also destroyed in the flooding and are now farmland) were filled with hundreds of youngsters training in different age groups. Its sad to see the state of the old stadium but things are looking brighter, Stute may have a shot of promotion back to the top tier this season and are the preferred tenants for a proposed new stadium at Clooney Park West in the Waterside. FUN FACT: Ronaldinho, Kluivert, Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol and Overmars were part of the Barcelona team that trained here in preparation for a Friendly against Derry City back in 2003!

I'm surprised you didn't go on to the pitch to check if it was real weeds. Another stadium, although not abandoned, that hosts teams playing in league in different countries is The Bowl in Douglas, Isle of Man, home to F.C. Isle of Man of the North West Counties league and to St Mary's of the Isle of Man Football League.

Japanese Knotweed was the reason which would mean they would not get insurance. Stute do have plans in place to build a new stadium on Clooney Road West. The actual home of Stute, well the forerunner to Stute

I'm from Belfast, you're videos are great new sub 👍🏻

Its very sad to see this. I had a lot of good friends on the committee of "Stute" and admired them for all the hard work they put in. Unfortunately, this was not the first time the pitch flooded so, at the time they received the £750,000 funding I was a bit surprised but the assurance was given new flood defences were in place. As the name suggests the Riverside Stadium ( which is on land owned by the YMCA) is on the banks of the Faughan River and not very much higher than the water level of the river. On my very first ever visit there was a massive down pour in the area about 2 hours before kickoff. This resulted in the river bursting its banks and the stadium and surrounding rugby pitches being flooded. I have an image in my head that the water level was just 1 foot below the crossbar at its highest. I hasten to add this was prior to all the new facilties being built. After the water subsided things returned to normal. Stute were a good team and climbed to the Premier League. This was the time the grant funding was being apportioned. Unfortunately Stute were relegated and were due to have the funding withdrawn. A local MP stepped in and successfully fought their corner and they were allowed to keep it. And so the improvements began with money coming from sponsors as well. It became a great stadium with all the latest facilities. Closed cct TV , disabled lift , new stands and of course the diesel powered flood lights were added later under another grant scheme. (£300,000 in line with other Premier League Clubs) Everybody seemed to forget the flooding potential (maybe assuming it had been dealt with properly by the Rivers Authority - Unfortunately not as we now all know) Also, that a lot of money was being spent on a ground that was neither owned by the club nor the local council, but by the YMCA. I had assumed that Stute would come back here eventually but the Japanese knotweed seems to have put paid to that. Hopefully a lot of the fixtures and fittings can be recovered and put into storage fo future use eg the stadium seating, the metal work of the standd, the turnstile mechanisms and of course that expensive floodlighting. From experience, the longer a club is "on the road" the more difficult it is for them to obtain a new ground and the more likely they are to fold. I sincerely hope that this isnt the case for Stute. Great video by the way ( but it shocked and saddened me to see the state its in today.

Would be nice to see a property developer buy the land and rebuild the stadium, and to include more modern day facilities

From dublin .worked all over ireland. Love when I'm sent to derry. Best place for a night out

Hi Sam another great video, due to the flooding Japanese Knotweed is now all over the abandoned stadium.

great editing

I'm a Belfast lad, going with a Londonderry girl, I drove past on the bus going to see her, didn't know it was going on as it took about an hour to get past, driving past the ground was madness, a mini was in the river beside the ground, the water was about 1ft from the top of the goals, was very sad

Great video, there is an abandoned football ground near Haslingden once home to Haslingden FC then later Stand Athletic FC. Still in situ just reclaimed for the most part by nature, would be good if you could make a video about it 😊

Such a shame how things ended up for Institute. Really hope they can get back to their best. If you look on here you can find a video of Glentoran winning the league at this ground in 2003. Place was packed!

Thanks Sam so sad but interesting

You could do Shawfield. The old Clyde Stadium. Granted it isn't abandoned but got a nice back story to it and not used for football anymore. Keep up the good work. Fantastic viewing.

What a shame it looks like it was a decent ground,great video again

It's really dissapointing and sad to see stadiums go like this but cool video mate 👍

Hiya Sam, you forgot to mention St Bernards F.C, I love your abandoned stadiums vlogs aswel, Baseball Ground (Derby County former ground, I think Derby County train on that ground),Burnden Park (Bolton Wanderers former ground is still there, so I'm lead to believe) you should check them 2 out, this is Choppy in Whitehaven, Cumbria, England

Next time you visit Manchester go and check out the old university stadium at the rear of Owens park student lodgings in Fallowfiled as the Fallowfield stadium as it’s still known was built in 1882 and is still around for visitors to check out.. It staged an FA cup final the following year between Everton and Wolves but as the capacity was little over 15k it was never used after the final for any other top flight football match and was solely used as an athletics venue thereafter before being abandoned for several decades until Manchester university bought up the land to build housing for the ever increasing student population in Manchester but was spared by the council and kept fairly maintained as a shared venue for the scholars add the public community to use their after and as i said is still around to day to go and visit if one fancies..

I saw Ronaldino trained at that abandoned ground the great Barcelona trained their before a friendly i think in 05 before playing a friendly against derry city

I'm surprised that you didn't pick up on this information during your research Sam, but the flooding brought an infestation of Japanese Knotweed which would take up to 10 years to treat & eradicate (but with no promises that it won't come back). This will eventually cause issues with the foundations of the structures and the place can no longer be covered by insurance.

Round the corner from my house great wee stadium the futures bright for us tho ❤️

Seen Barcelona train there when they played Derry in a friendly in 2003 the summer Ronaldinho signed

Go to St julians road ground, you'll love it if u like abandoned grounds

If you come to Yorkshire again visit Harrogate railway athletic football club very friendly people there

Watched my first football game at this stadium with my grandad when I was 5 and he always took me to games here until he died.

Passed it every day going to work for a few months working in stroke city, one of the guys I worked with played in goal for stute when they played at riverside good wee team then hard to beat

Crazy to see what happened to this stadium! such a shame though…

A very sad story. Hope things ultimately turn out ok for the club.

I think u should go to longford town fc stadium called Bishopsgate its 1 of the biggest stadiums of the league of Ireland. It has a capacity of nearly 5,000 but we've never had that in my lifetime. Go and see it, it is a nice stadium. Its in Longford in the middle of Ireland

My old club moved because of flooding. The pitch has been made into a park with pools for surface water. The pitch was just next to a lake.

To bad they could not stay. Really good little stadium this

Just to clear up a point of misconception the brandywell stadium home of Derry city fc is actually owned by Derry city council originally it was owned by the honourable the Irish society as part of the plantation it was overseen by the then Londonderry city council there is s some information on the net that the ground was given to the club but that is not the case actually the club have been looking at other sites to see if any are suitable for a future club owned home

Not soccer but I highly recommend you visit Casement Park park. It has been abandoned for nearly a decade , due to legal issues surrounding a proposed redevelopment. The social club is still open under the main stand .

It was a good ground to watch a match at. It’s a mixture of the flooding and Japanese knot weed that’s why Institute isn’t playing at there own ground

James McClean played his youth football at Institute before he moved to Derry City

There is another abandoned stadium in Belfast you could have visited...A GAA stadium called Casement Park...there are plans to redevelop it though

Hey mate, you should check Stadio Sant'Elia in Cagliari (Italy) Big matches has disputed there included 1990 worldcup matches

Good news on the new ground front.

When are you coming to Belgium mate?

Such a nice ground. Feel sorry for stute fans

I can remember doing a job with my ex,s dad in hull many years ago ....we were 2 streets away from the old boothferry park so decided to have a nose and see if I could get in....got in through a side gate and it gave me the creeps...one thing about that place that I found creepy was the 6 floodlight pylons...was only there about 20mins but couldn't get out quick enough....always thought it was a shit hole even when it was in use.

Went to many a game there. Institute are going to be dismantling that ground soon and hopefully moving to a new site a couple of miles away called Clooney Park West.

so overgrown!

Please will you do a video about Limerick FC.

Thought he was going to do a video on the Carlisle when I saw the title tbh

I used to think I might be a little crazy getting a buzz from abandoned grounds but I know better now..... and seeing floodlights in the distance as a kid was pretty special.

Reading online, the Rivers Agency wouldn't let them build flood defences, so they couldn't move back in because the likelihood of it happening again is high because of cclimate change.

You'd think kids would have still have used it for a kick about before the grass got out of hand

I think u should go to ayr v elgain on the sun

Surprised it hasnt been knocked down for either an industrial or housing site.

Rushden and Diamonds stadium. It was like a ghost town

What about you visiting Basingstoke town old ground has been abandoned since 2019 this called the camrose

You should look up Casement Park in Belfast

It is a huge shame that the football stadiums are not maintained, you can always use them for the smaller football clubs nearby.

A bit of a puzzle about this ground, before the renovation spending spree surely the high potential of a flood must have been the elephant in the room of discussions to carry on ? or move to new safe territory, etc? however,, the renovation plan for some strange reason still went ahead in favour of the riverside ?. Institute with respect hasn't really a big support following, and on a good day, most fans would fill 2 of the small riverside stands. Ambition to make a small club bigger is good but the gamble on reality is another thing that can & break many small clubs. In this case, both gambles were of 1: new prosperity and 2: the rising tides of Ma nature

How could anyone be seemingly happy about abandoned stadiums I don't really understand. Find it personally a waste and depressing, never ever a good thing.

A like The grass being a bit Longer Slow, s the Ball Down a bit🤣

I mind the Barcelona team of 2003 training out there In The YMCA. They were playing Derry In A Friendly Game In The Brandywell. Frank Rijkaard was the Barcelona Manager at the time . Players like Ronaldinho, Patrick Kluivert, Cocu, Xavi, Puyol, Marc Overmars, Iniesta and Valdes all trained on that pitch

i love ur videos skint at mo but would love to c u at firhill 1 day ;)

Go to Kilkenny city's stadium they went bankrupt and now the stadium is over grown go check it out

What about Griffin Park? Do that next

U should call in to tobermore fc only irish league team played one match in cup george best played at in 1980s

Thought it was going to be casement park lol at the end of the day nature always wins

I live in that town it got flooded

rawa mon the derry

This is such a shame . I don’t get why they abandoned this nice little stadium . The ground flooded once but could they not have tried to fix the problems like ? Other clubs have had flooding problems but managed to deal with it . Why didn’t they sell off the equipment at least ??

Mate come and see glentoran vs rangers b on Sunday 10th July at the oval 1pm kick off

FYI, Derry City don't own the Brandywell, the council do. Derry & Institute hire/rent it. Great insight once again 👏🏻👏🏻

Derry city's ladies team play in the northern Ireland ladies league

thought Derry played at the Brandywell?

Go to Kilkenny City stadium, abandoned since 2007

It wouldn't take much a team of professionals to put that back together

In 20 years we be looking for the lost staduim of insitute. Be a national geographical special

Move to France mate. Cover all the Ligue 1 Stadiums 🏟👍🏻👍🏻

Surely they could have built a flood barrier and and dug up the pitch and relayed it hahah crazy

Looks like The Den.

Ever been told you look like Ben stokes