A top league stadium for regional football

There is a huge football stadium on the outskirts of the small Romanian town. The building is almost a hundred meters long, half that size wide and at least 15 meters high. If packed, it could house up to twenty, maybe thirty thousand people. Easily. But today, only seventy people are visiting the game of FC Olt Scorniceşti.

The countryside town Scorniceşti is the birthplace of Romania’s dictator Ceauşescu, who ruled the country till December 1989. It’s a typical communistic town, you find anywhere in the country. It has a bad infrastructure, the roads are in poor condition and sidewalks are rare. The town has it old communistic block apartments. Those are only four stories high, but the town has space enough to give everyone a villa with a huge garden. And off course it has some abandoned industry, which once housed communistic companies which couldn’t compete on the world market after the revolution in 1989.

Something special
This far Scorniceşti as a town which can be found all around Romania. But the special thing about Scorniceşti is it’s massive football stadium. The name of this great communistic arena: the Future Stadium.

The football stadium of FC Olt Scorniceşti – Future Stadium

But it’s future hasn’t been that bright the past twenty years. “It used to be beautiful,” says the 52 years old Ion Miu. The gray haired man is watching the Saturday game. “Really! Everything was painted nicely, but nothing of that is left.”

After a road which is only suitable for 4×4′s and daredevils that don’t care about their car, you end up at the parking place of the stadium. The once so called pavement is now filled with put holes. Some are so deep, a branch is put in preventing people to drive into it. Everywhere is mud, as it had rained the last night. the people are zig-zagging, avoiding the puddles.

The bad road conditions around the football stadium, just like in the whole town.

Bad conditions
“This stadium used to be one of the best of whole Romania,” says Teodoresav. He is playing football at the local team of Scorniceşti since 1992. “I went from a small boy in the junior league to the top,” he smiles. “The Future Stadium was the first one in Romania with plastic chairs and a semi-roof covering some of the seats. Underneath the field there is even an advantaged drain system.” The chance that there will be any pools of water on the field is small, even today.

But for all the other parts, the football stadium is in a poor condition. The light yellow plaster is falling of the outside walls. The entrance is dark as the light is broken. On the floor lie some undefinable parts of the building. Via a room which once was home of the bar, you enter the field. Right now the whole space is filled with dust, but some rays of light reveal that underneath it, some nice natural stones are lying on the ground.

An official observes while the two team shake hands before the game.

Teodoresav feels sad about the conditions of the stadium right now. “I saw this great stadium turning into this bad building. This sad thing started in 1996, when the team dropped to division D – the regional division.” At that moment the club was not interesting enough for sponsors. The income of the club disappeared and the stadium could not be maintained. “Our club used to have facilities which the big teams in Bucharest, Stenau and Dynamo, didn’t even had, during that period,” says Teodoresav. “There’s a nice swimming pool and a sauna inside, so you can relax after the game. But it is all not working anymore.”

The 52 years old Ion Miu watching the game.

Today’s reality
Today FC Olt Scorniceşti is playing against Unirea Puscoveni, a team from the region. Marius Stan, the trainer of Scorniceşti, keeps on shouting that the team has to attack more. When a player of the opposite teams falls down he screams fiercly “get up, get up!”

Only on the roofed part of the stadium, the seats remained. On the other parts of the stadium is nothing. Only old rusted parts of frames, which used to be chairs. A few supporters of the visiting team start to make a booo-sound. In the end the guy in purple jersey gets up again and some one takes a free kick. No chance of scoring as Scorniceşti has a strong defence.

Mitroi Stefanel, trainer of Unirea Puscoveni, is watching the game.

Just next tot he supporters of Unirea Pscoveni, are sitting around forty people, mainly men, from the town. They are there to support their local team, but seem more interested in each others stories. The game is a social meeting point on Saturdays.

In the top of the league
Trainer Marius Stan watch around. “It’s sad to play here, in this big stadium with only a few people watching,” he says. “If you’re thinking what level we used to play, it is very, very sad.” Stan used to play for FC Olt Scorniceşti. He moved to the town in 1988, when the team was still in the first division.

The Future stadium with the abandoned industry in the background.

“Back in those days, it was a whole different story. The team was in the sub-top. We were on fifth and ninth place. We sometimes beat the big teams of Bucharest, sometimes we played equal.” But it all changed in the winter of 1989. “Than the revolution came, and the team went to the thirth division. Almost all the players left. Once we manged to get back into the second division, but we never played in the first again.”

Ion Miu is still hanging around the bench. Talking with some of the players about the game, but he is not impressed by the game. Today is the first time in a long time he visits the stadium. “I didn’t go anymore after our good team degraded from division A to D. It was such a good team during Communism, but now.” He stops. “Everything was better during Communism.”

Medical assistance for a player.

Ceauşescu’s team
Many people would say that FC Olt Scorniceşti was the team of Ceauşescu. “But that is just not true,” says Marius Stan, who played for the team during the Communistic ruling. “That is just what people like to believe.” Stan doesn’t understand why. According to him it was just a normal football team. “It was true that most of the players came from this region, but during my time none of them came from the town of Scorniceşti. Some players came as far as 400 km from the town.”

Also Teodor Rodu, the secretary of the local council and born and raised in Scorniceşti says that it was not Ceauşescu’s team or stadium. “He didn’t even know it was build,” he laughs. It was some relative who was the big man of the region, that came up with the idea of building the Stadium. “I remember when Ceauşescu visited his hometown, the construction site of stadium was covered up.”

And for the people who like to know, FC Olt Scorniceşti won with a 3 to 0.