Kantrida Stadium

Kantrida Stadium (Croatian: Stadion Kantrida) is a football stadium in the Croatian city of Rijeka. It is named after the Kantrida neighbourhood in which it is located, in the western part of the city. It has served as the home of the HNK Rijeka football club for most years since 1946. The stadium has a distinctive appearance as it is situated between steep cliffs, a remnant of an old quarry, just north of the stadium and the shore of the Adriatic on its south side.

Since 1990 the venue was occasionally used for Croatia national football team's international fixtures. The national team has never been defeated at Kantrida. The stadium has a seating capacity of approximately 10,600. The stadium is scheduled for major reconstruction over the next several years. A new state-of-the-art 14,438 capacity all-seater stadium will be built at the same location.

History

The location was used as a stone quarry before the first football ground was created on the site in 1911 by HSK Victoria, a football club based in Susak (presently part of Rijeka; but at the time a separate town east of the city), and the first football match played at Kantrida was held in 1913, a friendly between Victoria and Gradanski Zagreb.

Victoria continued to use the stadium until the end of World War I and the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918. The city of Rijeka was then first declared part of the Italian Regency of Carnaro (1919–1920), then the Free State of Fiume (1920–1924), before being formally annexed by Kingdom of Italy in 1924, which remained unchanged until the end of World War II. During this period between 1919 and 1945 Victoria's home town of Susak was located on the other side of the border as it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, so the club was unable to use the ground.

In 1925, the 8,000 capacity stands were built by the newly established local Italian club U.S. Fiumana who went on to use the stadium between 1926 and 1945 while competing in the Italian league system. The

This page also has a version in other languages :  Кантрида Стадион (russian)