Bodrum's BOUTIQUE stadium - Part 1

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 their next home match in Muǧla's Atatürk stadium, while theirs was being repaired.

The pitch was relaid, but as Bodrumspor was climbing the leagues, it soon had to be replaced with a grass pitch to meet the TFF league rules.  Small improvements were made as well in seating and access, but the big changes came when they moved to Lig 1.

First there was the addition of gantries for TV cameras as Bodrumspor matches were now regularly televised.

The TV cameras were also required for VAR - yes, Turkey had embraced VAR for the top two divisions.  But sighting the referees monitor just in front of the stand where the Ultras congregate was a recipe that led to a number of stadium bans for everybody or selected groups because of rowdy behaviour or ungentlemanly language directed at the officials.

The other big change was the addition of boxes for sponsors, etc., to watch the matches on comfortable armchairs in a room where windows could be closed if too cold, wet or windy.

The latest changes came with promotion to the Super Lig.  Most important was new floodlighting, from towers erected on the corners of the ground and visible all over Bodrum.

Almost every week between match days there have been further changes, new team and officials changing rooms, press facilities, signage, and bigger gantries for prime time TV coverage, VAR and goal line technology which is coming soon.

The stadium has more of less the same capacity of around 4,500, including the new disabled viewing area, and the first row of seating is only about 3 metres from the edge of the pitch, which is why Bodrumspor describe the stadium as a "boutique" stadium.

Roughly translated this says "our stadium isn't small, our dreams are big".

Also in recognition perhaps of the tonnes of concrete they delivered to build the new facilities, Grey Beton has naming rights for the stadium.  So now we play at the "Grey Beton Bodrum Stadium".

I'll write a little more about the stadium in a future blog, but for now that's it for the stadium history.  Thanks for reading and comments welcome.