Wembley Stadium – The Home of English Football

Wembley Stadium in London is the largest sports stadium in the United Kingdom with 90,000 seats and a 133-metre steel arch, built over the buried foundations of an unfinished 1890s rival to the Eiffel Tower. On April 28, 1923, it hosted its first match between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United before 200,000 spectators. In 1953, Hungary defeated England 6–3 at Wembley, ending England's 30-year unbeaten home record.

London · from the walk “The Beautiful Game: London's Football Trail” · audio ~4 min · Generated

Wembley Stadium, Stadium Way, Wembley HA9 0WS

What failed rival to the Eiffel Tower lies buried beneath Wembley Stadium in London?

Look up at that magnificent arch sweeping across the sky... one hundred and thirty-three metres of steel, visible from miles across London. With ninety thousand seats, this is the largest stadium in the United Kingdom and the second-largest in Europe. But here's the thing... you're standing on ground with a story far stranger than football.......... Did you know that buried beneath this very pitch lie the concrete foundations of a Failed rival to the Eiffel Tower? In the eighteen nineties, a railway tycoon named Sir Edward Watkin launched an ambitious project to build a three hundred and fifty-eight metre iron tower right here in Wembley, designed to surpass the height of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. He even invited Gustave Eiffel himself to design it, but the Frenchman declined, saying that if he did, the French people "would not think me so good a Frenchman as I hope I am." The project ran out of money. Only the first stage was ever built... and Londoners mocked it as "Watkin's Folly" and "the London Stump." The tower was demolished in nineteen oh seven. When the current stadium was rebuilt, lowering the level of the new pitch unearthed those very foundations, still sitting under the ground.......... Now, the football. On the twenty-eighth of April, nineteen twenty-three, Bolton Wanderers faced West Ham United in the first football match ever played at Wembley Stadium. But the day nearly ended in disaster. A massive crowd of more than two hundred thousand people had gathered, turnstiles were overwhelmed, and crowds burst onto the pitch. Kick-off was delayed. Mounted police were deployed... and PC George Scorey's white horse, named Billy, became the unlikely hero — patiently nudging fans off the playing surface for forty-five minutes. The Football Association gave Scorey tickets to every subsequent FA Cup Final... but he had little interest in football and never attended!......... And then there's the match that Changed football forever. On the twenty-fifth of November, nineteen fifty-three, one hundred and five thousand spectators packed Wembley to watch England take on Hungary. England had been undefeated at home for Thirty years. Captain Billy Wright looked at the Hungarians in their lightweight boots and reportedly joked, "We should be alright here, Stan, they haven't got the proper kit." Hungary scored within the First minute. Ferenc Pushkash performed his legendary drag-back, pulling the ball away with the sole of his foot an instant before Wright's tackle, leaving the English captain chasing empty space. Hungary won six-three, and the result led to a complete review of English training and tactics. They called it the Match of the Century... and it was the moment English football was forced to look outward at the world.......... From a failed tower... to a white horse... to a humiliation that sparked a revolution in the game... this ground has witnessed it all. And if these walls could talk, ninety thousand voices would answer.

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