{"id":398,"date":"2007-03-18T07:07:03","date_gmt":"2007-03-18T06:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/wordpress\/?p=398"},"modified":"2007-03-18T07:07:03","modified_gmt":"2007-03-18T06:07:03","slug":"the-new-wembley-stadium-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=398","title":{"rendered":"The new Wembley stadium (2)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last weekend, I <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/2007\/03\/the_new_wembley_stadium.html\">blogged<\/a> about the construction of the new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wembleystadium.com\/\">Wembley Stadium<\/a>. Yesterday was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wembleystadium.com\/pressbox\/pressReleases\/WembleyStadiumCommunityDay2\">Wembley Stadium Community Day<\/a> when some 35,000 local residents were given the chance to visit the stadium free of charge and the owners were given the opportunity to test various systems. By entering an absurdly simply quiz in our local newspaper, I was able to obtain four free tickets for the event, so Vee and I went along with our good Chinese friends Hua &#038; Zhihao to experience this tiny piece of history.<br \/>\nSecurity was very tight and, for some unexplained reason, I was told that I could not take photographs, but &#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>\n<center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/WembleyA.jpg\"  border=3><br \/><font size=\"-2\">Roger before the iconic 133-metre Wembley arch<\/font><\/center><\/p>\n<p><p>\n<center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/WembleyB.jpg\"  border=3><br \/><font size=\"-2\">Vee, Zhihao, Hua &#038; Roger at one of the bases of the Wembley arch<\/font><\/center><\/p>\n<p><p>\n<center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/WembleyC.jpg\"  border=3><br \/><font size=\"-2\">Roger &#038; Zhihao inside the 90,000-seat Wembley stadium<\/font><\/center><\/p>\n<p>\nBBC on-line <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/uk\/6462529.stm\">reported<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The community day may not have been quite the all-singing, all-dancing fanfare many people had expected, but it seemed to be well-received and any problems were taken in good humour.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\nOne Sunday newspaper <a href=\"http:\/\/observer.guardian.co.uk\/uk_news\/story\/0,,2036702,00.html\">reports<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The stadium looks stunning, most visitors agreed. Many remarked on the fact that the FA, builders Multiplex and architects Norman Foster and HOK Sport, managed to retain many of the old Wembley&#8217;s key characteristics &#8211; like the Royal Box and Wembley Roar-inducing good acoustics &#8211; in a futuristic building.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It certainly has more toilets. The old venue had under 400 lavatories, whereas the new one has no fewer than 2,618. However, the blow dryers in the women&#8217;s toilets are deafening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last weekend, I blogged about the construction of the new Wembley Stadium. Yesterday was Wembley Stadium Community Day when some 35,000 local residents were given the chance to visit the stadium free of charge and the owners were given the opportunity to test various systems. By entering an absurdly simply quiz in our local newspaper, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}