Euro 2008 Venues AUSTRIA

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Pictures to come later

'Ooooo Vienna' - I had to...it's going to be used numerous times during the competition. So get used to it, Midge Ure will be claiming millions from it.

ERNST HAPPEL, VIENNA

The Ernst Happel is Austria's premier football stadium. It entertains the Austria national team, the Austrian Cup Final, the Vienna's teams European fixtures and in the extraordinary case, the Vienna derby. 50,000 can be fitted into this old-fashioned bowl which housing a running track alongside the football pitch. It was built between 1929 and 1931 and it went under a facelift in 1986.

It has a large steel structure which supports the roof and can be seen from outside. The second tier is very steep whilst the bottom very shallow. It is also a FIFA five star stadium which means it's allowed to stage a Champions League or UEFA Cup Final (don't read too much in too that). It's majestic 1920's facade was left unaffected by the 1986's changes and maintains to be it's strong point.

An old-fashioned bowl which was simply built for numbers (it's record attendance is over 92,000). It now lacks the standard you expect but no doubt that the Austrians have their rose-tinted glasses over it (bit like Wembley I suppose). It will hold Austria's 3 group games, 2 quarter-final, a semi-final and a final.

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Wals Siezenheim Stadium, Salzburg

The Wals Siezenheim Stadium in Salzburg is a newly-developed arena which was built to accomdate the team of Red Bull Salzburg. The formation of the club was somewhat suspect terms in much the same way MK Dons took Wimbledon's league place and a consortium of business men bought a small Austrian Bundesliga club and moved them to Salzburg. With the large sponsorship deal with Red Bull, Red Bull Salzburg became the name. They adopted the colours and the stadium was largely funded by Red Bull themselves.

It was originally 18,200 on it's completion in 2003. However, with the approaching European Championship it was expanded to 30,000. This extension is temporary and whilst some seats will stay, others will used elsewhere in the country. The stadium is a functional square modern-day McStadium. However it possess a very strong lighting system which was developed for multi-use and the football pitch is plastic. This football pitch will be ripped out for the tournament and replaced with by grass.

Red Bull are a rare occurrence - they sell out most weeks but most of these tickets are freebies. It's hard to define what fanbase there is, they are a relative new club but boast the best players of the region. It's a new build which hardly has a stamp of originality about it but it does possess the acoustics and lighting which benefit these kind of occasions. It's a beautiful suburb of Salzburg which will no doubt have an excellent new transport link to ut. It will be restricted to group games and Group D ones at that.

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Hypo Arena, Klagenfurt

The Hypo Arena, Klagenfurt is a recently built multi-use stadium. Also, a recently formed team play there in Austria Karten. It was built at the cost off 66 million Euros and overlooks a lake (the sightlines are said to be beautiful from the upper tier). The design is slightly more circular than the norm and it boasts a facade of plastic which allows sun through to the grass (similar to Allianz Arena, Munich).

It was previously the Wortherseestadion which stood on the site, this was built in 1960 and demolished to make way for the new build in 2005. Notice the sponsorship of ''Hypo'' allowed the finance to be secured for the new stadium which was mostly funded by the City of Klagenfurt who were actively seeking the honour of being the 4th city to hold the competition in Austria. It originally holds 12800 but will be boosted to 32000 for the competition with various bits of the seating being distributed amongst Austria's stadia after the event.

A functional stadium in a beautiful setting. It will be interesting to see how the City of Klagenfurt copes alone with Germany, Poland and Croatia all meeting here.