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New Wembley Stadium


mr.x

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I'm sure it will be a sports trivia question for many years to come....

Q. Who scored the first goal at the new Wembley Stadium in 2007?

A. Giampoalo Pazzini.

Great match! The New Wembley couldn't have been baptised better. ;)

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Germany will play a friendly there against England in August. The match has been confirmed by the DFB today. I guess many teams want to play a friendly with England in the future...

I haven't heard anything from the English FA about that.

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FA Cup final will be at Wembley

The Football Association has confirmed the new £800m Wembley Stadium will host this year's FA Cup final on 19 May.

Brent Council have given the stadium a general safety certificate after two successful "ramp up" events.

A community day was staged for 34,000 people and England under-21s faced Italy in front of nearly 56,000 fans.

FA chief executive Brian Barwick said: "I'm happy to confirm that the 2007 FA Cup final, sponsored will be played at Wembley Stadium."

BBC: The FA Cup Final will be at Wembley

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Really sorry I have not been around to report back on the 1st game at Wembley. I have been stranded in London since and have not been able to get online until recently due to broadband problems at my brothers place.

Anyway, we reached Wembley park station a few hours before the game and the first test was to see whether the station could cope with the numbers. We seemed to get through the station with ease. The only problem was the crowd of people at the exit stopping to take pictures of Wembley in the distance. I think I got on the news at this point as I had a camera pointing directly at me from the top to the bottom of the stairs.

There was a small queue at the turnstiles when we arrived and after 10 minutes they opened them to cheers from the growing crown outside. The stadium was very impressive as you entered through the turnstiles. The staff were also very friendly and there seemed to be staff everywhere. Lots of different coloured jackets belonging to various teams. At one stage a security team raided a huge bin with very concerned looking faces watching every move.

We decided to check out the facilities first of all and everything seemed to be working fine. Loos flushed fine and hand driers, hot water and soap dispensers all working fine. I somehow expected there to be some big disaster when the toilets got very busy.

I had been warned about the food at Wembley so I was kind of expecting the high prices:

3.50 Pint of Lager

4.00 Hot dog

5.00 Cheeseburger

7.00 Chicken Chips

What I wasn't prepared for was the absolute stupidity of the staff. I hate to criticise but we were amazed. Most of the staff could not speak English and failed to understand anything that was asked for and most of them had trouble even operating the tills. This caused great frustration as many people were in a hurry to get served. If it wasn't for the sheer number of food outlets I have a feeling that this would have been a bigger problem. As it was the main queue was for match programmes.

The inside of Wembley is enormous. Despite 60,000 people in the stadium there was lots of space to move around and you never felt too crowded.

We then decided to take our seats. I was preparing when I walked through the tunnel to take my seat. As we entered the main stadium I was totally bowled over. What struck me the most was that despite Wembleys enormous size you really do feel that you are ridiculously close to the pitch. The seat pitch was also greatly appreciated by mean being well over 6ft tall. I could easily strecth my legs out in front of me with ease and I cannot say that about most other large stadia. The difference between City of Manchester stadium and Wembley really hit home.

The game itself was a minor point for me. I really went to be nosey and was less bothered about seeing the U21's play.

On leaving the stadium there were large numbers that left early as many people had been warned about overcrowding at Wembley park. I have to say that the orgnaisation was superb. There was indeed huge numbers trying to enter the station but all the platforms were managed well and the trains were filled up quickly and efficiently and we were out of the station on a train within 5 minutes of entering it. I am not sure if we were just lucky.

Overall I have to give the stadium 9.5 out of ten and the only reason it didnt get a 10 was because of the idiotic staff. This was such a shame because they were all so polite. Perhaps they had only been recruited the day before. One thing is certain, they need to have some training before 90,000 go through the doors.

The atmosphere of the stadium was a little muted on occasion but I would say thats due to the fact it was an u21 and we only had 60,000 capacity. All in all I have to say that everyone I spoke to on the day was bowled over by the stadium. It really does take your breath away when you see it. My only regret was that we didnt have seats on the upper tier. I feel you would have got the real enormity of the stadium if you was seated at the top. We were somewhere in the middle and looking at the opposite end gave us the real enormity of the upper stands when you saw just a few people seated. They looked like tiny ants.

All in all the day passed off without too many hiches and what we did see go wrong were very minor and what you would expect. I must admit being slightly alarmed though that most people got into the stadium with no kind of bag check whatsover. It seemed that just spot checking was in operation. So glad that I was one of the first to see New Wembley. You get a real sense of occasion on the walk up to it and I am sure it will be soon regarded as one of the greatest stadiums in the world.

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It's not eactly food to go crazy over. I was pretty disappointed in the food. I thought that they might go for something abit different than your bog-standard Hotdog and Chicken and Chips....but no.

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It's not eactly food to go crazy over. I was pretty disappointed in the food. I thought that they might go for something abit different than your bog-standard Hotdog and Chicken and Chips....but no.

As someone who is something of an unofficial football ground catering critic, I don't expect food to go nuts about at all. Just out of interest, was there much of a pie selection?

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I didn't see any Pies on sale there at all. It was all very basic fast food. A very poor effort. I was expecting a step-up from your usual football ground fodder. I have to say, I think the food is better at Upton Park and that's saying something.

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Wow, Wembley is definitely still the queen of stadia. Good things come to those who wait! I very much hope that our national team will be able to play in this magnificent stadium on August 22. It's strange that team manager Oliver Bierhoff has already confirmed the match against England while both the FA and DFB websites don't mention it at all.

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According to the BBC:

'England will play Brazil in their first match at the new Wembley on 1 June, the Football Association has announced...'

England to play Brazil at Wembley

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I didn't see any Pies on sale there at all. It was all very basic fast food. A very poor effort. I was expecting a step-up from your usual football ground fodder. I have to say, I think the food is better at Upton Park and that's saying something.

If there are no pies, most football fans will consider that shameful.

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