Was. That thing isn't Wembley.
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Did they move it somewhere new?
The stadium I went to two years ago was vastly superior to the ground I went to in the 90s.
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They should have done...as I argued at the time.
I'm sure it's a perfectly serviceable modern stadium. Not the best in london, or in the best location, but perfectly fine. It's just the wrong thing, in the wrong place. If you think about wembley, it's history, and iconic status, it just isn't the picture that you have in your mind. All that it was, and what it meant, is in the bin. Which is why the status and the view in which it was held has changed.
I don't think that much has been gained. Apart from the writing of big cheques.
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I quite like Wembley. I never went to the old one but this one is pretty cool.
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Have you been to the new one? It’s a far superior stadium with better view and facilities. And access from different points. What iconography would you preserve from the old one? The running track? The twin towers? The 39 steps? The massive pillars obstructing the view?
I can’t think of many “iconic” national (or even club) football stadiums that remain from 40-50 years ago that have not been rebuilt or been moved.
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It's not just it as a football stadium though. It was an iconic athletics stadium. We live in a world where athletics stadiums have been created for the olympics, and then turned into football stadiums for money.
My argument was always that a national stadium should have been built centrally in the country, reasonably accessible to all. Nearer the national training facility. There are plenty of big suitable football stadiums in london, if you want to hold games there. Put the national stadium in the middle of the country, at lower cost without the london and ken bates tax, and use some of the money saved to refurbish historic wembley for multi-use. So that we don't just have football stadiums. Then the FA can focus on it's primary role in governance of the game instead of maintaining a hugely expensive white elephant. Over investing in over-capacity in the most expensive, but sub-optimal, location is dumb and anti-social. England has five football stadiums over 60,000 seater, none of them in the middle of the country.
You don't have to throw away what you have, to get something new.
That ship has, of course sailed. It doesn't change the fact that wembley, and all that is was, has gone in the process.
Going to the 'new wembley' is no more iconic than going to the new totteningham stadium, the emirates, or the london stadium
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When was the last time they had athletics at the old Wembley? You might as well say it was an iconic greyhound racing stadium.
One thing that the 2012 Olympics showed was that there isn't really justification for big stadiums that don't have football (or rugby) in them on a regular basis because, in this country, that's what fills them.
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Concerts don't count then? Other sports shouldn't have a national stadium because football is bigger?
A bit self-perpetuating that.
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No problem with other sports having national stadiums (does Lords count? Wimbledon?) but the reality is that massive (>50k) dedicated stadiums for athletics or rugby league or darts are about as sensible as Nottingham Forest building a 50k stadium in Toton. The audience just isn't there.
There's no shortage of stadium sized concert venues, so not sure of the relevance of that.
If the argument is that once they tore down the old Wembley there was no benefit to keep it on the same sitw, so they might have built a new national stadium for football in Burton, that's fine but I'd be interested to see the breakdown of the number of people within a couple of hours of each.
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Is the argument for a stadium in the middle of the country for better access for all a real one?
Put it at, oh let's say, Toton. Public transport wise I reckon that is harder to get to for most folks than London. And London does have, what, 14m or so people to help fill a stadium.
On other sports, football, rugby and cricket all have decent sized grounds for their needs.
I'm not sure having a 60k athletics/hockey/badminton or whatever stadium is going to make those sports more popular.
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At the time Wembley was being discussed/built I went through the ‘it should be built just off the M6 near Coventry’ phase, but came back to ‘the national stadium should be in the national capital’ because, I dunno, folk are always going to disagree so just stick with the city that’s the biggest and has the best transport etc. Certainly, that specific location in London is a bit shit.. but whatever… is it worse than a greenfield site in the midlands with minimal non-road infrastructure anywhere close by? Or was the plan to bulldoze Birmingham City Centre?
Nowadays, I kinda don’t see the point in a ‘national stadium’ at all. What is it needed for? Does it have a genuine use case outside of the FA Cup Final? England should move around anyway. Australia doesn’t have a national stadium.. but it has several really good ones and they actually compete for various major events. Which perhaps helps explain their quality.
On the flip side, however, maybe it is worth having a major venue in public-ish hands. So there is that.
This post was brought to you by someone who seems to not know what he thinks at all.
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Exactly - the benefit of putting a big stadium in London is that almost all of the rail lines and roads in the country point towards it. People talk about the great transport infrastructure around the NEC but not, I'm guessing, people who spend much time on the M42 or M6 around there. Birmingham is well served on the train from London and Manchester but it's an arse to get to from Nottingham, let alone Newcastle or Norwich.
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That's just simply not true.
Birmingham city centre is served by direct trains from Nottingham and Newcastle (used to be from Norwich, but you have to change in Cambridge now), then a quick change to Birmingham International for the NEC (a quicker journey than the underground from central London to Wembley as well)
Access to the NEC by road is a damn sight easier than Wembley as well (although not at the moment while they build HS2).The debate about the need for it is a separate argument. Do we really need separate national football and rugby stadia, for example?
We already have far too many stadia in this country as it is. There is absolutely no need for Liverpool, Manchester, North London, (and soon) Birmingham to have two 40/50/60,000-capacity football stadia within a couple of miles of each other, each used 20-30 days a year.
I'm not even sure the non-matchday revenue angle even adds up, given the cost of building new stadia/stands. -
The site next to the NEC, which would have been my choice, benefits from existing rail and airport links on site, and a massive density high volume road infrastructure already in place. It has parking and existing facilities. My experience would be that it's easier to get to than wembley. Much easier.
It's a southern final between two london teams? no problem, play the final at the neutral venue of the three available over 60k.
Since the new wembley was built, of the 36 finalists 16 were geographically closer to wembley than NEC. That's geographically closer, not journey time or accessibility closer. For example for Watford, it very much depends on transport method. With modern football being all about money the london clubs tend to be disproportionately represented (so the stadium should be there, you say? - there are already stadiums there)...I suspect the case is even less close for playoff finals with more provincial bias.
We are not talking about should we have deprived london of the premier football venue, at the maximum cost, in a largely unsuitable location. We are talking about providing a suitable venue for the majority of football fans. (at least I am, we know that was never really a consideration)
Totally agree for the case of building one. The argument was quite different when you already had one.
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I can’t think of a national football stadium that is not in said nation’s capital. Australia doesn’t count as (a) it has a made up capital and (b) football is the 5th most important sport .
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Not to support Tricky's argument especially because I don't agree with it, but the Netherlands doesn't have a national stadium and just rotates around big club grounds. I don't think Germany has one either, there are a couple of Olympic stadia in Berlin and Munich but I don't think either is designated as the official home of the national team.
