It’s not the Theatre of Dreams for everyone!
As the return of the Premier League draws near, fans are preparing and planning their away trips around the country to support their favourite team.
While some will be looking forward to travelling to some of the league’s more iconic and historic stadiums for the first time, others have already been and feel they are not all they are cracked up to be.
In a survey conducted by ChooseMyCar, an industry-leading car buying and financing service, fans voted The Theatre of Dreams as the second worst stadium to travel to beaten only by West Ham’s London Stadium.
The results were based on several metrics including away fan atmosphere, parking, google reviews, fan behaviour and arrests, number of home goals conceded and views from the stadium.
Out of the 20 stadiums analysed Brentford’s Gtech Community Stadium ranked the highest, closely followed by Fulham’s Craven Cottage.
In terms of away fan allocation, the Vitality Stadium, home to Bournemouth leads the way with 13.2 per cent of its capacity dedicated to travelling supporters. Meanwhile, United offer just 4.01 per cent of its capacity to away fans.
However, it is worth noting that United’s capacity of 75,000 is significantly higher than that of Bournemouth’s 11,300.
United’s stadium received heavy criticism at the end of last season when video footage showed water pouring through the roof.
However, Sir Jim Ratcliffe is progressing plans to build a new stadium for the Red Devils.
The highest place ‘big six’ was Liverpool’s Anfield which was seventh on the list. United’s Manchester rivals only ranked one place higher than them with City sitting 18th in the rankings.
Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium rating was joint top. It boasts a league-leading 4.7 Google review rating, alongside Anfield and The City Ground. It also joint-tops the rankings on ‘A View From My Seat’.
West Ham’s ground suffered from a safety point of view as it has the highest number of arrests in the league at 89 suggesting safety concerns for away supporters. That, along with a poor away fan percentage of 4.9 per cent, saw The London Stadium slump to the bottom of the pile for the best stadiums to visit.
