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.
It must be really hard to think of niche footballing nations like spain, italy, germany, and the netherlands.
Spain doesn't have one either, does it?
Anyway, when we're back down scrapping in the arse end of div 2 and grinding out a 0-0 v Preston to stay in the league at Toton in a few years, thinking of SSC and that glorious day; saying "we'll always have 'the AXA Direct Insurance multi-purposed national stadium just outside of Birmingham, next to the NEC' " just wouldn't have held that same nostalgic whimsical romance about it, so there is that.
The Trevor Francis National Stadium is sad.
I'm sure this will rock Lancaster Gate to it's very core so I'll type carefully but the Wembley Stadium experience was comfortably the worst part of play off final day.
JimShady concurs. Probably for slightly different reasons than you.
You know what was great? Getting on a tube afterwards, meeting everyone in one of the many excellent bars to be found in the capital, drinking champagne, then flying out at 7am the following day. The full experience of a final can only be provided for all attendees by the nation's capital, and the idea that finals should be played in any of the many provincial hinterlands is idiocy regardless of how many motorways they have.
There is a choice of excellent stadiums in the capitol.
I'm more amenable to the argument that we shouldn't have a national stadium than the argument that it should be anywhere other than London. But we do, so it is correctly located, and it's a vastly superior experience to its predecessor - I've been a few times now, for football, concerts and an NFL game, and each time it was excellent.
Also, when Wembley was rebuilt there was not a choice of excellent stadia in London. Stamford Bridge was probably the best one at the time.
...one of the reasons that the likes of italy and spain don't have a national stadium, and germany uses former olympic stadiums, is because they are historically strong football nations with excellently located and facilitous diverse grounds...and there is a benefit to moving national games around the regions.
I am of the view that English football also falls into that category, and no amount of arguing that Ken Bates needed to be in charge of writing big checks for further disproportionate investment into london, at the cost of those regions, is going to persuade me that where we are is in a better place.
The countries you mention do not have a national stadium so it is not relevant. It is a different argument about rotating England national games around appropriately large and well appointed club stadia across the country.
I thought the debate was whether a national stadium should be in London, Burton or Birmingham.
Or are the goal posts moving?
Nothing is moving, we are stuck with it now. We are merely discussing the previous view that I held, which was if you were going to build a national stadium it shouldn't be at the cost of what you already have, and it should be accessible to the majority of the country. The further discussion around suitability of other stadiums, and the case for a national team fixed stadium at all are just ancillary to that.
I assume we are not counting the London stadium as a decent one. It is shit.
Apparently the FA are considering a lifetime ban for Paqueta for placing a bunch of bets on himself to get booked. That's brutal for West Ham, he's probably their best and most valuable player.
