As part of the Dabs IT and Gadget Show 2010 at Wembley Stadium, I was offered the chance to have a tour of the complex. Given the gadget show was pretty boring, I was most definitely up for it. The new stadium has an enormous capacity of 90,000 and given this, I was more than intrigued to find out how many toilets the venue actually had. Albeit a pretty worthless piece of information on the whole, this is exactly the type of trivia that I find myself fascinated by.
The Stadium is an absolute monster in itself with its very own function room called ‘The Bobby Moore Room‘ which has a capacity for allowing 2000 guests to wine (and slightly fewer to dine) in luxury. It’s a massive room with an upstairs that has a glorious view of my home town from its windows. If I were to host a party in this lavish room overlooking the newly piled
rubble and scaffolding that is to be the new Wembley City complex, I’d be more than a little peeved. From here, we were taken through to the England changing rooms where we were able to see the players’ shirts hanging from each of their pegs. A little factoid that was certainly welcome to hear was that on any given match day each of the players could have up to six pairs of football boots with them. It’s nice to know that it’s not only ladies that enjoy their footwear. There are three massage tables in this room as well as three indispensable hairdryers. There is also no longer the famous big bath in the changing room, but now there are separate baths and showers with very limited personal space, it has to be said. I guess if you live, breathe and eat football with your compadres, you may as well shower with them too. Or something. Given the opportunity, I probably wouldn’t turn that down, would you? 
Shortly after all the changing room trivia, we were then taken to the pitch to enjoy our views of the stadium uninterrupted by screaming fans. Now, I’ve been to the stadium before, but not when it actually looked as it was meant to. I was previously here for the Race of Champions (back in 2007 and 2008) where, in our seats from way up top, you could see that the pitch was covered and transformed into a mini racetrack for all the Formula One race car drivers and Motor Cross champions. It’s a weird but consoling thought to think and see that such a huge place be transformed with such ease without causing any damage to it.
The roof of the stadium doesn’t close all the way over, but does cover every single seat. It’s apparently good for the grass to be able to get natural air, sun and moisture through – as well providing natural ventilation for such a large building. The pitch by itself with no-one around looks fairly mundane, but to think that this pitch has had all sorts of things done to it over the years, I bet it’s glad to get its time off. Some more little fun facts about the stadium, but this time with a more musical edge; the late Michael Jackson performed at the old stadium a total of three times, making him the artist that’s played at Wembley the most. George Michael was the first to perform at the re-opening of the stadium in 2007 and Muse were the first band to sell out the entire stadium in the same year. I’m pretty sure when it opened in 1923 nobody could have predicted that this stadium would have had this much history or that it would have undergone one of the most controversial makeovers a stadium has ever been through.
The iconic arch design is 315m wide and 133m tall. It not only serves to become a focal point for people to find the stadium (I’ve spotted it from atop the Millennium Eye, aren’t I just a smarty knickers?), but it has also been designed to be functional by way of supporting the rest of the entire structure itself. As well as this, one side of the stadium roof moves to open and close as needed depending on the weather. It’s quite remarkable to think that this stadium costs nearly a billion pounds, but it sure as hell redeems itself when you visit. A few more fun facts before I go; the stadium has a circumference of 1km – no wonder it’s always taken me a millenia to get myself round it. The total length of the escalators is 400m and 35 miles of heavy duty power cables run themselves around the stadium. If you enjoy more silly trivia like this, you’ll definitely enjoy taking a tour, as there’ll be more numbers than you’ll be able to remember. Wembley is my home town and it was definitely a proud moment to be walking around our national stadium. Oh, and by the way, there are 2,618 toilets in Wembley Stadium. That’s more than any other building in existence.
