Back in 2000/2001 I went to the old Wembley Stadium for a lunch there. The stadium had closed and Sports.com (who at the time were trying to create a proper sports portal rather than today’s gambling-fixated effort) had invited a group of us to meet the 1966 England team. I wasn’t due to go, but someone dropped out at the last minute, and I leapt at the chance. I had a picture taken with the surviving team members, and then we sat at the top table opposite the players – I was across from Jack Charlton. It was a wonderful day.
My first experience of Wembley came on FA Cup final day in 1978. It was Arsenal v Ipswich, and as an Arsenal fan, dad drove me and my brother up the road to Wembley. We didn’t have tickets, and parked nearby in Brent. We walked up Wembley way around lunchtime, soaking up the atmosphere, dad filming us on his cine camera, and we bought programmes, before setting off back home to watch the match on TV. Arsenal lost that game, but we’d repeat the process for the next couple of years as Arsenal played first Man Utd (a classic game) and then West Ham (another defeat).
My first actual game at Wembley was an England match – England v Romania – it must have been the 1981 World Cup Qualifier. We were at one of the corners, standing. There may have been benches in our section but they were next to useless with no tiering to speak of and everyone else standing anyway. The corners of the old Wembley were set back a long way – there was a dog track around the edge of the pitch don’t forget – and I was “lucky” enough to be right next to someone with a fog-horn. The match was a dull 0-0.
Over the years I’ve seen many other fixtures at Wembley including league and non-league cup finals, largely irrelevant England games against poor opposition, and an unsuccessful spell of Arsenal playing Champions’ League games there.
So I was keen to see what the new Wembley would look like.
I’d seen the arch from afar quite a lot. It’s been up a while now, and I’ve also been to Wembley Arena a couple of times since much of the work was completed. Yesterday’s event was called a Community Day, and was largely for the residents of Brent. I’m not a resident, but know someone who works there… Around 60,000 people had been invited along, and had been told to arrive at the stadium between 11.00 and 12.00 when events would begin. It’d all be over by 3.00.
We were supposed to enter via gate K, but there was a massive queue there. Gate J had far shorter queues. Couldn’t we just walk in there and walk around? I gave it a go and we got in with minimal difficulty.
It’s got to be said that the interior of any new stadium is much the same as the other. Concession stands – invariably much busier near the entrances than if you walk a little further around – and toilets. We started looking for our block and then noticed that they were all one hundred and something. We wanted five hundred and something. The first digit in the block number referred to the floor.
No problem, we’d walk up. Most stadia allow you to move around inside. It’s not uncommon, for example, for you to have friends in other areas. You can still meet up before the game, or for the brave, at half-time. But seemingly not here. There were no signs leading to stairs, although there were mysterious grey doors that were unmarked. Eventually a steward showed us through a set of such doors and we reached the escalators and stairs up. Needless to say, the second escalator was broken already.
Up at the top you get good views across north-west London from most parts of the stadium, and when we reached our seats the views of the pitch were great.
Inside, and you could tell that this was a trial event. None of the staff had ever sold anything from the catering areas before, indeed the chap who served me had never really used a till before, worked a Coke machine, or have an especially strong grasp of the UK currency (incidentally, those new £20 notes are very different aren’t they?). But we struggled through manfully.
I doubt that there were 60,000 people in attendance, and the celebrity games that were planned weren’t utterly enthralling, which meant that by the time that Soccer AM had won the mini tournament, most seats were empty. A rumoured fire alarm test didn’t take place – probably because there were too few people at this point to run one.
Those who were still there largely wanted to explore – just what the stewards didn’t want doing.
On the way out, one of the senior managers was giving press interviews. Some of the members of the crowd started to berate him over some issues they’d experienced: Coke machines failing (everyone had been offered a free soft drink), lack of food, tea and coffee running out.
None of them were major issues, and you’d expect them to be righted for full events. The only sympathy I had was for people who claimed that the stadium isn’t signposted very well, and I’d say that’s right. You can find your seats and block number easily enough, but finding your way out is a little hit and miss. And I do think you should be able to find your way between levels.
As a stadium, it’s taken a long time to finish, but it’s a fine building in the end. I reckon that the acoustics are going to make it sound great when a proper game’s being played there, and I can’t wait to see a real game.
See a full set of photos at Flickr.
And here’s a brief, very low quality video that I also made.