Villa Park, Birmingham


Capacity: 42,785 Opened: 1897 Home stadium for: Aston Villa Football Club Matches at 2015 World Cup: 2 Background: Originally built in a Victorian amusement park on the site of a Jacobean stately home, the distinctive brick façade of the Holte End is unmistakable, setting Villa apart from generic grounds. The stadium has hosted everything from athletics, cycling and boxing to rugby league. It has also seen two rugby union touring sides play – in 1924, a North Midlands select side were thumped 40-3 by New Zealand, and in 1953, a Midlands County XV were also dismantled, this time 18-3, by a Kiwi outfit including legendary All Blacks Bob Stuart, Richard White and Peter Jones.


The home of football was home to Welsh rugby when the Millennium Stadium was being built Wembley Stadium, London


Villa Park will host the Australians and the Springboks during the World Cup


Capacity: 90,000 Opened: 2007 Home stadium for: The England football national team Matches at 2015 World Cup: 2 Background: The original Wembley Stadium hosted five of football’s European cup finals, the 1966 World Cup Final and the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1948 Olympic Games. The symbolic


twin towers were demolished in 2003 and re-emerged as an equally iconic Norman Foster-designed masterpiece, complete with distinctive arch. The venue has rugby pedigree, too. Wembley hosted its first rugby international in 1992, when England defeated a touring Canada side 26-13 while Twickenham underwent redevelopment, but Wales have played the most games here: contesting seven internationals while the Millennium Stadium was being built in the late 1990s.


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