Wembley Stadium

From The UCSC Wikipedia Trust Project

Template:DablinkTemplate:Infobox StadiumWembley Stadium (officially New Wembley Stadium^[1]) is a football stadium under construction in Wembley in London, England. It is currently the largest roof-covered stadium in Europe. It stands opposite Wembley Arena, at grid reference Template:Gbmappingsmall. It is commonly referred to just as "Wembley".

Wembley Stadium is one of the world's most famous football stadiums, being England's national stadium for football. In 2002, the original structure was demolished and construction began on the new stadium, originally intended to open in 2006. This was later delayed until 2007.

1 Construction
- 1.1 Facts and Figures of the new stadium
2 Tenants
3 Music
4 References
5 External links

Construction

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Construction of the New Wembley, looking east, taken January 2006

New Wembley Stadium looking south, down the new Wembley Way, January 2007.

The new Wembley is designed by the world-renowned architectural firm HOK Sport and Foster and Partners. It will be the most expensive stadium ever built at a cost of £793 million and will have the largest roof-covered seating capacity in Europe.^[2]

The new design is for an all-seated capacity of 90,000 protected from the elements by a sliding roof. The stadium's signature feature will be a circular section lattice arch of 7 metre internal diameter with a 315 metre span, erected some 22° off true, and rising to 133 metres tall. According to "Guinness World Records 2006", the archway is the world's longest unsupported roof structure. The arch was raised for the first time during construction of the Stadium in June 2004. This is the new stadium's answer to the old "Twin Towers" trademark.

The stadium will be linked to Wembley Park Station on the London Underground via Wembley Way, and Wembley Central via the White Horse Bridge. A "platform system" has also been designed to convert the stadium for athletics use, but its use decreases the stadium's capacity to approximately 60,000. When completed, the building will have 2,000 toilets, more than any other building in the world.^[3] Instead of the thirty-nine steps needed to be climbed to enter the Royal Box and collect a trophy, there are now one hundred and seven.^[4]

The initial plan for the reconstruction of Wembley was for demolition to begin before Christmas 2000, and for the new stadium to be completed some time during 2003, but this work was delayed by a succession of financial and legal difficulties. The new stadium is currently under construction, with the total cost of the project (including local transport infrastructure redevelopment and the cost of financing) estimated to be £793 million. It was scheduled to open on 13 May 2006, with the first game being that year's FA Cup Final. However, worries were expressed as to whether the stadium would actually be completed on time ^[5].

In October 2005, Sports Minister Richard Caborn announced: "They say the Cup Final will be there, barring six feet of snow or something like that". However in December 2005, the builders admitted that there was a "material risk" that the stadium might not be ready in time for the Cup Final ^[6] and in February 2006, these worries were confirmed by the FA moving the game to Cardiff's Millennium Stadium.

On 20 March 2006, a steel rafter in the roof of the new development fell by half a metre, forcing 3,000 workers to evacuate the stadium and raising further doubts over the completion date which was already behind schedule.^[7] On 23 March 2006, sewers beneath the stadium buckled due to ground movement.^[8] GMB Union leader Steve Kelly said that the problem had been caused by the pipes not being properly laid, and that the repair would take months. A spokesman for developers Multiplex said that they did not believe this would "have any impact on the completion of the stadium", which was then scheduled to be completed on 31 March 2006.

On 30 March 2006, the developers announced that Wembley Stadium would not be ready until 2007.^[9] All competitions and concerts planned were to be moved to suitable locations. On 19 June 2006 it was announced that the turf had been laid. On 19 October 2006 it was announced that the venue was now set to open in early 2007 after the dispute between The Football Association and Multiplex had finally been settled. WNSL, a subsidiary of The Football Association, is expected to pay around £36m to Multiplex, as well as the amount of the original fixed-price contract. This should mean that Wembley Stadium will be ready for the 2007 FA Cup Final on 19 May 2007. The official Wembley Stadium website announced that the stadium would be open for public viewing on 3 March 2007.

A short documentary of its redevelopment can be found on the Queen Live at Wembley 1986 DVD. The reconstruction of the stadium is part of the wider regeneration of Wembley.

The new Wembley is a significant part of the plan for the 2012 Summer Olympics to be held in London; the stadium will be the site of several games in both the men's and women's football tournaments, with the finals planned to be held there.

The Race of Champions will also visit the stadium in December 2007.^[10]

On 16 January 2007, the NFL announced they would be holding a Regular Season game at Wembley, which has since been confirmed to be between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Giants. It will be held on 28 October 2007.^[11]

Although not completed or opened at the time, EA Sports added Wembley Stadium into the video game FIFA 07.

Facts and Figures of the new stadium

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The interior "bowl" of the Stadium, November 2006

With 90,000 seats the new Wembley is the largest association football stadium in the world with every seat under cover, none of which will have obstructed views.
Costing at least £793 million, it is the most expensive stadium ever built.
The arch is 133 metres above the level of the external concourse.
The stadium roof rises to 52 metres above the pitch. This compares to the 35 metre tall Twin Towers of the old stadium.
The new Wembley has a circumference of 1 km.
The London Eye could fit between the top of the arch and the pitch.
The new roof is over 11 acres. Four acres are moveable.
The rows of seating, if placed end to end, would stretch 54 kilometres.
4,000 separate piles form the foundations of the new stadium. The deepest of these is 35 metres.
There are 35 miles of heavy-duty power cables in the stadium.
With a span of 315 metres, the arch is the longest single span roof structure in the world.
With a diameter of 7.4 metres the arch is wide enough for a Channel Tunnel train to run through.
90,000m³ of concrete and 23,000 tons of steel are being used in the construction of the new stadium.
The roof alone weights almost 7,000 tons.
At peak construction there are 2,000+ people working on the site.
The new pitch is 4 metres lower than the previous pitch.
Each of the two giant screens in new stadium is the size of 600 domestic television sets.
The new Wembley encloses 4,000,000 m³ (cubic metres) inside its walls and under its roof. This is the equivalent of 25,000 double decker buses or 7 billion pints.
The total length of the escalators is 400 metres.
There are 2,618 toilets - estimated by WNSL to be more than any other stadium in the world.
There is more leg room in every seat in the new Wembley Stadium than there was in the Royal Box of the old stadium.

Tenants

The English national football team is expected to be a major tenant of the rebuilt Wembley Stadium. Given the ownership by The Football Association, the annual FA Cup semifinals and finals are expected to be moved from Millennium Stadium back to their historic home field starting in 2007. The completed stadium will serve various purposes during the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Music

Besides football, Wembley can be configured to hold many other events, particularly major concerts. The first band announced to play at the rebuilt Wembley Stadium are British band Muse, who will perform two dates at the venue on June 16 and June 17, 2007, although it is unknown whether they will be the first band to perform a concert there.^[12]