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Why the new Wembley Stadium puts Croke Park in the shade
By Ronan Early
 Up
at Tottenham’s Chigwell training ground on Friday last, Robbie Keane
spoke in hushed terms about going to play at Wembley.
“It’s every young lad’s dream growing up to play there,”
said the Tottenham striker and while responses don’t come anymore
clichéd than Keane’s, in this case the cliché has
a real meaning.
What football fan in their youth didn’t pretend to score the winning
goal at Wembley while messing around in the back garden or against a gable
end wall?
I know I did and I’m sure I wasn’t alone. One of my earliest
football memories was the 1987 FA Cup final between Tottenham and Coventry.
Never mind the fact that Spurs lost 3-2 that sunny afternoon — we
won 4-3 out in the back garden later on, yours truly scoring the winning
goal after Glenn Hoddle teed me up with a through ball from 40 yards.
What a feeling. My first of many, many goals at Wembley.
Not that you have to be a seven-year-old for Wembley to have an effect
on you. On Sunday I jumped on the Jubilee Line from Waterloo towards Wembley
Park and as I counted the stations down, a boisterous carriage became
deathly quiet the closer we got to our destination.
From a good three or four stops out from Wembley Park station, necks were
craned skywards for the first glimpse of the stadium’s landmark
arch. When it was finally spotted on the opposite side that most were
looking, word spread through the carriage in an instant and supporters
of all age, creed and colour simply starting pointing and smiling.
To think that the guy in the Chelsea fleece who might, in other circumstances
have no problem in using his fists to redesign your face, was smiling
and directing my gaze in the direction of the stadium was a genuinely
touching moment. Indeed the interaction between the two sets of supporters
throughout the entire day was relaxed to the point of being almost friendly.
What a contrast it was, say, from a League game at White Hart Lane or
Stamford Bridge. When one set of supporters visits the other’s ground
during the season they practically need the help of an SAS unit to get
them in and out in one piece. Playing at Wembley though appeared to have
everybody on their best behaviour for the day.
That’s the remarkable thing about Wembley, in particular, and sporting
venues in general. In Ireland places like Thomond Park and Croke Park
are spoken about with such reverence that a visitor to our great Isle
would be forgiven for thinking that Jesus Christ himself had once appeared
in both places, scored the winning try or point in a game before healing
the sick and turning water into wine.
Like many of JC’s miracles though, there are those who believe and
those who don’t. I’m certain that the residents around Croke
Park on Saturday evening were cursing the place as Irish and Scottish
supporters treated their locale like a giant rubbish dump. I’m sure,
too, the residents near Thomond Park, the ones who weren’t booted
out of their homes to make way for the redevelopment, don’t see
the place in the same way as some of us do after listening to a jack-hammer
do its thing every day for the last 12 months. Likewise the residents
of Ballsbridge.
The non-believers can even extend into the domain of people who live for
sport. Towards the tail-end of last week I managed to get to four sporting
venues in the space of five days; the Emirates on Wednesday, White Hart
Lane on Thursday, Croke Park on Saturday and Wembley on Sunday.
Yet only two of those venues got me going. The Emirates is a fine, sweeping
structure but it does absolutely nothing for me, particularly the seats
that have to be the longest and widest of all the world sporting venues.
If that New Year’s diet hasn’t worked out for you Arsenal
is the place to go.
Croke Park brings up a similar emptiness. Perhaps it comes from the fact
that neither hurling nor football were all that big in the part of Limerick
city where I grew up. Or perhaps it’s the fact that they haven’t
finished the bloody thing and you can’t really see what’s
happening on the pitch in the first 10 rows of each stand. Not very patriotic
I know but as Ashley Cole has been attempting to explain to the lovely
Cheryl over the past few weeks, you can’t help who you feel. Sorry,
how you feel. How you feel.
White Hart Lane, on the other hand, much like Cheryl it must be said,
stirs the butterflies in my stomach. It’s not all that aesthetically
pleasing but there’s something about the closeness of the stands
to the pitch that makes you actually feel as though you’re involved
in the game. And when the patrons of The Shelf start up a tune with those
stirring words: “My eyes have seen the glory,” there’s
no place I’d rather be.
Except Wembley on Sunday that is. What a brilliant day — for a Tottenham
fan anyway — and what a brilliant venue. Most dreams don’t
match up in reality. But for me on Sunday they were surpassed. And even
if they hadn’t have been I wouldn’t have been blaming the
venue. Wembley’s the best stadium in the world without doubt. Only
a non-believer would argue otherwise.
ciarancronin3@eircom.net |
