From the Bodrum touchline

As thoughts turn to another home match on Sunday, it's probably time to finish the blog I started about Bodrumspor's stadium. The current stadium and adjacent industrial zone at least partly cover the ancient arena or hippodrome of Halicarnassus, and local archeologists often ask if its ever going to be excavated - especially when they see new excavations for improvements at the current stadium. But ... to the beginnings of the current stadium.  I'm told there was a camel wrestling stadium there years ago, no grass, just a sandy area and perhaps football was played there too.  It was after the merger of Bodrumspor with the Bodrum Belediye football team and with Belediye support that the current stadium was built in 2012/14, more or less when Bodrum moved out of the amateur leagues.  That stadium had an artificial grass pitch, which suffered in the severe storms in the winter of 2017/18. This in turn meant I went to my first match in a different stadium as Bodrum had to play