We’re On Our Way to Wembley…….

By Neil Ravenscroft
September 25 2002

.......Or has the FA finally lost its marbles, along with risking an awful lot of cash which is desperately needed by League Clubs?

There’s no doubt of what is the major football story today, as it looks like the FA are about to announce the go ahead for the New Wembley Project (although it has been postponed until tomorrow). The only question is why?

As a Walsall fan, I always felt a little aggrieved that we never had the opportunity to see the Saddlers run out at the famous stadium. Granted we got close a few times, once in a war time cup competition, famously when we were only 90 minutes from a place in Europe in the Milk Cup and a couple of times in the Auto Windshield Cup, or whatever it was called at the time. The only time I managed to get there myself was giving my Dad moral support when his team, Stoke (sorry – it’s the skeleton in the Ravenscroft cupboard), won their only trophy against Chelsea in 1972. Even our play off finals let us down, having beaten Bristol City in a two legged final the year before they moved to Wembley and the Reading game after it had moved to the Millennium Stadium.

Now it looks like we haven’t lost our chance after all, as the FA have decided to build the new national stadium on the Wembley site. However, we have to ask why?

There is a question as to whether we need a National Stadium at all. The experiment of moving England games around the country has proved to be a success and I don’t see anything wrong with keeping the cup finals at Cardiff. After all, Italy, Spain and Germany all manage perfectly well without having a National Stadium.

Given that one is needed, however, the question has to be asked why it needs to be in North London, where high building costs mean that the estimate (and how often do builders get those right) ₤750 million (this is against a cost for the Millennium Stadium of around ₤180 million) and in an area where public transport is almost non existent.

It’s not often I agree with “Dirty” Doug Ellis, but why isn’t it being built in the Midlands at one third of the cost and where it would be far more accessible for fans from the North and Midlands? The answer, of course, is that the FA has exactly the same attitude as the MCC and the National Press, if it happens north of Watford, it doesn’t exist.