About Grünwalder Stadion
Munich's football cathedral before the OlympiastadionOfficially the Städtisches Stadion an der Grünwalder Straße and known to everyone in Munich simply as the Grünwalder — or, older still, the Sechzger-Stadion — this is the ground where Munich football grew up. Seen from the air it is a tight, steep-sided bowl wedged into the Untergiesing-Harlaching district, about three kilometres south of the Marienplatz and hard against the Mittlerer Ring, its western terrace perched on the 18-metre drop of the old Isar valley edge. From meadow to stadiumThe site began in 1911, when the Munich club then known as TV 1860 München — today TSV 1860 München — leased a farm plot and built a sports ground with a small covered wooden stand for 14,000 marks; the first match was played on 23 April 1911. Through the 1920s the club bought the land and expanded steadily — a covered standing hall for some 8,000 in 1925, a concrete main stand, and by 1926 a capacity of around 24,000. The rebuilt arena was hailed at the time as one of the finest club sports grounds in Germany.In 1937 financial pressure forced 1860 to sell the stadium to the city of Munich, which rebuilt it after damage in the Second World War. Its record attendance of roughly 58,200 was set in 1948. Until the Olympiastadion opened in 1972, the Grünwalder was the most important sports venue in Munich, home at various times to both TSV 1860 and FC Bayern before the two giants moved on. The ground todayThe stadium stands in its current form after a renovation completed in 2013. Work in the western curve for the 2018/19 season raised the approved capacity from 12,500 to about 15,000. It is the third-largest football stadium in Munich, and long held the highest usage density of any football ground in Germany — in one late-2000s season more than ninety matches were played there.Since 2020 its regular tenants are the first team of TSV 1860 München and the second team of FC Bayern München. Unlike the vast, detached arenas that now dominate German football, the Grünwalder keeps its terraces close to the pitch, and from above that intimacy is obvious: no running track, no car-park moat, just four steep stands folded tightly around the grass in a residential quarter — a survivor of an older idea of what a stadium should be.
Location: Untergiesing-Harlaching, Munich, Germany
Opened: 1911 (built by TV 1860 München); current form since 2013
Capacity: about 15,000 (record attendance ~58,200 in 1948)
Tenants: TSV 1860 München (first team), FC Bayern München II
Highlights: Munich's leading venue until the Olympiastadion (1972); steep, compact terraces close to the pitch
