Stadion Miejski w Pile – stadium description

The municipal stadium in Piła lies on the verge of a forest, within the Górne district, west of the main train station. It's part of the Górne sports complex. Bus stops are located in the north and north-west, the closest one at ul. Żeromskiego. The stadium is surrounded with parking sites, the largest of which is south of the venue, at the connection of Żeromskiego and Sportowa.

The stadium has a traditional layout along the north-south axis, with almost entirely covered main stand in the west. All of the auditorium has been created on massive land embankments, which surround an international standard 8-lane running track and a professional football field.

The west stand can hold up to 2,000 people, while the east – for the away fans – is built around the historical entry tunnel, with two sections of 250 seats each. Beside the stadium stands a major indoor arena, along with a hotel that is partly built into the stadium's southern curve.

The stadium was designed back in 1926-27 by Walter Hildt, back when the city was German. Opening took place on June 26, 1927. Not long later, in 1932, the ground was visited by Adolf Hitler himself, during a rally of the youth activists. Back then the auditorium spanned across all of the embankment, making it a major stadium in the region. In 1988 it was upgraded and reopened. A new running track was laid in 2005 but soon proved to be substandard and unfit for use.

In 2014-15 the stadium in Piła was renovated in two phases, which together saw part of the stands revived back to public use, as well as players' facilities, sanitary facilities and a brand new running track. With no anchor tenant, much of the old stands was covered with low-growing shrubs, seeing capacity drop from some 20,000 to 2,500. The ground now meets major infrastructural criteria and is used by KP Piła, a club created in 2016 to revive football in Piła, which was surprisingly absent for years.