Hunt Park (Columbus Crew Stadium) - home of the North End

A brief pictorial history of Hunt Park

Hunt Park - backdrop, setting, environment and stage. This is the stadium where we base our operations - and the jumping off point for excursions to other stadia. Hunt Park is the focal point for the Columbus soccer scene, and the meeting place where we interact with each other and cheer on the team we all, collectively, support.

There are a number of key locations at Hunt Park that have evolved in the last year - illustrated above. The first, in terms of our activities, is the North End itself - section 137 just behind the North Goal. Continuing the worldwide tradition of "ultras" behind the goal, the North End is the one place in the stadium where the default behavior is to stand and make noise. Its certainly not the only place where you'll find devoted fans, but when push comes to shove the Crew has declared section 137 to be the only section in the stadium where standing is not only tolerated, but openly encouraged.

In opposition to our efforts in the North End are the sometime denizens of section 112 - the away fans. With Hunt Park being the premiere soccer stadium in the country, fans from a number of other soccer teams have started to come to Columbus to support their team - Barnburners and Polish Ultras from Chicago, Screaming Eagles from Washington DC, and Midnight Riders from Boston are just some of the larger groups that have paid a visit to Hunt Park. Before and after the game we're all soccer fans - and we can often be found celebrating or ribbing each other good-naturedly outside the stadium. But inside the stadium, they just root for the wrong team - so there's a good bit of energy at any game where there's sizable away support.