"Tidy ground... atmosphere diminishing"

Anfield is one of those hallowed grounds that growing up as a child, no matter who you support, you dream of being able to visit. You are forever told of the classic Kop terrace and the old legends under Paisley and Shankly, the sheer weight of history is amazing and all comes out in the rendition of "You'll never walk alone" as the teams emerge.

However for all it's build-up and grandeur, Anfield's atmosphere is slowly diminishing, certainly in the middle-of-the-road games. No doubt against Everton, Man Utd and in European matches the atmosphere still gets the hairs on your neck standing proudly. But the last few times I've been with Bolton there has been a sense of inevitability from the home support.

A case of "come on, score and beat these so we can go home". To be fair, that's usually what happens but there is very little noise as soon as the first Liverpool goal goes in. The only time you hear any kind of atmosphere is if you upset the form book (in our case) and go in front.

But as for appearance the ground it still feels very spiritual and you can almost feel the history of LFC reverberating around the place. Particularly when you gaze upon the Shankly Gates and Hillsborough memorial outside. Very touching, particularly the memorial.

So all in all it still has to be a 4/5 rating for it's size, history and character... but it's lack of atmosphere in recent years stops it from being among the top I've ever been to.

Location

I always prefer a ground in the city centre rather than on the outskirts, which most of the old grounds seem to be. And Anfield is no different, set within a lot of terraced houses but because of its size is visible from miles away.

View

The view of the pitch is fine... as long as you aren't on the back ten rows or so. Otherwise the roof overhangs that much that you can literally touch the roof if on the very back row meaning you can see very little of the pitch or any of the ground.

Atmosphere

I do think Liverpool have a lot more potential to be both vocal and intimidating as they demonstrate when they go away but whenever I've been to Anfield it's been very poor really and we pretty much sang to ourselves - despite being behind from very early on in the game on most occasions.

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