The New Wembley Stadium (Under Construction)
Monday, 11th June 2007 by Alex Turnbull
As the image updates that we reported last week have now made it to Google Maps, there's now almost complete coverage of the whole of England, and we've had a ton of great locations submitted. So to kick off we're starting in the capital, London.
This is London's brand new Wembley Stadium, which although still under construction in these images, has been officially open since March 2007 (albeit a year late). It cost a staggering £798 million (about $1.57 Billion U.S.), which makes it easily the most expensive stadium ever built,
It's an all-seated 90,000 capacity stadium (which makes it the second largest capacity stadium in Europe1), and is protected from the elements by a sliding roof - which gives it the largest roof-covered seating capacity in the world (fortunately, the stadium also contains more toilets than any other venue in the world - 2,618 in total).
The white arc on the north side of the thumbnail is a gargantuan arch which supports the whole weight of the north roof and 60% of the weight of the southern side's retractable roof. It's 7 metres wide and spans some 315 metres, incredibly it stands at 22° from vertical and still rises to 140 metres!
According to Guinness World Records 2006, this arch is the world's longest unsupported roof structure.
Nearby we can also see the White Horse bridge, so named after a Metropolitan Police horse that was used to restore order after ~200,000 spectators, who turned up to witness the 1923 FA Cup final, spilled onto the pitch before kick off. (Wikipedia)
P.S. Apologies for the downtime recently, we're still trying to iron out issues with our new forums.
Thanks to Kerry and AndrewAnorak.
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
That’s where Germany is gonna kick your ass on August 22nd!
I really don’t think so Bene
COUGH 5-1 COUGH
Anyway enough of that.
Under Constrution? I think you missed a C in there somewhere.
Typo? What typo?
@ Bene: LOL, no.
The new Wembley is fantastic, I was lucky enough to be at the FA Cup final, would definatly recommend the visit just to see the stadium alone!
If you want to see how it looks now and your not as lucky as Quentin who has been there then why not download the Wembley Webcam Widget, it helps if your running tiger on a mac too of course!
Where is all the parking? Does everyone take the trains in? if this was built in America, you’d see it surrounded by about 20 acres of asphalt. Not a good thing mind you.
The stadium is billed as a public transport destination, there is a Tube station nearby and on big match days several coach companies run dedicated services from all over the country. If you really do have to bring your car there isnt really any option than just parking in nearby streets.
Ehup, I sent in the old wembley, twice, last year and it never made the frontpage. You were just jealous of our wonderful stadium and had to wait for the overpriced, unfinished one to be included in the images.
Well Lee, it might have helped if it hadn’t already been demolished in those images… 😀
This techology molarki is a thorn in my side! =[