The tiny central European country of Liechtenstein currently has only seven clubs, all of which play in the Swiss football pyramid, but the principality still has a rich football history, starting in late 1926/early 1927, with the founding of what is considered to be the country's first football club, AC Mauren.
A number of clubs have come and gone since then, but those seven remain. Many of their grounds are situated in picturesque locations, and all of them are well worth visiting. According to the Liechtensteiner Fussball Verband (LFV) figures, Liechtenstein currently possesses twenty-seven football pitches, twenty-two of which have grass surfaces.
For the discerning groundhopper (or, indeed, groundspotter), what now follows might just whet your appetite for a quick visit: a tour of the country's grounds, from FC Ruggell in the north to FC Balzers in the south.
FREIZEITPARK WIDAU (FC RUGGELL)
Ruggell is Liechtenstein's northernmost gemeinde (commune), and a club was formed there in 1933. They played at what is now the Freizeitpark Widau, using the nearby Gasthaus Rössli hotel as their changing-rooms and meeting-place. However, the club ceased to exist at some point during 1935.
The only pitch available to the village's football enthusiasts was a field close to the village school, but after a number of complaints from locals, another pitch was made available in the Mühlegarten area.
It wasn't until 1957 that another attempt was made at organising a football club in the village, and FC Ruggell was born a year later. The club played its home games at the Mühlegarten pitch (which is now a small housing estate). Known simply as the Sportplatz, the pitch cost CHF 36000, and the funds were provided by the Liechtensteiner government, Ruggell municipality and the national Sport Toto Society.
Work on FC Ruggell's current ground, the Freizeitpark Widau, which is in fact a sports complex consisting of four football pitches (one artificial, three grass), started in 1998 and was completed in 2002, with the ground being officially opened on 31 August of that year. The main ground has an official capacity of 500, and the complex was the home of the LFV's training complex from 2022 until last year, when they moved all of their facilities across the country to their new central hub in Schaan.
Unterländer Spielvereiningung Eschen/Mauren is one of the country's most successful clubs. The Sportpark Eschen/Mauren opened its doors in 1975, and was Liechtenstein's national stadium until the Rheinparkstadion was completed. The Sportpark was renovated during 2004 and 2005, when both the main pitch was moved and the stand was demolished and turned 180 degrees. A feature of the complex is a giant cross erected in honour of Pope John Paul's visit to Liechtenstein in September 1985, when he said mass at the ground before an estimated 30000 people.
The ground has a capacity of around 2000, with a seating capacity of 500. The former main pitch, venue for a number of Liechtenstein's full international matches, now has artificial turf and is the Sportpark's second pitch. The new main pitch has also hosted a number of internationals, including the Nati women's team's first home match in April 2021, when they lost 2:1 to Luxembourg.
SPORTANLAGE RHEINWIESE (FC SCHAAN)
Football was first played in Schaan in 1932 when a club called FC Schaan was formed, and the fledgling club played their matches on a piece of ground across the road from the village's old mill. Along with FC Balzers, FC Triesen - both founded in the same year - and FC Vaduz, formed a year earlier, FC Schaan took part in an unofficial Liechtensteiner Championship, which was eventually won by the team from the capital.
FC Schaan won the next edition of the tournament in 1934, when they defeated Kickers Mülenholz 3:1. Kickers had played in the Austrian system since their foundation. That was as good as it got for them, as four years later, the club folded due to financial constraints.
Eleven years later, a new club of the same name was founded, and moved into the newly-built Sportanlage Rheinwiese in 1969. It possesses Liechtenstein's premier athletics track as well as a grass pitch and a couple of artificial pitches. The LFV's new central hub opened its doors last November, almost two and half years after construction began. It includes a mini-stadium with a capacity of 1000 and a total of five pitches, and sees the LFV's training campus move from Ruggell. Local sports clubs, including FC Schaan, will also be based at the LFV Campus.
RHEINPARK STADION (FC VADUZ)
Now the only ground in Liechtenstein able to hold full international matches, the Rheinpark Stadion looks a lot different now to what it did forty years ago. Back then, it was known as the Landessportplatz, and it resembled the type of ground one would find in the ninth or tenth level of English football.
Built in the mid-1930s, the Landessportplatz was used for athletics meetings, the most important of which was the national sports day, which usually took place every August until the early 1960s. A crude athletics track was painted on the ground, and, once the athletics and other activities were over, in late afternoon, a Liechtenstein representative team would play a club or regional XI from Switzerland or Austria.
It also became the home of FC Vaduz, who have been the dominant force in Liechtensteiner football, winning over 50 editions of the LFV-Pokal (now known as the Liechtensteiner Cup) and are the only club from the principality to have made it to the top flight of Swiss football.
The Rheinpark Stadion was modernised in the late 1990s, with the first stone being laid in July 1997 and was officially opened on 31 July 1998. The stadium was updated in 2006 to bring it to its present state, possessing covered stands on all four sides and a seating capacity of 5873. (Standing room brings the capacity to 7584.)
SPORTPARK BLUMENAU (FC TRIESEN)
The village of Triesen in the third-largest settlement in Liechtenstein, and its football ground, the Sportpark Blumenau, is home to FC Triesen, and has been since 1943. FC Triesen was officially founded on 5 June 1932, although the club played its first match a week earlier against a team from FC Balzers, winning by 3 goals to 1. The match took place in a torrential downpour on a meadow in Hälos, a locality situated between Triesen and Balzers.
They played there for the entirety of the 1932-33 season, much to the displeasure of most of FC Triesen's footballers, who apparently positively loathed the pitch, before moving to a piece of ground behind the Schäfle Inn, a,watering-hole which exists to this day. Half of the ground, known as the Bünt, was rented from the inn's owners, and the other half from the local municipality. After an immense amount of work on the ground rented from the municipality, the Blumenau, as it became known, was ready for action in time for the 1933-34 season.
FC Triesen stayed there until 1943, when they left the Blumenau for the new purpose-built, municipality-owned sports ground, situated a decent cross-field pass from the Rhine, called..the Blumenau. In 1965, the Sportpark Blumenau was expanded and FC Triesen found a new home, immediately to the north of the pitch they had called home for over twenty years.
A small stand, changing-rooms, not to mention Liechtenstein's first proper athletics track, were built, and FC Triesen have played there ever since. New changing-rooms, incorporating a viewing platform, were built in 2004. A year earlier, the Sportpark Blumenau hosted two matches in the 2003 European Under-19 Championship finals, which were held in Liechtenstein. Nowadays, it has a capacity of some 1500.
SPORTANLAGE LEITAWIS (FC TRIESENBERG)
FC Triesenberg is Liechtenstein's youngest club, having been formed in 1972, and their ground, the Sportanalage Leitawis, possesses perhaps the most impressive vista out of all of Liechtenstein's football grounds with its unobstructed view of the Swiss Alps. There is no need for photographers to use drone shots to increase dramatic effect here.
Construction of the Sportanlage Leitawis began in 1968 and was completed the year before FC Triesenberg was officially created. It consists of three tennis courts, a bocca court, a skateboard park and two football pitches, one of which is lower than the other; the lower has a natural surface, whilst the other, perched as it on top of a car-park, has a 3G surface, and it is this one which is used for FC Triesenberg's league and cup matches.
The ground has an official capacity of 800, with seating for 400, though this needs to be updated somewhat. It was renovated a few years ago; the old terracing was demolished and a high perimeter wall, with built-in dug-outs, was installed, with around 60 seats and a widened walkway directly above them.
SPORTPLATZ RHEINAU (FC BALZERS)
FC Balzers have led quite a nomadic existence in the ninety-three years of the club's existence, albeit within the confines of the main part of Balzers commune, which is split into three small parts: Balzers and the adjoining village of Mäls, and two small exclaves within the Liechtensteiner Alps.
The club's first home was the Riet sports field, situated behind a restaurant of the same name on the Rietstrasse, where the new club played its first match in May 1932. They remained there until the outbreak of the Second World War, when they were forced to hand the pitch over to the Liechtensteiner government as part of a drive to increase food production and achieve self-sufficiency.
FCB found a new pitch on a patch of ground belonging to a local doctor, Alban Vogt, but they were destined to leave there, too, after it was discovered that the goalposts were torn down and broken in 1941. There was a hiatus until 1943, when a number of locals took to playing football again, and they constructed the Sportpark Ritsch, named after the last Austrian customs officer to serve in Balzers.
After the Second World War, students at the local Gutenberg Lyceum, named after one of Balzers' most famous landmarks, Gutenberg Castle, which is situated at the summit of a rocky outcrop with the same name, were playing football late into the evening at their football pitch on the Frauenbergweg, at the foot of Gutenberg, together with some of the FC Balzers players, using lamps as lighting. Eventually, floodlights were installed, so that the students could continue to pursue their hobby. The floodlights are long gone both both the Gutenberg Lyceum and the football pitch remain.
Meanwhile, FC Balzers continued to play at the Sportpark Ritsch, and did so until the mid-1950s when it was decided to renovate the ground, and much-needed (not to say much-appreciated) changing-rooms were installed. The renovations took four years, and the team played their football just across the Swiss border at FC Trubbach's ground until their own home base was ready for them again in August 1959.
By the mid-1960s, though, there was a general dissatisfaction amongst FC Balzers' players and staff with the Sportpark Ritsch, and the local council agreed with the club and decided to build a new sports complex in 1966. The Sportpark Ritsch was left behind in the 1966 close-season, and FCB spent the 1966-67 season playing at at temporary pitch on the Kohlbruckweg.
FC Balzers' new home, the Sportanlage Rheinau, situated next to a dyke along the River Rhine, was taking shape and the first of three pitches at the complex was ready to play on in the spring of 1967. The ground was officially inaugurated in 1970, and FCB have remained there ever since.
A sports hall was built a year later, and, more recently, seating was installed on the dyke, and a small public playing field was installed. The Sportanlage Rheinau has a capacity of some 2500, making it Liechtenstein's second biggest ground.
FORMER CLUBS AND GROUNDS
PRESTAPLATZ (FC ESCHEN)
FC Eschen was founded on 29 March 1960, but the Prestaplatz, named after the factory on the other side of the road, was made ready the year before. It was built on the site of the old Presta factory with the lower end of the pitch facing a marsh. Within two years of its construction, however, it was clear that the pitch was actually sinking at the marsh end, and, no matter how much the local council attempted to shore up the pitch, first by completely filling in the pitch from the half-way line down towards the marsh, the problem continued. So much so, in fact, that the fencing around the pitch had actually completely disappeared at the lower end. At the upper end, meanwhile, were remnants of the old Presta factory wall, which didn't help the soil quality much. Fencing was put up again, but the problem of subsidence never completely disappeared.
FC Eschen became USV Eschen in 1965, and joined forces with FC Mauren two years later to become USV Eschen/Mauren. The name of the club changed, but the Prestaplatz kept springing surprises on its users.
In the early seventies, the pitch was suffering under continual wear and tear, and the club's volunteers were kept busy shoring up the pitch and installing drainage. If that wasn't enough, there was also a plague of mice to contend with. They had found and colonised the Prestaplatz to the extent that the pitch looked as though someone had set off mines all over it. The club's volunteers and youth teams tried a number of methods to alleviate the problem: among them was piping petrol fumes from mopeds into the mouseholes in order to drive out the mice, but none of them worked. Only when carbide was pumped into the mouseholes was the problem solved. Legend has it that hundreds upon hundreds of mice were seen hot-footing it in the direction of Schaan. A couple of years later, in 1975, USV Eschen/Mauren were finally able to leave their accursed Prestaplatz and move to the brand-new Sportpark Eschen/Mauren, where they have remained ever since.
HINTERBÜHLEN (AC MAUREN)
Widely reckoned to be the first football club to founded on Liechtensteiner soil, records are fairly scant about the existence of AC Mauren, but they do show that the club held training sessions in the spring of 1927. The club was founded by a ten-year-old called Andreas Marxer, who had caught the football bug whilst accompanying his father on a business trip to Hungary.
Matches were played on a pitch situated on Hinterbühlen on the south-eastern outskirts of town, the surface of which Marker described as little more than a "herb garden" and poles donated by the local forest ranger were used as goalposts. They were notable for the participation of one Ottilia Gstöhl-Marxer, Andreas's sister and presumed to be the very first female footballer in Liechtenstein. AC Mauren basically consisted of a bunch of schoolboys (and Ottilia) and didn't take part in any competitions. Five years later, Andreas Marxer moved to Switzerland and the club simply ceased to exist.
ZIEGELMAHD ("THE NENDELN GANG")
The northern village of Nendeln was one of the first places in Liechtenstein to host football matches, and they took place at the Ziegelmahd area on the outskirts of the village in the early 1930s, on what is now the Hilti hardware distribution warehouse, a stone's throw from the country's official main train station (which is little more than a rudimentary station with a small concrete slab between two railway tracks).
A group of local youths got together to clear some waste ground and set up two sets of goalposts - both of which had different dimensions, recalled one of the youths who took part in many of the kickabouts, most of which took place after school. Although no official football club was ever set up, let alone official matches being played at Ziegelmahd, the games were remarkable for the fact that they were probably the first in Liechtenstein in which more than one girl took part.
Football was first played in Schaan in 1932 when a club called FC Schaan was formed, and the fledgling club played their matches on a piece of ground across the road from the village's old mill. Along with FC Balzers, FC Triesen - both founded in the same year - and FC Vaduz, formed a year earlier, FC Schaan took part in an unofficial Liechtensteiner Championship, which was eventually won by the team from the capital.
FC Schaan won the next edition of the tournament in 1934, when they defeated Kickers Mühleholz 3:1. It was to be the last time either club appeared in a final. Kickers folded in early 1935, whilst FC Schaan struggled on for a further three years, unti the club ceased operations in 1938 due to financial constraints. It was to be eleven years before another club was founded in Schaan.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: Much of the information contained in the above article was gleaned from a number of literary sources, including two books which are now out of print: "50 Jahre Sport in Liechtenstein" (Arthur Brunhart, 1986) and "Das Liechtensteiner Fußballbuch" (Herbert Öhri, Johannes Kaiser, Fabio Corba, Ernst Hasler and Chrisi Kindle, 2008), plus "50 Jahre FC Ruggell" (2008) and "75 Jahre FC Balzers" (2007).
Information was also obtained from Wikipedia, the FC Vaduz, FC Balzers, FC Triesen and LFV websites, plus the websites of Liechtenstein's seven Gemeinden.
All photos are author's own.
