Twin city advice on World Cup bid

The rebuild of Hannover's stadium helped them clinch World Cup games

A delegation from the Football Association is due in Bristol on Monday to assess if the city is suitable to be a host city for the World Cup.

The visit forms part of the FA's bid for the 2018 tournament and Bristol is one of 15 cities hoping to be part of the select dozen.

But what price will Bristol pay for taking part?

In 2006, Bristol's twin city, Hannover, hosted matches when the tournament took place in Germany.

Christian Stoll from Hit Radio Antenne in the city said it was a "really great summer".

"For Hannover it was really fantastic to be part of the World Cup because it's not a very important city in Germany, so there's a relation to Bristol, I think."

It was the second time Hannover had been part of the World Cup after hosting matches in 1974.

Then, Hannover saw the likes of Brazil and Johan Cruyff's Holland with their brand of "total football".

Councillor Simon Cook on Bristol's World Cup bid

Rolling the clock forward to 2006 the city saw glamour ties including current European champions Spain take on France and eventual champions Italy playing Ghana.

But host status came at a cost: Hannover's 49,000-capacity AWD Arena was rebuilt will a bill of some £51m.

With a similar figure bandied around for the controversial rebuild of Ashton Gate, Mr Stoll says new facilities are important.

"It's a question, first of all, of the stadium. You will build a new stadium so this will be very good thing to be host city.

"Second of all it's a question of the hotel capacities and all the travel capacities - so have a nice railway station, very good to have an airport nearby."

Despite the high price of the new stadium in Hannover, local businesses did benefit from the matches, Mr Stoll added.

"The situation was when all the guys came to the railway station and went by foot to the stadium everybody around the mile to go profited from that.

"All the guys that buy beer and things to eat, and all the fans bought t-shirts, everybody was good from the World Cup."