The “Municipality” of Brailathe arena that could once accommodate up to 20,000 spectators, is deteriorating at a galloping pace. The current picture is downright depressing: prey to carelessness, the stadium seems to be decaying day by day. The stands have started to wear out, the turf is a full-fledged swamp, and the cold temperatures amplify the feeling of abandonment. The gazette entered the arena-trap in “Monument” park, where the landscape looks grayer than ever.
Built according to the whims of the communists in the mid-70s, on the site of the old “Vasile Roaita” stadium, the Brăila arena is more like an exclusion zone than a home of sports in the city. Anyway, the dilapidated building can no longer be called “home” by anyone.
The local team ran away from there, they play their matches in a base in Lacu Sărat.
“No one lives here anymore!”
Dacia Unirea, the flag-team of the community, lives panting in the basement of the League 3 standings, where the fragile links with the past crumble with each year in which the club ticks off a counter-performance.
Six times in history, the people of Braile have played in the first league, the first time in the interwar periodthe last time about three decades ago, in the '93-'94 edition. In 1993, Brăila had slalomed all the way to the Cup final, losing to Craiova, then things slowly went downhill. The past remains in the annals, the present shudder.
To get to the stands of the concrete “giant”, you must first pass the “sludge test”.
Access roads are surrounded by puddles and mud-covered paths, almost impassable. Outside the stadium, it seems that no one has sanitized the scenery since the beginning of time: trash, bottles and crocks greet you everywhere you look. It's also a test of skill: one wrong step and you risk completely ruining your Sunday, not just your clothes and shoes. Do you want adrenaline like in an escape room? Come to the stadium in Brăila!
The “Municipal” that used to host Division A matches is still a stadium in name only, and the degradation has escalated even more in recent years, to levels that no one would have imagined. It is enough to look at the stands to convince yourself that evil has won in Brăila.
Forget about the specific hum of a sports complex, the sound background is provided only by the flocks of crows making their way through the leafless trees at the edge of the stadium.
Initially, at the time of the inauguration, the arena had been designed to have a capacity of almost 30,000 seats, but the retouches carried out later consolidated the version we see today, of 20,000.
An old-fashioned stadium with huge concrete bleachers, amphitheater-style steps and about 6,000 seats scattered here and there, mostly under “official”. Many of them are broken, detached, discolored, infested with weeds.
When the greats visit, the stadium used to be full at times, now the concrete grinds in layers! In some places, the steps have visibly sagged, cracked and swallowed by haphazard moss and grass, as if nature is slowly reclaiming what the city has abandoned.
VIDEO REPORT. The Brăila stadium, in an advanced state of decomposition! The 20,000-seat arena is an unrecognizable ruin
The last modernizations carried out here took place in 2009, then in 2012, when Dacia Unirea was still, on paper, a team with pretensions of the second division. The Second Stand was then “upgraded” for the first time in history, with the tricolor plastic seats almost completely gone today.
The wide decline is also found in the streets outside the arena. Where there are no puddles there are walls about to fall, and where there is no vegetation we find the remains of what was recently a puddle, setting that amplifies the horror movie feel.
The rusted Olympic rings located at one of the entrances to the stadium further outline the scourge that has made its nest here.
The curse of the earth, the curse of the Union
And the lawn? I'd rather not mention it!
Unmaintained, left to fate, the land turned into an unusable swamp. Waterlogged, uneven and patched with muddy areas, the playing surface can turn into a communal pond at any timeespecially when the rains are making their way. Only the gates and their clumsy nets remind us that performance football was once played here.
Without matches, the “Municipal” has recently found an unsuspected purpose. It occasionally hosts “Dirt Track” stages organized by the Romanian Motorcycling Federation. An unconventional setting, which gives a special charm to the races. But that's it. It's the only possibility to attract spectators to the concrete oval.
“Dirt Track” competitions are again being organized at the Brăila stadium / Photo source: Facebook@ Romanian Automobile Federation
In Brăila, the future is seen in shades of gray
The lack of investment, promises left on paper and the absence of a clear strategy for sports infrastructure have turned the arena into a monument of indifference.
In the age of models and feasibility studies, Brăila remained in the “paleolithic”!
There are no signs of a possible megaproject, not even the famous politically inflated promises have found their place on the agenda. In any case, a temporary make-up and a look in the eyes of the world would not be enough. The feeling is that only a “purification” from scratch could eradicate the disaster created here.
The club's forgotten banner on one of the fences in front of the stand has a wry message if you look around – “the legend continues”. Behind the faded slogan lies the unvarnished reality of a stadium simply frozen in time, with broken, worn and rusted wire fences.
Laughed cried three years ago: they shrunk the field during the match!
When they were still playing their matches on “Municipal”, Dacia Unirea Brăila went through a shameful situation in the “derby” with CSM Râmnicu Sărat played “at home” in November 2023.
Due to some violent periods of rain, the lawn became completely impassable at game time, which led the organizers to shrink the pitch: the touchline was moved so that players and referees could bypass the puddles. Even the footballers made fun of the trouble and at the end threw themselves into the lakes formed on the lawn.
The football players who came to play in Brăila were also appalled by the state of the stadium:
I spoke with Florentin Petre, at the end, and I asked him how he coped in those conditions in Brăila… We want to raise some young players, of the future, in the second league, but how can we do it in these conditions?
– Cristi Pustai in 2021, during the period when he coached FC Buzău
Also at that time, the club founded in 1919 had formulated a petition addressed to the decision-makers in the city, the City Hall and the County Council, who were requested to urgently modernize the stadium. A move made in vain.
It was frenzy with the grandkids!
Even at the beginning of the 2000s, when it was no longer on the first stage, Dacia Unirea managed to bring them to Brăila on the brink of the championship, an occasion for great celebration in the city. Rapid and Dinamo played there in the Cup (2004), while FCSB played a friendly on “Municipal” Brailean on February 28, 2005.
At the visit of the “dogs”, in a match counting for the quarter-finals of the Romanian Cup, 25,000 people gathered at the stadium in the match played on National Day, on December 1, 2004.
The emulation was palpable, and the photos discovered in the Gazeta Sporturilor archive are eloquent.
Famous matches played at the Brăila stadium, according to brailasuntemnoi.wordpress.com:
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1990-1991 season (Division A): Dacia Unirea Brăila – Rapid Bucharest 1-0;
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1990-1991 season (Division A): Dacia Unirea Brăila – Dinamo Bucharest 2-1;
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1990-1991 season (Division A): Dacia Unirea Brăila – Steaua Bucharest 0-0;
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1991-1992 season (Division A): Dacia Unirea Brăila – Rapid Bucharest 1-0;
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1993-1994 season (Division A): Dacia Unirea Brăila – Dinamo Bucharest 1-0;
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2004-2005 season (Romanian Cup): Dacia Unirea Brăila – Rapid 1-0;
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2004-2005 season (Romanian Cup, quarters): Dacia Unirea Brăila – Dinamo 0-2;
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February 28, 2005 (friendly): Dacia Unirea Brăila – FCSB 1-2
