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Eintracht Frankfurt’s stadium first opened in 1925 and today’s Commerzbank-Arena is effectively the fourth iteration of the Waldstadion (Forest Stadium). The original ground consisted of wooden stands which were capable of housing 35,00 spectators and the inaugural match was held between FSV Frankfurt and FC Nürnberg which the away team winning by 1 goal to nil. As football began to grow in popularity following the Second World War, the local council decided to renovate the stadium, prompted by a near stadium disaster in 1953 when 70,000 tickets were sold for a designated crowd of 55,000 which resulted in over a thousand fans injured. The second redevelopment of Walstadion in the 1970s was prompted by the hosting of 1974 World Cup and the new stadium, practically built again from the ground up hosted the opening ceremony and five group matches. The 1980s and 1990s saw The Walstadion be used more regularly for Athletics events and Concerts, with Frankfurt’s home ground once again receiving investment for the Fifa World Cup in 2006. Commerzbank-Arena as the new stadium is known by was built over a 3 year period from 2002 to 2005 and the 51,500 capacity ranks it within the top 10 largest stadiums in Germany. Today the Commerzbank is a pure footballing stadium although it still hosts American Football, and Bruce Springsteen concerts and the occasional boxing match of Wladimir Klitschko. The name changed agreed with Commerzbank AG in 2005 on a 10 year deal was seen as a controversial move but one that ultimately makes financial sense – €30 million euros of sense that is.

DRIVING The out of town Commerzbank Arena is located very close to both the A3 (Horizontal) and A5 (Vertical) motorways which means the stadium has good access from all points of the compass. The address for satnav is as follows: Mörfelder Landstrasse 362, 60528 Frankfurt am Main Car Parks There are three official car-parks located at the stadium: Parking A (Green) to the east, Parking B (Blue) north-east, and Parking C (Yellow) north-west. BUS Frankfurt’s smaller railway station (Südbahnhof) located towards the South of the city has a bus station outside with the Number 61 able to take you to the Commerzbank-Arena. Hop on in the direction of Flughafen and hop off at either the Frankfurt Stadion or Osttribüne stop. TRAIN As a German city, the public transport is very decent with your match ticket allowing you access to the trains, trams and buses in most cases. Frankfurt’s central location makes it one of the main transports hubs in Europe, meaning that it is very well connected both nationally and internationally speaking. TRAM You can access the S-Bahn Rhein-Main tram network underneath the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof Station, with all S-Bahn lines passing through the station with the exception of S7. To get to the Commerzbank-Arena on matchdays you can take either S8 or S9 in the direction of Mainz and Wiesbaden and then get off at Frankfurt am Main – Stadion stop which is less than 5 minutes walk away. The journey takes no more than 20 minutes and you can also board the lines from other stations in the city. Alternatively on matchdays you can catch Tram 21 from the main station which also takes you to the Commerzbank-Arena with the Stadion stop being the final destination. AIRPORTS Frankfurt International airport is the third largest in Europe behind London’s Heathrow and France’s Paris-Charles de Gaulle with over 57.5 million passengers transported in 2012 alone. Located 11 k, south west of the city, once landed you can catch either the S8 or S9 into the historic centre or stadium,with the journey likely to take no more than 30 minutes.