The Stadium

The first football pitch of Viktoria was a ground in Bory. The Municipal Authority of Pilsen gave it to the new club under the football ground called SK Český Lev. However, they trained in the rooms of today’s ice-hockey stadium “na Dobytčáku”, because going to Bory was quite far away.

In 1920 Viktoria´s big dream became true; they gained a real football gound. It was bought from SK Plzeň for 20 000 Czech Crowns and it was situated in the Královské Square (nowadays náměstí Míru). SK club moved to Bory, Máchova Street. The members of Viktoria paid the money needed for buying it. The biggest credit of it made vice chairman Vališ, who gave his own savings of 14 000 Czech Crowns. The ceremonial opening was held on 26^th September, when the team also played a match with Hagibor Praha. The match finished a 3:3 draw especially thanks to two offenders – Štapl who scored twice and “Mindě” Kučera once.

In 1929 the club was not lucky and the football pitch which was expensive and hard to build was lost. They had to move away because of a big town development. Thus the club, with great chances to become one of the top teams in the whole country, economically strong, technically well-equipped and with the players of high quality, stayed without a football pitch.

The discussions about the ground with the city council immediately began and were successful. Viktoria obtained for rent a place in Roudná in Luční Street. They also bought the seating area for 13 000 Czech Crowns. Each member of the club had to pay 100 Czech Crowns for the building of the new football pitch and had to work for 50 hours there. The new stadium is still standing there till this day and is still in quite good conditions. The stadium named Viktorka was ceremonially opened on the 11^th May 1930. The Budapest club Hungaria was invited and came well trained and ready to jump into the game – and won 4:1. The ball which was used to play this match was thrown off the plain into the middle of the football pitch. The football ground was roofed in 1933 and there were also a room made for trophies.

The stadium in Luční Street sustained damage during the 2^nd World War in 1945. During the air-raid of the Americans to Pilsen on 17^th April the stadium was damaged, only ruins remained there after that. On 24^th May 10 000 people gathered at the ruined stadium because of the match against a team from the American army. Viktoria won 11:1 and in June the stadium was ready again for the big football matches. Despite being damaged by fire the stadium was rebuilt thanks to the great help of other clubs.

In 1953 some works in Štruncovy Sady started and it was opened for public in 1955 on the occasion of Spartakiada. Later on there was finished the Brána borců and the main seating area, which was in those days one of the best ones in the whole of Czechoslovakia. B. Kavan and J. Brabec from the Pilsner Stavoprojekt were the designers of the project for the stadium, whose capacity was 35 000 people out of which 7 600 seats were for sitting.

Between 2002-03 a wide reconstruction was undertaken in the City stadium in Štruncovy Sady in order to comply with the standards of the Football Association for the Czech Republic and therefore the stadium capacity was lowered to 7,425 seats.

In 2008 an artificial lawn of the third generation was opened in Luční Street, where except for it there are three more lawn football pitches. The statics of the origin wooden stands were seriously affected because of the big floods of 2002 – it was drowned under 2  meters of water and so had to be taken away in parts 2003. Only bricked changing rooms remained.

Nowadays in Štruncovy Sady there is apart from the heated football pitch (since 2003) a smaller one with an artificial lawn (20 x 40 meters).

Now our new stadium is under reconstruction – the new stadium it is going to be ready in summer 2012 with capacity of 12 500 fans. Dreams are coming truth.