Stadion Stoczniowy – stadium description

Though nominally this stadium in northern Szczecin offers only 300 places, its actual size is quite significant. At peak it was able to hold some 5,000 people on the two landfill terraces running along the north and south sides. Each of them has 10 rows, individual seats were never installed.

Construction of the stadium was directly linked to crucial social events of December 1970. Workers' strikes across northern Poland were brutally quashed by the militia and army, killing 42 people and wounding over a thousand. This caused a schism in Arkonia, one of Szczecin's largest sports clubs. It was initially created to serve both the militia and the Szczecin Shipyard (Stocznia Szczecińska), which in 1970 became the oppressors and the oppressed.

That's why Stocznia decided to abandon Arkonia and create a club of their own, named Stal Stocznia. It was precisely for that club that the shipyard has financed construction of this stadium in the Warszewo district. It had to be of significant size as part of Arkonia's following was certain to relocate as well.

Stal Stocznia never made it to the “big league”, reaching 2nd tier at best and playing 13 seasons just outside Ekstraklasa. Only once the team was able to land above much more famous Pogoń, when the latter ended up 8th in the second league in 1980.

Following regime change, like many clubs based on big industry, Stal fell into trouble and their stadium was thus never significantly modernised. Eventually this led to the larger south side being closed off, while the north one functions only with significant cap on capacity. The stadium's distinctive layout with maintenance facilities behind west goal and club offices and bar on top of the north side has been retained.

Up until 2008 the stadium was owned by the shipyard but has since been transferred to the city of Szczecin, which helps in maintenance of basic facilities through it subsidiary MOSRiR.