How was your weekend?
Mine was espcially brilliant thanks.
I went to Wembley Stadium to watch The Killers, from a corporate box owned by my wife’s work.
It was a strange feeling. I didnt think I’d get a buzz walking up The Wembley Way amidst the crowds but I really did.
I walked along the upper concourse to the box, and on the walls of the plush corporate areas, they have photos of the great things that have happened at Wembley over the years. Scattered liberally amongst pictures of Metallica and Take That are pictures of Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard and John Terry and Gustavo Poyet and Roberto di Matteo and Dennis Wise. It struck me in profound terms how we, little old us, have become an integral part of Wembley history and are one of the most decorated and significant teams ever to be associated with that wonderful stadium and its older, glorious predecessor.
So we headed into the box and had a few drinks. James were decent, Gaslight Anthem were very impressive (I’d never even heard of them but now own everything they’ve ever released, thanks iTunes!) and as darkness fell across London and across the hundred thousand or so in the stadium, The Killers came on.
They were, quite simply, brilliant. I’m a fan, and my wife is a massive fan of theirs and we’ve seen them a couple of times before but they were different class on saturday night. Anthem after anthem rocked past and the atmosphere was goosebump-inducingly electric. As I stood rapturously witnessing Brandon Flowers and his band from Nevada put in one of the all time great live performances, my soul was lifted on Saturday. I was there. I witnessed it.
It struck me then what an emotional place Wembley is.
If it isn’t football its music or any of the other myriad things that they put on there. It was head and shoulders above the best live music venue I’d ever been to and it stops being ‘a gig’. It transcends that in the same way that just winning a game at Wembley is much more than just ‘winning’ – it is a visceral, spine-tingling experience that you remember until the day you shuffle off this mortal coil. I’ll never forget that day in 1997 when we won the FA Cup, or any of the other visits to Wembley before or since then, and believe it or not, this was well up there.
Its hard to pin down what exactly makes it so special. Is it the sheer number of people? Is it the history of the place? Is it the sense of history being made right in front of your eyes? Is it a factor of the place, the building and the edifice itself?
Its all of the above, plus that little frisson of something else, something intangible you cannot quite define.
I think also there’s a sense of pride and of victory about it – that it is so proudly not another one of the soulless and characterless stadia springing up since the late 90s all over the UK. Wembley is one of a tiny number of new stadiums in the UK where they’ve pulled it off. For every Wembley there are dozens of Reeboks, St Marys’, Pride Parks, Ricoh Arenas, Emirates’ and the like.
I am one of those people who laments greatly the need to leave Stamford Bridge eventually, but who acknowledges the need nonetheless.
I just hope that if and when we do move, and we sadly close the gates at The Bridge for the last time, that we go somewhere with soul. In this era of the erosion of the soul of the football fan, nowhere plainer and more keenly felt than at our very own core, soul is important. Its who we are and why we are what we are.
I liked the Battersea Power Station idea. It was iconic. I loved the idea of a stadium enclosed on three sides, with a giant, monolithic stand filled (we imagine) with the hardest of the hardcore and truest of the true blues at one end. It had genuine soul. You could imagine The Killers or similar playing a similarly visceral performance in such an arena just as you could imagine Jose Mourinho turning it into an imposing fortress where visiting teams fear to tread.
A special stadium is special and they are a dying, rare breed these days. Now and again, as on Saturday, you get a reminder of how special a special stadium can be. Remember those epic European nights of drama and white hot tension, of unity and noise and fervour at Stamford Bridge? We have a special stadium and when we eventually move, I can only hope that our new home is as special as the Bridge and as special as Wembley itself in time.
It is an emotional place and it has soul. It is goosebumps and drama. It is history and pride and significance and joy, encapsulated under that magnificent arch. I’ll never forget my visits there. It is a special place.
Chelsea take note please.
CAREFREE.
Share this article
