Posts Tagged ‘New Wembley Stadium’

The old Wembley Arena was opened in 1923 and had a name for creating one of the very best pitches in Britain. Its wide open spaces would sap the energy from the legs of even the fittest players. When the Empire Stadium at long last closed its doors in 2000, the outstanding playing surface was torn up along with the entire arena.

England supporters had to wait patiently 7 long years before the new Wembley Stadium opened its doors. The new 90,000 seater arena was classified by UEFA as a 5* Elite Arena and is the second largest in Europe after the Nou Camp in Barcelona. The first full international was versus Brazil on 1st June 2007.

The building of the arena was late and way over budget but the problems didn’t end there. Operational issues such as faulty escalators on match days were encountered but there is an on-going issue that to date has not be sufficiently sorted out – the playing surface.

Pitches at new stadia as a general rule require adequate time to settle down but at Wembley the playing surface is a headache and is definitely one of the worst around. It cuts up far too easily and players lose their footing too often. In a recent FA Cup semi final, at least one of the goals was because of a player losing their footing at a crucial moment as the pitch gave way. By the conclusion of the 2009/2010 season, the turf had been relaid 10 times at a price of a million pounds and the arena had not even been in operation for 3 years.

However, relaying the pitch every 3 months is not actually the resolution. The design of the stadium means that the natural conditions of light and wind can’t get to the pitch to entice the playing surface to grow. A few stadia just like the one in Gelsenkirchen in Germany is on rollers so in between games, the full pitch is moved outside the stadium. Other stadia have a lot of ventilation in the stands to allow the air to flow and it is possible to use artificial lights to encourage the grass to develop.

Unfortunately, there are still difficulties and a solution needs to be found. In September 2010, England launch their qualification for Euro 2012 and they are definitely the top team in their group. The last thing England don’t need, is their opponents aided by a sub-standard Wembley pitch. The matches at Wembley are meant to give England home advantage.

For any soccer fan, a visit to the new Wembley Stadium is a must. Not only is it one of the world’s most outstanding modern stadiums, but is host to the best of English football and features a veritable ‘footie-fest’ of the nation’s leading cup finals and Football League play-offs every season. The Football Association – the sport’s governing body – is planning a £12million move of its administrative headquarters from Soho Square to the new Stadium during July 2009. As Wembley is also the home venue for all of England’s international fixtures – including the qualifying games for the 2010 World Cup Finals – the move will firmly establish the stadium as the ‘home of English football’. As the English football season progresses towards its climax in May, Wembley hosts a number of prestigious finals including the traditional finale to the football season – the FA Cup Final. But, before that the cup final season begins in either late February or early March with the staging of the Carling Cup Final. This show piece cup competition of the Football League will celebrate its 50th anniversary at Wembley in 2010. Next up is the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Final played at Wembley in early April. This competition is exclusively for clubs that compete in League One and League Two of the Football League. The 2009 final was an absolute thriller with Luton beating Scunthorpe 3-2 after extra time in front of a substantial lower league football crowd of 53,378. In May the games come thick and fast at the Stadium, starting with the FA Trophy Final and FA Vase Final, played on successive days on the second weekend of the month. Next, and still in May, the Football League hosts the Play-off finals when the last promotion spots for The Championship, League One and League Two are decided. Indeed, The Football League Championship play-off final – normally played on late May Bank Holiday Monday – is billed as football’s most lucrative ‘one-off’ game. The winners will be promoted to the Barclays Premier League and with that comes access to lucrative TV money. Finally, the last weekend in May sees the traditional season finale; the FA Cup final. This is one of the few ‘protected’ games to be televised live on terrestrial channels and is the daddy of all football competition finals. As you can see, May is also the month when the owners of London hotels – particularly those situated around Wembley – rub their hands in glee at the glut of ‘no vacancies’ signs, as they accommodate the thousands of football fans travelling to the capital to watch their teams in action. But, fans of football that can’t get a ticket to a game at Wembley needn’t despair. They can still access the stadium and sample its marvellous features at first-hand by buying a Stadium tour ticket.