Svangaskarð
| Tofta Leikvøllur | |
| Full name | Svangaskarð |
|---|---|
| Location |
 Toftir, Faroe Islands |
| Capacity | 6,000 |
| Construction | |
| Built | 1980 |
| Opened | 1980 |
| Tenants | |
| Faroe Islands | |
Svangaskarð (pronounced [ˈsvɛŋkaskɛaɹ]) or Tofta Leikvøllur is a multi-purpose stadium in Toftir, Faroe Islands with two football fields and a sports arena for athletics around the lower field.[1] It is currently used mostly for football matches. The stadium holds 6,000 people. It was the sole home ground of the Faroe Islands national football team from 1991 and until the Tórsvøllur Stadium was built in the capital Tórshavn in 1999 and is still occasionally used for international football matches.
History
The stadium on Svangaskarð was first opened in 1980. It was just a gravel pitch the first years. The conditions for the players were not good in 1980, there was no house, just a cabin, where they could change their clothes. In 1984 they built a real house for the players, the same year B68 Toftir won their first Faroese Championship. In 1987 artificial grass was laid on the pitch and two years later, on 8 July 1989, they opened the facilities for athletics around the football field. The occasion was the Island Games which were held in the Faroe Islands for the first time. The grass pitch was first laid in 1990 to 1991. The work started in November 1990 shortly after the Faroe Islands won against Austria in Landskrona in Sweden. There was no football pitch in the Faroe Islands which met the high standards of the UEFA at the time when the Faroe Islands first started to play international football. But the people of Toftir wanted to change that, so they started to build a real stadium on Svangaskað. They built a new football pitch just above the old one. The house near the old pitch did not meet the standard, so they built a new house and seats around the pitch. The new pitch and the new house were officially opened on 20 October 1991 when the Faroe Islands national football team played against a special chosen team.[2] The record attendance for a football match in the Faroe Islands was set at the stadium, in 1998 when the Faroe Islands won 2-1 against Malta, the attendance was 6,642.[3] The stadium containing the sports arena, also hosts the home matches of B68 Toftir.
References
Further reading
- "Kerr picks perfect place to stand ground", The Irish Times, 9 June 2011, retrieved 11 June 2011