Last night was a disaster, England lost to Croatia at Wembley. I was there and it was awful.
In the pouring rain England were outplayed and out-thought, their Euro dream washed away and with it my football holiday to Austria/Switzerland in the summer of 2008. Bloody morons!
I have been to dozens of new stadiums around the world so I was really looking forward to my first experience at the new Wembley Stadium. I have missed every game since the Stadium opened, I have either been in the US or in the case of the FA Cup Final, I voluntarily gave up my ticket for a mate’s birthday (and I won’t let him forget it).
I love going to England games, the passion, the noise, the general camaraderie. Last night I witnessed none of it (other than 5 minutes of the game when England had drawn level). I think the new stadium has a crowd problem, the fans are not the same as before, not as vocal, not as loud. It may have been a combination of nerves, stadium design, the rain or even the fact that the new Wembley is now largely attended by the “prawn sandwich” brigade but one thing is certain, the crowd is lacking something. England fans, Wembley is waiting, where are you?
To say the stadium was a waste of money would be the understatement of the year. It is diabolical that over £800 million was spent on creating such a lifeless, boring bowl. It may look pretty from aerial photos or night shots but inside the ground it is simply atrocious. I judge stadiums by their atmosphere, defining features or uniqueness. Sadly Wembley has none of these.
What it does have is logistical problems, plenty of them. England has still not managed to master selling food and drink at stadiums. Queues everywhere until they run out. Its surprising there are any queues at all considering a hotdog costs £4 and a disgusting english burger and chips costs more than £7!
Generally it would take a good 45 minutes to get from the stadium to the train station, standing in huge queues in the pouring rain was not something we felt like doing after such a poor result. So instead we found a pub nearby and waited for the crowds to diminish. All told a really bad night made worse by my disappointment at the £800 million it took to create the greatest stadium flop on earth.
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22 November, 2007 at 1:32 pm
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22 November, 2007 at 1:15 pm
6000
It’s the perfect match - an overpriced, lifeless and poorly organised stadium to go with our overpriced, lifeless and poorly organised team.
Appalling - the country deserved better from the stadium and the crowd last night deserved better of their team.
And don’t even get me started on state of the pitch…
22 November, 2007 at 2:13 pm
David
The state of the pitch was shocking, but if you choose to hold an NFL game on it 3 weeks before then you’re bound to have problems!
The team was pathetic, so bad! Finally the argument should be put to bed, Lampard and Gerard cannot f*cking play together!!!!
22 November, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Fingers
Who cares.. It’s football!!
20 December, 2007 at 11:40 am
6000
You’ve gone very quiet.
Everything ok?
12 February, 2008 at 12:03 pm
tony johnson
HI David
I was pleased to read your comments on Stonehenge (archive 25th October, 2006), the stones are truly impressive, more especially when, as you rightly remarked people take the time to stop and think about how it was built. You asked a simple question regarding its construction. There are quite a few problems in imagining that the work was aided by the use of a huge earthen mound not least of which is the absolute accuracy of the centreline at the base (generally on the inner face) of the stones in respect of the prehistoric surveyors original markers Each stone is set precisely in place to around 5cms, the centres than had to relate to the positions of the carefully jointed sections of the lintels. You are right however in saying that they were dropped into holes; these were simply foundations, the deepest of which are cut 2.5m into the chalk, the holes had a vertical face on one side only (notice that the stones also only have one relatively flat surface, this placed inwards (except for the two uprights of the Great Trilithon, which were designed to faced out, towards the midwinter sunset). Raising the lintels was no problem, some guys in the Czech Republic quite recently did an experiment with wooden poles and ropes, they proved it wasn’t difficult at all. All too much to explain here, but if you look at this site: www.thamesandhudsonusa.com/new/spring08/505155.htm the answers to most of your questions will hopefully be resolved. Sorry if this looks like an ad, but there is too much to explain here, if you ever get hold of a copy I will sign it for you.
Very best wishes,
Tony Johnson
Keble College, Oxford