The 10 Most Interesting Facts About Wembley Stadium

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Aside from having a somewhat carefree attitude with regard its playing surface and setting itself up as a pretty hard place to travel to and from just what are the ten most interesting facts about England’s new £750m national stadium?

Beer

Thirty four bars and 688 food and drink service points scattered about the place have the capacity to serve around 40,000 pints of beer during the half time interval at a major match. Worth bearing in mind when you’re next sat amongst a thirsty crowd of 90,000. Let’s say we have 6 bar staff at each bar and two servers at every service point. That equates to 1580 staff in all, each serving about 25 pints of beer in the interval. Nearly two pints a minute. Pretty good going really. Unless of course they have to stop to change the barrel.

Swinging the Leg

Allegations that members of the Royal Family have always had things far too easy have been well and truly scotched as far as Wembley is concerned! It now transpires that each and every one of the 90,000 seats at the new Wembley Stadium has more leg room than the terribly crampt Royal Box had in the old stadium. Makes you proud to be British. Did they ever complain? No, they never once complained. Well, not as far as we’re aware anyway.

Reveal the Somerset One

The old Twin Towers’ iconic place in Wembley folk lore has now been over shadowed by the, some would say, ’awe inspiring Arch‘. Not surprisingly there are many fascinating facts surrounding this new stadium spanning meccano set. Not least of which is its claim to be the largest single span roof structure in the world. Quite a claim.

But no, the ‘Arch’ fact that makes it to Number 3 in our chart is the amazing revelation that a ’representative’ of every County in England was involved in putting the thing together. Sounds like a Personnel Department’s nightmare. Makes you wonder which County they had the most trouble covering and how desperate they were getting towards the end.

Keep something in Reserve Bobby

No longer a lasting tribute to John Buchan’s famous 1915 spy novel of the same name Wembley’s original ‘39 steps’ have gone. To be replaced by 107 brand new ones. Team skippers now have a much more arduous route to take before they can get their hands on the Cup or their losers medal. Has an oxygen supply been built into the concrete walkway half way up? Probably not.

400 Meters and Not a Centimeter More

Hang on. Could an out of puff victorious Captain have been provided with an escalator instead of having to physically climb those 107 steps? The answer is ’no’. Don’t be so daft. History and exhausted hand rail clinging tradition must be upheld at all costs. In any case, at number 5 in our list, is the fact that the total length of escalators available at the new Wembley Stadium is exactly the same as a 400 metre running track. Not an centimetre more. Not an centimetre less.

What’s On The Other Side?

It’s an age old problem. Two different programmes broadcasting on TV at the same time. To avoid such a clash Wembley boasts not one but two massive screens one at either end of the new home of football. Not only that each screen is said to be as big as 600 domestic television sets. I don’t know about you but I’ve just gone out and bought a big 36 inch monster myself. As a ’fact’ this one is possibly assuming rather a lot about what size televisions we‘ve all got. Or maybe it’s just me.

When You’ve got To Go

Okay this one maybe nestling down at No.7 but it’s a pretty vital piece of information nevertheless. You were lucky enough to buy one of the 40,000 pints of beer served up at half time. You’ve even nipped back for that all important second pint just after the restart. (For more details of the theory of ‘Marginal Utility’ please look out for my future article ‘The Beer Drinkers Guide to Marginal Utility’) Now you need the toilet. Have no fear, you’re in luck. There are a Wembley whopping 2618 available for your convenience. That’s one toilet for every 34.38 people. Take a look around you. Is this a good time to go? You decide.

The £750m Model Comes with Wi-Fi Included

By now I hope it’s becoming clear that we are dealing with a truly awesome, state of the art stadium here. Needless to day the Press Conference Room is pretty impressive too. No less than 180 pencil poised pundits can crowd in to listen to hear the latest string of English excuses. And …wait for it ….. ’Wireless Internet is Available’. Yes, they’ve thought of everything!

A Whole Lotta Bottle

If you were to walk out onto the Wembley turf and pour out a pint of milk onto the grass nothing much would happen. Unless you were spotted in which case you may get yourself arrested. However, pour out seven billion pints of milk and you will eventually manage to fill the stadium to the brim. Unless it has a few leaks of course which, let’s face it, it probably has.

Time for a Jog

We end our list with a very practical use for the new Wembley. A £750m joggers aid. In training for the next London Marathon? Need to build up your distances in a precise measured way? Well then, Wembley is definitely for you. The stadium has been built with a very convenient circumference of 1 km. Day One: run round it once. Day Two: run round it twice. Day Three: run …….well, you get the general idea.

There you have it. The top 10 Interesting fact about our £750m much delayed Wembley Stadium. Earlier in Wales of course they had managed to put up a more than adequate, and reasonably on schedule Millennium Stadium (Cardiff) for just £200m.

In order to compare the two maybe one day we’ll just have to see how interesting their top ten interesting facts are. Surely for that sort of small change they couldn’t possibly be anywhere near as interesting. Could they?