- Spooky reports from UK football clubs
- Tales from stadiums and training grounds
- Fears of 'curses' to mystery shadow entities
- One manager even took a wee in all four corners of the pitch to lift a hex!
From the beautiful game to fields of screams - these are the spookiest paranormal reports from UK football stadiums and training grounds.
Dodgy refereeing decisions aren’t the only thing clubs should fear, according to these bizarre accounts.
They cover everything from haunted ancient burial grounds and shadowy phantoms to evil curses.
The Halloween-inspired list has been compiled by experts at Select Car Leasing, principal partners of League One’s Reading FC.
While Reading’s Select Car Leasing Stadium and Bearwood Park training ground are ghoul-free zones, other clubs may have different stories to tell.
Graham Conway, Managing Director at Select, said: “Football is steeped in superstition, from fans always wearing ‘lucky’ socks to players performing the same pre-game routines in the hope of a positive outcome.
“It’s perhaps not much of a leap from ‘superstition’ to ‘supernatural’ - if some of these incredible paranormal reports are to be believed.”
Swindon Town - Beversbrook training ground
In November 2024, Swindon Town manager Ian Holloway caused a stir after he suggested the club’s Beversbrook training ground, in Calne, Wilts, was haunted.
He said there were ‘some strange things happening’ at the site after a poor run of luck - and even said the training ground was close to an ancient burial ground.
He told BBC Radio Wiltshire: “I'm absolutely devastated so I'm going to try and cleanse the training ground area because people are telling me it's haunted. There's a graveyard somewhere near. Honestly, I'm not joking. I think our training ground is very close to an ancient burial site so I'm going to get my wife to come up and say sorry to all these people and hopefully we'll have a bit more luck."
Holloway says his wife, Kim, is a ‘white witch’.
Sunderland AFC - Academy of Light training ground
With its ‘Black Cats’ nickname, it’s perhaps not surprising that Sunderland FC has a past that’s filled with folklore.
In 2005, the club’s striker Marcus Stewart told BBC Radio Newcastle how several individuals - including fellow forward Stephen Elliott - had spied a shadowy figure roaming the corridors of the Academy of Light training ground, located in Cleadon, just north of Sunderland.
Stewart added: "What made me think it's true, is Stephen Elliott has seen it. He's adamant that he's seen something."
Leeds United - Elland Road stadium
Back in 1971, Leeds United’s superstitious manager Don Revie became convinced the club was cursed following a poor run of form.
He supposedly hired a fortune teller, known as ‘Gypsy Rose Lee’, to come and bless the Elland Road pitch in an attempt to lift the hex.
Former midfielder John Giles appeared to confirm events in a recent podcast, telling Off The Ball: “Don was a very superstitious man. Leeds was supposed to have a curse on the ground. We finished runners up a couple of times.”
Leeds eventually won the 1972 FA Cup final, beating Arsenal 1-0, and were crowned First Division Champions in the 1973-74 season.
Southampton FC, St Mary’s Stadium
In 2001, Southampton moved from its old ground, The Dell, to its modern new St Mary’s home. But the club’s first season at its new address wasn’t going well and the side was searching for its first win.
Step forward Cerridwen Dragonoak Connelly, a Pagan witch, who suggested St Mary’s might be built on a burial site and also suspected an ancient curse. She claimed to have performed a cleansing ritual on the pitch - shortly before Southampton broke the hoodoo by beating Charlton in the Premier League.
Rupert Lowe, then club chairman, said of the blessing: "Having got the result, she's very welcome to come back if she wants to."
Manager at the time, Gordon Strachan, also joked: “If she's that good she can take training for the next two weeks and I can get on with my golf while she gets rid of the ghosts. Maybe she can play up front."
Birmingham City - St Andrew’s stadium
In the mid-1990s, Barry Fry was in charge of an ailing Birmingham City team plying its trade in the First Division.
With the side rock bottom of the league, Fry says the club was convinced its historic St Andrew’s stadium, first opened in 1906, was cursed.
In an interview with World Football Index in 2023, Fry explained how he ended up urinating in all four corners of the pitch in a bid to banish the jinx.
He said: “I was fed up with the results, but our club secretary said to me ‘Barry, it’s not your fault because there is a curse on the ground.’ He told me that when Ron Saunders was manager of Birmingham, he put crosses on the dressing room doors and at the corners of the ground to try and lift the curse. I am not superstitious but when you have not won for a while, you will try anything to end this supposed curse. So, one of the ways to lift such a curse, I was told, was to urinate in each of the four corners of the ground. I kid you not.”
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