The Changing Wembley Experience
Apr 22nd, 2015 by 'holic
Saturday remains in the memory, for now. A very long day was made worthwhile by the result and the pre-match socialising in pleasant surroundings. Much of the rest of it was frustrating, the tone set by engineering works more than doubling the journey time.
Once at the iconic venue much of the magic of the occasion is lessened by the fact that Wembley today isn’t really geared up to welcome in excess of eighty thousand people. You queue to get in because not all of the turnstiles work and the stewards are less than helpful. Inside the atmosphere is destroyed by a tannoy system set not to eleven, but nearer fifteen on the volume control.
Then when the final whistle has blown the endless queues to escape the environs of the stadium, whether on foot, by car, tube, or overland train. It didn’t seem as bad at the ‘old’ Wembley with a bigger gate. Maybe time has erased the detail of trips past? The memories that remain paint a better picture, however.
I was told my Wembley debut was for an England international against the USSR in October 1958. Billy Wright was the England captain, and I was three months short of my second birthday. Whatever delays occurred I remain blissfully unaware of. The first I have some memory of was the visit of Romania in January 1969, John Radford’s debut for England. Again I have no recollection of the journey home afterwards.
Two months later I saw Arsenal in the flesh at Wembley for the first time. The League Cup Final against Swindon is one I will never be allowed to forget, given I now live there. I remember much of this. The disappointment that burned itself into a twelve year old’s heart that day has been repeated. The taste of chips, eaten on the run in the car home, stayed with me. I didn’t eat Britain’s favourite vegetable product for months afterwards.
The first vivid recollection of a day at the home of English football was the FA Cup Final of 1971. Dad got a ticket from Dick Jones, secretary of the supporters club (there was only one at the time) and as he was playing cricket on the day I got it, and the train fare from Marlow. I had to change at Maidenhead station. On the platform a big old unit, noticing a teen in full Arsenal battledress asked if he could see my ticket. A couple of years earlier I might have done, and been relieved of it as a result. “I’m picking it up from my Grandad at Wembley.” Streetwise at fourteen!
I would travel with Dad, or by train, until the trio of FA Cup Finals from 1978-80, by which time I was driving. There were few parking restrictions in the side roads of Wembley so you could find spots from where you could escape quickly onto the North Circular Road. Parking up early to secure the best spot enabled a short trip to Kingsbury to find a relatively quiet pub in which to lubricate the vocal chords. ’79 obviously remains most vividly in the memory. The five minute Final will never be forgotten.
The thing about all of the early trips is that the grand old lady of English football held 100,000 spectators, and yes there were queues to get out, and onto public transport in those days, but they were nowhere near as bad as we seem to have experienced in the last couple of years. In the nineties, when the capacity of Wembley was reduced by the requirement for it to become all-seater, my worst experience of getting away from the stadium was when I foolishly signed up for a coach trip to Swindon’s play-off victory against Leicester. Yes, the car park was a proper ‘mare.
The point of this piece? I would like to think that someone at Wembley is paid to review the stuff that is written about it and report back. We are back there at the end of May. Well, those who are lucky in the ballot, or who have really amazing friends! I would love to think that the turnstiles will work so that we can roll up and walk straight in, pretty much, as we did when the Final was held in the Millennium Stadium at Cardiff. I would give gushing praise if somebody gagged the announcer and turned the tannoy volume down to under ten so the fans can make the atmosphere and enjoy the day fully.
Most of all though can we think of a way of getting those queues post-match back to the time they seemed to take thirty or forty years ago with bigger gates. No, I don’t know how. I am moaning without knowing the answers, I accept. But in an era of technological progress how has the Wembley experience got worse?
Please win the Final, Arsenal. I couldn’t cope with a loss there these days.
55 Responses to “The Changing Wembley Experience”
Wembley was always a scabby stadium (I’ve been going since 1966) in a fairly boring part of London. But now it is an overpriced unloved concrete stadium that is difficult to get in, difficult to get out of, tedious to get home from, a overpriced total disaster to be in pre-match or at half-time and only even vaguely likeable if you win a trophy there. I hate it there. But I’ve been to every Arsenal Wembley Final since Leeds in ’68 so will go again if I’m lucky enough in the ballot.
From previous drinks – answering a ghost is about par for the course. Voices in me noggin…
@ Cynic from last drinks
Thanks for that. I personally would’ve gone for the soup!
Any one else looking forward to the ashes this year?
Onto more important matters. I have a feeling we will prevail on Sunday versus the odious ones bus parking lot. 3-1 to the good guys.
Whilst I’m at it my two cents on Cesc. Used to love him, now he’s dead to me. Hope to see him looking forlorn at full time on Sunday.
I assume there will be a Chavs-game entree to come, ‘holic? I’ll reserve thoughts of that till then.
Just as well the last round closed before I found the keyboard this morning, otherwise it might have devolved into a ‘cricket then and now’ debate. Needless to say, Dr F, that any ‘holes’ you think you found in my brief summary can be plugged with copious detail. The fact remains you are trying to prove that the hero of what amounted to little more than village green cricket in grandfather’s day could be proven ‘the greatest of all time’ based simply on stats alone, regardless of all the changes, improvements and infinitely greater competition in the sport sine.
Uncovered wickets, for example … Bradman was very poor on sticky wickets, averaging about 20 in test matches. His forte was batting on the glass smooth wickets specially prepared for him. As Larwood himself said “Cricket is a batsman’s game. The pitches are prepared to suit run-making. The laws are made to preserve the batsman’s wicket. It was so biased in favour of the batsmen (in the 1920s and 1930s) that there was no pressure on them at all. If we got four wickets down in a day, we’d done a good day’s work. If we got five, we had an extra drink.”
Enough said. You can have the last word if you like. I prefer to talk football, and we have more than enough to disagree about with the prime focus of this bar, surely? 🙂
Öskar
Oskar @ 5
Yet he was still considerably better than any of the players from his era. He will always be the greatest of all time no matter how much nonsense you spout.
So you said in the last round, DuG, without providing a scintilla of rebuttal.
And you can say it again if you like, but I won’t be debating cricket in this bar, okay?
Öskar
GREAT PIECE HOLIC
YES MY FIRST TRIP TO WEMBLEY WAS THE JOHN RADFORD INTERNATIONAL. I WAS 12.
WE LIVED IN TILBURY SO HAS A COACH JOURNEY WHICH SEEMED TO TAKE ALL DAY.
REMEMBER THE HUGE CROWD AND THE SMELLS
THANKS FOR THE REMINDER
Here is my rebuttal Oskar, point for point from your effort in the last drinks. Apologies to non cricket fans.
1. Bradman only played 52 tests over 20 years you say. Well he can hardly be held responsible for the scheduling of matches at that time. Also I think you’ll find that in the middle of those 20 years there was a world war which robbed him (and others from his era) of 7 years of his prime.
2. He played 71% of his games vs England you say. Again I’m not sure how this can be taken into account due to the fact that whilst he was a great cricketer, I’m not sure of his ability to conjure other opposition teams to compete against. Further to your point, from 89-05 England where pretty woeful and Australia had some great players however none of them matched Bradmans record over this period.
3. Only played the others at home. You can only play what’s put in front of you and he did. And he surpassed all others in this regard. Also if you score lots in the first innings( presumably with bradman scoring lots of runs) and then, through your own teams bowling strength and the oppositions “lack of strength”, if you bowl them out twice for under that first innings total you win. No need to bat again.
4. Again not responsible for the scheduling of the matches.
5. You mean like the England batsman that were hooking Mitch Johnson for 6 all last down under summer… Oh wait!
6. I think you’ll find that bradman scored his runs at as good if not a better rate than many of today’s players. In fact I think he scored 300+ in a test at headingly in less than a day.
7. Uncovered pitches easier to bat on than today’s combination of roads and runways.
8. Fielding has improved yes. However there where no roped off (15 metres in in some cases nowadays) boundaries in those days. Adding 10 to his average? Wow I wish the fielders in my club cricket weren’t so amazing. I’d be averaging… um still not much.
I’m also not entirely sure that the opposition captains weren’t setting fields to bring him undone. Body line anyone?
9. If we are using today’s advantages in technology against him. Imagine Bradman wielding one of those massive clubs that batsman use for bats today. Also I disagree that batsman don’t get the benefit of the doubt anymore but that’s a separate argument.
10. How does this stack up with your Denis Compton statement. I mean surely if he is the closest thing we’ve had to Bradman then I guess he is a granddads hero and that we haven’t had another better since him.
There have been some great cricketers over the history of the game but for sheer numbers you can’t go past bradman. The man was a freak of nature. And I haven’t even bothered using his Sheffield shield stats either Oskar which, by the way, are equally unparalleled. By any one. Ever.
Cheers H.
I have been to the new Wembley twice. Both times for music not football. On both occasions I have left the stadium and wandered slightly drunk through some God-forsaken parts of London for an hour or more until I stumbled across a train station sufficiently far from the melee to avoid queues and packed trains. The alternative just seemed too horrible and I would rather be walking under my own steam than standing around, neck craning upwards for air, squished next to a lot of hot, sweaty people as we dribble towards an ill-equipped transport system, which has little excuse for its lack of readiness.
Arsenal won there last year though. I went to Cardiff three times. I saw Orient lose two play-off finals and us lose the League Cup Final. Not a happy hunting ground for me so I think Wembley may be a better omen- even if it is a pain in the hole.
The reason I was slightly drunk and no more so was, of course, the extortionate prices Wembley charges to serve you some of the worst booze you’ll ever have the misfortune to drink.
I was pleased though when my sister, fed up with queuing, bought four of their thimble-fulls of red wine, then batted her eyelids and asked very nicely for a spare glass and returned with a pint of wine for me. A thirty quid pint of cheap wine in a plastic pint glass and yet, by the standard of refreshment available that day, I was positively ecstatic. And then slightly drunk…
Cheers H! The queues afterwards are appalling, however I still prefer the view and facilities to the crumbling almost unfit establishment I last attended back in 87 & 88. However you’re right about Cardiff. The whole place was an absolute joy compared to either variant of Wemberley.
Morning H. Not exactly enticing me to try my first experience!! 🙂
Nice one H.
I’ve yet to visit the new Wembley, it’s constructon seems like a massive waste of money to me though. Holding the semi finals there is just plain wrong imho, tradition of the cup is something they try to sell us, but only on their terms.
My recollectons of the old stadium are not that great either, from hurtling down the stairs in the ’80 final to not really been able to see much of anything in the 2 previous. Even when I was older, against Lpoo in the Milk Cup (Fizzy pop, Rumbelow’s, whatever) I didn’t really have a great view of what was gong on,the pitch seemed miles away compared to what I was used to at Highbury.
I do have fond memories of walking down Wembley Way and seeing those iconic towers though, glad that the architects managed to incorperate them into the new design….
What??
Oh.
Bugger.
Oh dear, DuG, you missed the point by miles in practically every point. For example, Denis Compton was indeed a great cricketer of the post ww2 era, but I only mentioned him (in response to GSD asking when Bradman played for Arsenal) because Compton was by far the best cricketer who ever played football for the gunners.
And football is all I want to talk about here, okay.
Öskar
Now that’s a sales pitch, H!
Trying to put others off entering the ballot? Cute. 😉
heh @ zico.
Cute yourself.
Fair enough Oskar. I won’t bother continuing with the debate. And I certainly won’t bother talking theo I mean football with you.
Okay.
Hehe, Dr z. 🙂
Holic,
Its only in the midst of such long queues, intolerant stewards and intruding noise when you can turn reliably, my dear friend, to a hip flask of the very finest & smoothest triple-distilled Irish restorative to redden your cheeks and to warm the cockles of your heart.
Because for you Holic, only the very best will do.
So tell the thrifty Scots to dig even deeper this year or risk being gazumped..!
(Now thats what you call a sales pitch Z) 🙂
Nice trip down memory lane, Guvna.
Here’s hoping that whatever the post-match experience on Steveee’s Birthday, it follows a spectacular and historic victory for the Arsenal.
Heh @ Joe.
And great song in the previous drinks Steve T.
Two quick responses to post from the last session:
Charlie@139: exactly. Predictability will kill the tournament off. I know many say the PL is predictable and as for the winners it mostly is, but there is much more than just the fight for the top spot to create tension and excitement.
zico@140: the main reason I want to be in the CL these days is that without it we would be in a much worse position to sign good players so it has very little to do with us getting knocked out v Monaco. I spoke at length during the group stage this season about how boring it has become and how my impression is that general interest in the tournament is dropping.
Right, got to go back to work which currently involves trying to make sense of some very strange behaviour in something called MongoDB. Kids, if you are being offered – just say no…
Poor Mongo.
https://sportacalypse.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/mongo.jpg
Blazing Saddles is a fucking brilliant movie, Cynic.
Mongo is just the type of big, solid, dominating centre backs or central midfielders for whom many have been crying out. 🙂
Brilliant read as always. yes please Arsenal win for simply put i cannot handle a loss at all nowadays, hahhaha.
For the ones who missed, twitter had a survey on the popularity on the epl teams and we are ranked first in North America and Europe. India, my country has Arsenal as being the second most popular behind united which just makes me feel yuck. Frankly, football in india or any sport apart from cricket is basically choose the most successful or most fabricated team and say its my team. No real substance to the following even though it is changing for the good and we do have some strong knowledgeable people nowadays. Still the vast majority support united and if you ask why, will say oh i love ronaldo, blimey.
Press conference by the boss today does suggest that we are most likely to go in with the same team that played against Burnley. To beat chelsea, we need to beat them by pace and i rather have Danny or theo starting instead of ramsey.
Lastly, the dna so and so’s pic on the ken friar’s bridge and why is it still there and the answer being he is one of Ken Friar’s favourite players. Well simply remove it and tell ken there are far better choices please.
Great trip down Memory Lane Guv. Reaching into my highly fragile memory bank my first trip to Wembley was in 1960 to see the Amateur Cup Final between Hendon and Kingstonian. It was the really old Wembley then and was refurbished in about 1962 with a roof. The really old Wembley was mainly a standing arena with a dog track around it. It had a massive atmosphere and they preserved this in the post 1962 stadium. It always gave me goose bumps when I wandered into the old stadium but now it is singularly devoid of atmosphere. Or perhaps I am getting old.
I’ve probably been to Wembley about sixty times, possibly more as I used to go to a lot of England games. My first visit to see us was against Leeds in 1968. I was at that awful Swindon game and there in 1971. I’ve also seen us win there in 1979, 1993 ( three times in a few months!) , 1998 and 2014. And of course in some Champions League games.
Everything you said is fair. The tannoy is the most intrusive I have heard anywhere. I hate the fact that the seats behind where the teams come out are always about a third full. It’s like Club Level immediately after half- time but for the whole game!;)
The sight lines are good whereas at the old Wembley there were lots of obstructed views. When we played there in the Champions League my ticket saw me located behind a huge pillar. The old toilets were awful and inadequate and are better now. Outside the actual arena it feels like a food hall rather than a football ground and the f
ood is horrendously expensive.
I went with my four year old grandson and son in law to the Mexico/ Senegal game during the Olympics in Club Level and was not served burger and chips but Steak patty and Noisette potatoes. I would have preferred burger and chips . It took us an hour to get to Wembley Park tube and when you’re four that’s a long time. I now go via Marylebone to Wembley Stadium.
Frankly it’s a stupid place to have a national stadium . It has awful road links, the tube is pretty poor out there and we had the chance to rethink the location of the national stadium when we closed Wembley before. Sadly they gave the job to Ken Bates so he rebuilt it in the same place at an exorbitant cost, way over budget and well after the initial date for completion. Good work,Ken!
I actually preferred Cardiff as a Cup Final venue. The stadium was better but depending on where you parked you could be in trouble. I got home in 2001 to Kent before I had left the multi- storey car park in 2005!
As the FA are handling the arrangements I think I would save my breath on any improvements. Nevertheless I do hope I get a ticket in May. It’s the Cup Final and my team is in it!
Nice bit of personal history, Holic.
A reminder of Swindon was just what I needed !
Never put me off though 😉
*tumbleweed*
more tumbleweed
and the shadow of Don Rodgers falls on the saloon doors.
Speaking of Swindon, many years ago, when travelling on Business, my dad found himself sharing a railway carriage with the board of Tranmere Rovers FC. As a professional engineer, my father felt himself duty bound to explain to the board what they were doing wrong as a football club (no, I don’t understand that bit either). Anyway, Dad was insufferably smug following the 1973 League Cup 2nd round.
COYG
The race for the most shirts seen in Thailand is tightening after bursts successively by Man United, Arsenal and now Liverpool in the last 24 hours. Chelsea and Everton shirts seen also but they are not real contenders. Some chanting monks also spotted but they were wearing saffron robes not football shirts. Must not have been part of Ned’s crew. Game time here will be 9pm so the Singha and Chang beer distributors are planning a big day presumably.
10pm actually I believe. Now to figure out how to watch it.
If you haven’t yet checked the Arsenal Gentleman’s review of this week, don’t miss.
http://arseblog.com/2015/04/arsenal-gentlemans-weekly-review-68/
“And Mr. Saunders, dear little fizzing wind-up berserker Mr. Saunders. Imagine having to play against the little blighter. If he were a detective sergeant at The Yard he’d have the suspect confessing to whatever he pleased. He’d be good cop, bad cop, angry cop, sad cop, terrifying cop, hiding cop, jumping cop and screaming cop all at once.”
🙂
Brightened up my very tough Friday morning of a very tough week.
bt8 — Those monks almost always have some football shirt or other under their robe. 🙂
Growing up I had spent a lot of time around the various hill-stations in India where expatriate Tibetans found their new home and carrying over the monastery traditions around existing pagodas. The football matches in the breaks in between prayer, meditation and bloody hard work are some of the most intense I have ever participated in. 🙂
Have played a few games like this… 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5iIbKQZ1p8
Horrible old ground but filled with some wonderful memories,The year the Donkey won the derby being a particular favourite as I had the added bonus of a certain Charlie G being sat behind me giving it to the LWC at every opportunity 🙂 But also some not so wonderful – The year before or was it two-being one, But the worst for me still remains Luton, horrible day ! Still can’t look at a straw hat 🙂 or come to think of it a pic of Gus:))
Hope All are well – Here’s to Smashing the Classless Cunts from Fulham,
Up The Arse !!
According to a survey I saw this week, we are the most popular PL side in 55 countries second only to Chelsea who have 81 countries where they dominate. We are the most popular club in Africa. I mentioned this to a friend who has just been in Kenya and South Africa and he noticed an incredible number of Arsenal kits even in rural Kenya . He is a Stoke fan and didn’t see a lot of evidence of a fan base for the Orcs in Africa;)
They are the indisputed number one in Mordor, TTG.
We’ll be in yella for the final…and that is NOT a good sign.
Heh H2H @ 38. 🙂
Tell that to the heroes of ’71 and ’79, SSY.
Hammers & Scousers finals, after ’79, Bath. Yellow.
But I like it anyway.
And we MUST win the bloody thing not just for the 12th but for the fuckin’ fact that only spuds have two – back to back….
We have two back-to-back, SSY.
2002 & 2003.
However we MUST win the bloody thing to consolidate our progress.
bath @ 42 — Is that two back-to-back(s) or one back-to-back? 🙂
SSY – I can remember us losing to Ipswich and West Ham in yellow but against Liverpool we won in 1950 and 1971 in gold and lost in 2001 in red.
Spuds have not won three times in four years either like we have,
Spuds can’t be compared with gunners, period. It’s against all sanity.
Öskar
Those monks also play a handy game of frisbee, Dr F, as I may have mentioned here before. And HH the DL has (or had, 25 years ago) a ’30s Austin Ruby which he spent many years renovating in his spare time.
The things that go on in those cloisters, aye Ned! 😉
Öskar
‘Scuse me, DOUBLE back to back for Sp*rs – ’61 and ’62 and ’81 and ’82.
Nobody ever done that. Nobody!
And now we can do it.
’02 and ’03…
2014 and fuckin’ now.
Fucking is the key word.
Mourinho was infuriated by Wenger’s remark that it is “easy to defend” as two very different footballing philosophies collide on Sunday.
“It’s not easy, not easy. If it was easy, you wouldn’t lose 3-1 at home to Monaco,” said Mourinho.
————————
Rubbing the wrong way can be disastrous, bus parkers take heed : http://i.imgur.com/blNHq9N.jpg
Looking forward to the match and a meltdown from the dour one in the aftermath.
Am feeling a little prescient today…
…the soothsayer in me is telling me that the number of goals Chelski will score.. if you look closely you may just be able to make out the number : http://i.imgur.com/7BbGbBJ.jpg
😀
Spuds also won the Sun International Challenge Trophy in Swaziland in 1983, SSY. Doesn’t make them worthy of polishing Arsenal boots today though.
Öskar
6 BB?????? 🙁
Öskar
Ever the optimist you are @Oskar…
😀
*Rides along dusty tumbleweed-strewn street in Holicville*
*Jumps from majestic Palomino stallion and swings open saloon doors*
*Strides up to the bar*
“Bartender, a shot of your finest Oude Genever for all Holics in the build up to our showdown with that varmint from the bus stop at Fulham.”
“It’s time to put an end to this nonsense.”
“Here’s to riddling the scumbag with shots and putting at least one through his heart.”
“Courage mes braves!”
COYGs
Hehe bath 🙂 Mosey on down next door now, please. >>>>>>>>>>>
Another splendid saunter down Memory Lane, ‘Holic. Have never had the pleasure or lack of it of attending the new Wembley, but the old one, despite its many faults, had a certain decrepit charm to it and a sense of continuity back to the old days.
H2H@14: Agree with you about the semis. Plain wrong. Plain money grubbing.
Ttg@27: I was at that Amateur Cup Final game, too. Had forgotten that the terraces behind the goals were uncovered then. Was also fortunate enough to be there three years later to see Eusebio’s Benfica lose a European Cup final.
btw, Wembley is where it is because in the 1880s the then chairman of the Metropolitan Railway Company had bought an estate, Wembley Park, along his railway’s new Baker Street to Harrow line that he wanted to develop into a rural pleasure gardens for Londoners, complete with cricket ground, music hall and a (never completed) Eiffel Tower look-a-like. The Park didn’t outlast the First World War. The vacant site was used to stage the British Empire Exhibition of 1924/25, which included building a National Stadium — the old Wembley — on the spot where what did get built of the Eiffel Tower-like structure had been built.
The Borough of Brent has a history at http://brent.gov.uk/media/387573/Wembley%20Stadium,%20Old%20and%20New.pdf