The top 8 ugliest EFL Championship stadiums named and ranked by AI | OneFootball

Not all of the homes of English football are architecturally beautiful, so FLW have asked AI to rank the eight ugliest in the Championship.

There's a lot of beauty to be found in the football grounds of England, but there can be some ugliness as well, so Football League World have asked AI to rank the eight ugliest in the Championship.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but when we're talking about football grounds, functionality is the most important factor. Football grounds have to be safe, offer good views, and contain all the facilities that a club needs in order to function on a day-to-day level, and these will - as they should - always trump aesthetic considerations when being designed.

But not all grounds are created equally. The oldest stretch back to Victorian times and have been upgraded as both fan and safety expectations have risen, while others have been built this century, and have been purpose-built with the needs of the 21st century football club in mind. Across the 72 clubs in the EFL, there remains huge variety between different grounds.

With all of this in mind, Football League World have asked AI to list its eight contenders for the ugliest in the Championship. Its results were illuminating, to say the least.

8 ? ? Blackburn Rovers - Ewood Park

Action Images

Substantially redeveloped with Jack Walker's money (and steel) in the early 1990s, Ewood Park's biggest aesthetic issue in recent years has been the large amounts of empty seats on display, with theirs being the only Championship ground was on average less than half-full over the course of the 2025-26 season.

Blackburn Rovers' relative stagnation in the Championship can be partly held responsible for this, and it's also the case that this was a ground rebuilt for the Premier League rather than the second tier. With a population of around 150,000 and with plenty of other clubs nearby, it will always be a challenge for Rovers to get anywhere near that capacity for home matches while they remain outside the top flight.

But AI's assessment of the ground isn't based on this. It states that the four stands don't really blend together with the Jack Walker Stand dominating, though it does add the caveat that, "it retains more character than many modern bowls." A return to the Premier League and filling in some of those empty seats would help both Blackburn Rovers and Ewood Park no end.

7 ? ? West Bromwich Albion - The Hawthorns

Action Images

The Hawthorns has been West Bromwich Albion's home since 1900, but its redevelopment is criticised by AI, which describes it as "a bit of a mixed bag architecturally" and says that, "different eras of development are obvious", which is slightly ironic, given that both ends of the ground were redeveloped at the same time, opening in 1994.

It's also critical of the external appearance of the ground, in particular the East Stand, which was rebuilt in 2001 and also includes the administration offices, club shop, club ticket office and corporate entertainment suites, and which has a slightly uninspired red brick exterior. But there is praise for the floodlights, which are described as adding "some charm" to the ground. No mention is made of the Throstle mascot which sits in one of its corners.

6 ? ? Bristol City - Ashton Gate

Action Images

There was a time when Bristol City wanted to leave Ashton Gate, but issues over planning permission for a new site at Ashton Vale proved too great to overcome, and the club settled for redeveloping the existing ground instead. Three sides of the ground have been completely rebuilt or refurbished, with only the Dolman Stand - which was built in 1970 and retains the slightly brutalist design aesthetic of the time - remaining.

The redevelopment is described by AI as "boxy and utilitarian", and makes the claim that the differing heights of the stands "isn't to everyone's taste." The Dolman was refurbished and expanded at the same time that the rest of Ashton Gate was getting its makeover, and if Bristol City are to completely replace any further part of their ground, it would have to be this stand.

5 ? ? Birmingham City - St Andrew's

Action Images

Birmingham City will be celebrating the 120th anniversary of moving from Muntz Street to St Andrew's later this year, but their traditional home won't be around for too much longer. The ambitious owners of the club unveiled plans for a new, 62,000-capacity stadium in November 2025 which it's hoped will be open for the start of the 2030-31 season.

But for the next four years, Blues fans will continue to pack out St Andrew's. The club's current home is described by AI as "functional rather than attractive", and "a mismatched collection of stands." The oldest of the four is the Main Stand, which has been in place since 1954, with The Kop Stand and the Tilton Road Stand - which form one continuous L-shaped stand - having opened in 1994 and the Railway End Stand following five years later.

It's likely the Railway Stand to which AI is referring when it describes the exterior of St Andrew's as having "aged poorly", but Birmingham fans can at least console themselves with the knowledge that they'll be moving to a considerably more modern facility in the near future.

4 ? ? Derby County - Pride Park

Action Images

It seems reasonable to say that AI has something of a bias against new-build stadiums. All the top four on this list have been constructed in the last thirty years. Pride Park opened for business in 1997, but it's described by AI as being "another product of the late-90s "bowl" era" and having "minimal visual flair."

To an extent, this is a fair comment. There are a number of stadiums built in the 1990s and 2000s which are visually very similar, and the location of Pride Park isn't ideal. It's only a mile or so from Derby city centre, but its location near a retail park does make it look a little isolated from a distance. But its angled stands and black seats give it a distinctive degree of personality that many other new-builds don't have, even if AI describes it as having "large expanses of grey metal."

3 ? ? Swansea City - Swansea.com Stadium

Action Images

If anything, The Swansea.com Stadium resembles a scaled-down version of Pride Park, with its black seating and airy roofing, but AI describes it as "clean but bland", and again betrays its own bias by saying that "Very little distinguishes it from dozens of modern stadiums built in the 2000s."

And perhaps that's the biggest issue with the Swansea.com Stadium. It's neat and it's functional, but it suffers from a relatively isolated location, and there's not a great deal to differentiate it from several others that were built during the same era, though it clearly represents a distinct improvement on the Vetch Field, which it replaced in 2005, and Swansea City's successes since then have certainly justified its construction.

2 ? ? Cardiff City - The Cardiff City Stadium

Action Images

The Cardiff City Stadium is the newest stadium on this list, having replaced Ninian Park in 2009. With one stand towering over the others, it's not the bowl shape that AI seems to dislike so much, though the upper tier of that main stand being bedecked with red seats may be an unpleasant reminder to Bluebirds fans of a certain age who'll remember the time that Vincent Tan changed the club's badge and colours in the hope that it would make them more successful in his native Malaysia.

But the Cardiff City Stadium must have something going for it. The Wales national team decamped there because the atmosphere was better than their former home, the Principality Stadium, though it has been reported that they will be returning to the 74,500-capacity home of Welsh rugby in preparation for Euro 2028.

1 ? ? Stoke City - The Bet365 Stadium

Action Images

Stoke City, it sometimes feels, have something of an image problem. The Bet365 Stadium tops this list, even though AI falsely asserts that it has "four almost identical stands with very little architectural identity", even though one of the corners opposite this stand was filled in 2017. Of course, since the ground was built in one hit in 1997, there's no particular reason why the stands should have much individual identity.

Again, AI puts the ground's location front and centre in its criticism. The Bet365 Stadium is, like a couple of the others on this list, out-of-town and adjacent to an industrial estate, which could be problematic for those enough to be able to remember the comparatively central location of The Victoria Ground, which it replaced, while its description of the exterior - "from the outside it resembles a large warehouse more than a football ground" does seem a little over the top.

And like all the others on this list, The Bet365 Stadium is a perfectly safe, functional ground which fulfils the practical needs of the club. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but functionality and safety certainly aren't, and in terms of the experience on a Saturday afternoon, they are certainly far more important than aesthetics for Stoke City fans.