Salt Lake Stadium

Salt Lake Stadium (also known as the Yuva Bharati Krirangan) is a multi-use stadium in Salt Lake City, a district of Kolkata, India.

It is one of the largest stadiums anywhere in the world. It is currently used for football matches and atheletics. The stadium was built in 1984 and holds 120,000 in a three-tier configuration.

Officially called the Yuva Bharati Krirangan (translates as the "Stadium of the Indian Youth"), it is more porpularly known as the Salt Lake Stadium (Salt Lake being the area of Kolkata where the stadium is situated). It is a three tier stadium hosting about 130,000 people though it is suspected that larger crowds have been smuggled in during some fo the local derby matches between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan.

Football

The Salt Lake stadium hosts the home games of the East Bengal, Mohun Bagan and Mohammedan Sporting Clubs, three of the big clubs in Indian football. the traditional Kolkata derbies between East Bengal v Mohun Bagan takes place in this stadium accompanied by much fanfare, feverish emotions (and on a few occassions - outbreaks of violence)...most of these matches are attended by capacity crowds of vociferous, partisan supporters of both teams (traditionally East Bengal Fans celebrates their win by eating Hilsa fish and Mohun Bagan fans celebrate wins by eating Prawns).

Many of the home games of the Indian National Football team are also played in Salt Lake, as are many important football games in major stages of national tournaments

Athletics

Apart from this, the stadium is also a major stadium for hosting of athletic events.including the SAF Games(South Asian Federation Games) in 1987 and various national athletics events in India.

See also

List of football stadiums by capacity

External links

• Travel guide - Salt Lake Stadium