Wembley Stadium: Blacon junior footballers to play on hallowed turf

At the home of football BLACON Youth JFC will be playing Wembley Stadium on Thursday August 12, along with 55 other clubs for The FA/McDonald’s National Football Festival.
As well as playing on the hallowed turf, the young teams will also meet two of English football’s greatest ever strikers Sir Geoff Hurst, ’66 hat trick hero and McDonald’s Head of Football and Michael Owen, one of the highest scoring England players of all time.
The youngsters will have their opportunity to get a footage taken with the two England heroes during their once in a lifetime trip to Wembley Stadium.
The FA/McDonald’s National Football Festival is the pinnacle of McDonald’s Open Day tour which, this year, has seen McDonald’s franchisees partner with local football clubs to host free football open days in communities across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
More than 700 youngsters will take part in the day long event which consists of non competitive games, coaching sessions and McDonald’s inflatables, the perfect chance to young players to improve their techniques.

Muse Support Acts For Wembley Stadium

Muse Support Acts For Wembley Stadium And Lancashire County Cricket Club Live Concerts To Be Huge Names In Music.

By their live performances Muse never fail to live up to the hype generated, and their dates at Lancashire County Cricket Club and Wembley Stadium will boast some brilliant support acts.

Muse may have had their famous UFO banned from Glastonbury Festival and T In The Park due to health and safety reasons, but the great ambitious band have no plans to drop the spectacular prop from their own live sets at Wembley Stadium and Lancashire County Cricket Club.
All three dates support acts have been announced and there are some huge names amongst the openers!
Manchester Lancashire County Cricket Club – September 4th 2010

Muse

Editors

Band Of Skulls

Pulled Apart By Horses
London Wembley Stadium – September 10th 2010

Muse

Lily Allen

The Big Pink

White Rabbits
London Wembley Stadium – September 11th 2010

Muse

Biffy Clyro

White LiesI Am Arrows
Muse tickets are on sale for all three concerts now, as well as the band’s appearances at T In The Park and Oxegen Festival and a host of European tour dates.

Wembley Stadium's pitch consultants resign

The pitch consultants in charge of the playing surface at Wembley Stadium have resigned.

The news was confirmed on Wednesday after almost constant complaints about the playing surface since it was first laid.

The pitch has performed poorly on almost every major occasion for which it has been used, with recent major finals marred by the players slipping and the surface cutting up far too easily.

The Sports Turf Research Institute (STRI) confirmed that they would be stepping down from the role at the end of June after being responsible for the surface for the last 13 months.

"We have had many constructive and positive discussions with Wembley over the last few weeks on what would be the best way forward to make significant improvements to the pitch," said Gordon MacKillop, chief exective of STRI.

"In relation to this STRI presented an alternative strategy for 2010 to change the construction of the pitch, which Wembley agreed was the best way forward and is now proceeding with this.

"We are pleased that Wembley has adopted our proposed strategy which should see improvements to the pitch during 2010. This new structure of pitch does not require the previous level of research and consultancy from the STRI team and, therefore, we feel it is the right time to resign."

Wembley Stadium this time history repeats for Germany benefits

The World Cup most bizarre moment carries such significance because of its eerie similarity to a 44 year old memory that has divided the two countries ever since.

In World Cup histior Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal in the 38th minute of unfairness.
Yet German fans will point to the 1966 World Cup final at London’s Wembley Stadium, when England won the trophy by beating West Germany thanks to a hotly disputed goal from Geoff Hurst on a similar play.
So what happened in 1966?
Eleven minutes into extra time and with the score tied at 2-2, Hurst collected Alan Ball’s cross, swiveled and smacked a shot against the crossbar. The ball hit the underside of the bar and bounced downward toward the line.
England players celebrated and after a long consultation with his assistant, Swiss referee Gottfried Dienst awarded the goal. Television footage appeared to show that the ball had not fully crossed the line, as it must do to be allowed. England went on to win 4-2.
Years later, a study conducted by experts from Oxford University concluded that the goal should not have counted. German fans have never forgotten the incident that led to England’s only World Cup victory.
Lampard began his career at West Ham, the same London club where Hurst and several members of the England team played their club soccer.

FA say they can't fix Wembley pitch until 2023

England's chances of hosting the World Cup in 2018 could be harmed by the news that the pitch at Wembley Stadium may have to be relaid as many as seven times a year until 2023.
A crisis meeting held today at the stadium attended by ground staff consultants, Football Association officials and the Institute of Groundsmanship failed to come up with any solution to the current problems other than having to constantly rip up the surface at a potential cost of over £8million.
It is thought that the pitch will be relaid before the Carling Cup and FA Cup Finals and at regular intervals throughout the season to coincide with England friendlies.
Geoff Webb of The IoG revealed that because of ongoing loan repayments the stadium will remain multi-purpose for the next 12 years at least.
"It is quite common for this to be the case at venue of this kind," he said.
"The FA have admitted that the pitch that was laid for the FA Cup semi-finals was too hard. But they hope that in future they will be able to solve the problem."
Having spent more than £750m on the stadium, the FA need to service their debts and have consequently allowed major sporting events to take place there, including rugby union and NFL matches, while the venue is regularly used to stage big concerts.
The easy alternative would be to reduce the number of events at the stadium but the FA are hamstrung by the debts.
The latest set of figures available at Companies House showed Wembley suffered huge pre-tax losses of £31.1m, following its £53.3m pre-tax loss in 2007.
At present, it is not expected to break even until 2014 and that will only occur if the number of events presently held stays at its present rate. It is still possible that Wembley could default on agreements with banks over its £326m loans if Club Wembley sales drop, which would certainly be the case if fewer events were held.
A new surface is currently being put down following Saturday's rugby match between Saracens and Harlequins when huge chunks of the surface reared up during scrummages, and it will be the 11th time it has been relaid since the stadium opened.
The new surface will be severely tested in the coming weeks with the FA Cup Final between Portsmouth and Chelsea to come on 15 May, before four play-off finals and England's World Cup warm-up friendly against Mexico.
The bigger fear for the FA is that next season's Champions League Final that is being hosted at the rebuilt Wembley for the first time will have the same problems with the turf. Such a scenario in a high-profile global match could only harm England's chances of then hosting the World Cup in 2018.
The pitch attracted fierce criticism after both FA Cup semi-finals earlier this month as Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp branded it "farcical" and said: "You wouldn't see players falling over all the time on a Sunday in the park".
Manchester United striker Michael Owen's season was ended after picking up a hamstring injury during the Carling Cup Final victory over Aston Villa and Sir Alex Ferguson said: "I think the heavy pitch at Wembley made some contribution to it."
Webb believes the pitch management could be improved. It has been the responsibility of the Sports Turf Research Institute since former head groundsman Steve Welch was sacked last year.
"I think it's coming down to the management of the situation itself within the stadium," Webb added. "You've got to look at the decision-making process and you've got to look at the control of that process as well."

FT: Carlisle 1 Southampton 4

That's all we have time for from Wembley. Southampton are the clear victors but Carlisle will be kicking themselves as three of the four goals were courtesy of individual errors. Take nothing away from the Saints though, they've wrapped this cup up in style.

Musungu in Rwanda can't help himself, he's off out to celebrate the Saints' Johnsons Paint Trophy success, regardless of the meetings he has in work tomorrow. He's asking for a big shout out to Wembley spectators Simon and Owen who will no doubt be as jubilant as he is.

90+4 And there is the final whistle and Alan Pardew, wearing a suit blazer over his match-day tracksuit, punches the air and runs onto the pitch to celebrate with his players.

90+3 Davis has a goal-kick and this could be the final act of the match!

90+2 Saints fan David Parker is reading in Bulgaria, but is delighted to see Southampton winning in style in front of his wife Sharon and son Darren, who are at Wembley today.

Wembley Stadium refinances loan

Wembley Stadium has refinanced the loan taken out to fund the redevelopment of the English national football stadium.
The deal relates to the remaining loan of £341.5m from a £426.4m financing package secured in autumn 2002.
The stadium, a subsidiary of the FA, said it had secured a more favourable interest rate on debt and extends the term of the loan from 2018 to 2023.
It comes as Wembley emerged as favourite to host the 2011 UEFA Champions League final.
In an effort to lure the final to Wembley, the government has said that players on foreign teams will be exempt from any tax.

Wembley Stadium Elmor rock out in the shadow

Promising young bands one of Guildfoed's took to the stage in front of more than 20,000 people in the shadow of the Wembley Stadium arch last week.
Elmor were hand picked to entertain the masses prior to the New England Patriots versus Tampa Bay Buccaneers American football match.
The band played a 40 minute set at NFLUK’s official party, which was held next to the famous stadium.
Lead guitarist Tristan Patrick Sherfield said: “It was absolutely amazing. We’re used to playing in front of 250 people so playing in front of 20,000 was a shock to the system.
“It didn’t phase us though, we lapped it up.
"We came on after the Buccaneers cheerleaders. We were backstage with them, I should’ve at least got my photo taken with them.”

U.K.’s Wembley Stadium: May Default on Loan, Sunday Times Says,

Wembley National Stadium the Football Association's unit may default on loan agreements if it fails to sell enough season tickets, the Sunday Times reported.
The unit made a pretax loss of 31 million pounds ($51 million) in 2008, the newspaper said, citing comments from the company.

“Old Blighty”, NFL plays

The game might not have been the most exciting, but it did help the NFL move the ball a bit further down the field towards its goal of at least MORE games abroad…and maybe even an international team.
The New England Patriots beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 35-7 Sunday at the third regular season NFL game to be played overseas.
The game was played before a sell out crowd of 84,254 at London’s Wembley Stadium which usually plays home to the soccer (or “football”) crowd. And if you think it was just an ex-pat crowd you’d be wrong.
“The vast majority of the crowd were British fans of the sport,” NFL UK publicist David Tossell told me. And the majority of them came from outside London, some even from continental Europe.
For their trouble, aside from the somewhat one-sided game, the fans got singers Toni Braxton and Katherine Jenkins in a battle of the national anthems, flags and graphics which gave the game the feel of a “home” Tampa Bay game, and the very well- received Tampa Bay Buccaneer cheer leaders.
So could there be more NFL games abroad next year? “It will take a little more groundwork to develop the fan base here,” NFL official Tossell told me. The teams don’t love the travel, and the owners miss the home game revenues.
But all spoke highly of the reception and the facilities. “It was like a Super Bowl,” New England Patriot quarterback Tom Brady is quoted as saying.
When the Giants played here in 2007 they went on to win the big game. It might work again for the Pats!