Amid Euro Fever, Tour Revisits Romania’s old Communist-era Stadiums

Under the suggestive title Stadioane de cartier, Romanian for "neighbourhood stadiums", a series of tours around Bucharest organised by the online publication CORNER football+society take participants to the vestiges of a bygone era in which football was a key part of the lives of millions under the iron-fisted rule of the Communist Party.

"Neighbourhood stadiums are relevant to understand the degree to which football had an impact on people's lives, most especially in the communist period," says Andrei Mihail, an anthropologist specialising in the human and social aspects of football, and the guide on the Stadioane de cartier tours.

Image of the stands of the Bucharest's Faur stadium. Built in 1946, the arena was once home of the Metalul football club. Photo: Stadion de Cartier

As in most parts of the world, the transformation of football to the sport of the masses coincided in Romania with industrialization. Both processes happened in the 1950s under a brutal Stalinist regime obsessed with equality and the idea of the collective.

After nationalising or demolishing the interwar stadiums, the Communist government put in motion an ambitious plan to universalise the cult of sport among the proletariat. A central part was the construction of football pitches and stadiums, and the setting up of clubs near virtually every factory in Bucharest and other Romanian towns.

As a result, workers and their families, as well as neighbours living near the factories, had a team to play at or identify with. Moreover, the football pitches or arenas for other sports were generally open for everyone, without cost. It afforded all segments of the population a chance to invest in physical exercise and get acquainted with football and other, more...