The Skagerak Arena is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

stadium located in

Skien Skien () is a municipality in Telemark county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Grenland, although historically it belonged to Grenmar/Skiensfjorden, while Grenland referred the Norsjø area and Bø. The administrative ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. It was formerly called Odd Stadion, and was built in 1923 as the home ground of

Eliteserien Eliteserien () is a professional association football league in Norway and the highest level of the Norwegian football league system. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the Norwegian First Division ...

club Odd. The stadium is often referred to as ''Falkum'', being situated in that area of Skien. The stadium has been undergoing an extensive redevelopment process, begun in November 2006, which produced a modern all-seater venue by April 2008. Part of the finance Odd needed for the project was obtained through the lease of the stadium's naming rights to the club's main sponsor since 1995, the Norwegian

power company The Power Company is a team of superheroes-for-hire in the DC Comics universe. The team, created by Kurt Busiek and Tom Grummett, first appeared in '' JLA'' #61 (February 2002). They subsequently starred in an eponymous series that ran for eigh ...

Skagerak Energi Skagerak Energi is a Norwegian utility company. The company's main focus is production and distribution of electrical power and other energy, in addition to business areas related to this. The group has about 600 employees, and an annual power pr ...

. The stadium will therefore be known as Skagerak Arena until at least 2017. The pitch has been rotated 90 degrees in order to free up space. As is increasingly common in Norway, the new surface is

artificial Artificiality (the state of being artificial, anthropogenic, or man-made) is the state of being the product of intentional human manufacture, rather than occurring naturally through processes not involving or requiring human activity. Connotati ...

. The old main stand is now an end stand, incorporated into the new structure as the only surviving feature of the old stadium. Three new two-tiered stands was completed between 2007 and 2008. The east and west stands has a capacity of 4,300 while the south end seats around 3,000. Construction of the west stand had progressed far enough by April 2007 to allow spectators on the lower tier for the first home match of the season, on 15 April. Total capacity was at first 6,000 And increased gradually throughout 2007. The old stadium had a capacity of about 8,600, of which 5,600 were seated. The venue has hosted

Norway national under-21 football team The Norway national under-21 football team, administered and controlled by the Norwegian Football Federation, is the Norway national football team, national football team of Norway for players of 21 years of age or under at the start of a UEFA E ...

matches three times, playing 0–0 against

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

on 9 May 1979, 2–1 against

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

on 18 August 1998 and 3–1 against

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

on 19 August 2003. In a 2012 survey carried out by the

Norwegian Players' Association The Norwegian Players' Association ( or NISO) is a trade union for professional football, handball and ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink ...

among away-team captains, Skagerak Arena was ranked tenth amongst league stadiums, with a score of 3.07 on a scale from one to five.

References

External links

Skagerak Arena video and photos
- Nordic Stadiums {{coord, 59, 12, 40, N, 009, 35, 23, E, source:nowiki_region:NO, display=title Football venues in Norway Eliteserien venues Norwegian Cup Final venues Sports venues completed in 1923 1923 establishments in Norway Sports venues in Skien Odds BK