Stadium of Light - Definition

The Stadium of Light is a football stadium, the home of Sunderland football club, in north-east England.

After several abortive attempts to build a new stadium, Sunderland finally built the Stadium of Light and occupied it in summer of 1997. It originally had a capacity of 42,000 but has since been expanded to 48,000.

It is placed on an area formerly known as the Sheepfolds on the northern bank of the River Wear, under which there were once coalmines. Two newly-built stations on the Tyne and Wear Metro service the station: Stadium of Light and St Peter's.

The name was chosen following a competition. Although it was partly inspired by Benfica's Estádio da Luz ground in Lisbon (which translates as "Stadium of Light"), the name in fact refers to the lasers built in to the corners of the ground which beam into the night sky, marking the ground out. A sign at one of the main entrances to the ground reads "INTO THE LIGHT"; the same words were found on a famous sign at the exit to the main elevator of the Monkwearmouth Colliery that once occupied the stadium site.

The stadium hosted its first international football match in 1999 when England played Belgium in a friendly match, and more seriously in April 2003 when England played Turkey in a qualification match for the Euro 2004.

The building of the stadium is catalogued in Tony Gillan's 2001 book Let There Be Light.

360 degree views of the stadium are available for free at http://www.bbc.co.uk/wear/360/stadium_index.shtml