No Joy in Wembley’s Last Stand
The final act at 77-year-old Wembley Stadium didn’t go the way the hosts planned.
The so-called venue of legends, with its distinctive white twin towers, was the scene of one last soccer match Saturday, but England failed to give the arena the send-off the country wanted, losing, 1-0, to Germany in a qualifier for the 2002 World Cup.
It was enough to make England’s coach, Kevin Keegan, resign.
“I really just feel a little bit short of what’s required,” Keegan said after compiling a 7-4-7 record in only 20 months on the job.
Wembley itself rarely came up short, even on a day when the lush field, soaked by hours of rain, was torn up badly as the players slid and skidded around for most of the 90 minutes before a sellout crowd of 76,377.
Now the stadium, built in 1923, is finished.
Soon it will be torn down and replaced by a 90,000-seat, $715-million arena, scheduled to open on the same site in 2003.
Yet Saturday, fans’ minds were on the stadium’s better days.
It was at Wembley in 1966 that England won its only major title by beating Germany, 4-2, in extra time in the World Cup final.
And, in 1996, when the European soccer championship was held for the first time in England, Wembley was the site of all the home country’s games, as well as the final.
Yet not only was the stadium home to English soccer for 77 years, it was also host of countless high-profile events, including the 1948 Olympics, the 1985 Live Aid concert that benefited the starving in Africa, a 70th birthday tribute for Nelson Mandela, and a papal Mass.
Wembley, too, served as center stage for rugby league finals, rugby union internationals, “American Bowl” football games involving NFL teams, wartime baseball games involving U.S. servicemen, world championship bouts in boxing, equestrian events and greyhound races.
But, to England, soccer was king here.
When Wembley opened and staged its first FA Cup final in 1923, some 200,000 people made it into the stadium for the Bolton-West Ham game although only the official attendance was 126,947.
Because so many had gone through the gates, thousands swarmed onto the field to escape the crush and a lone policeman on a white horse had to restore order before the game could begin.
The journey to north London for the final in early May became one of English soccer’s traditions.
Royalty would be there to present the famous FA Cup, and players would dream of being the winning captain to walk up the 39 steps to receive it before turning to show it to his team’s cheering fans.
“For some players, Wembley has been a source of huge inspiration,” Bobby Robson, an English soccer legend as a player and manager, told The Times of London on the day before the Wembley finale. “For me it was like home, and everybody who knew anything about it wanted to play there.
“As you approach the plateau, when the field comes into view and the crowd swells into song, it must represent one of the best sporting experiences and spectacles that you could ever have in your life.”
But Wembley is worse for wear these days.
“Over the years, the facilities for players have been modernized,” Robson told the London newspaper, “but it can’t be right that some fans are forced to sit behind bloody great pillars.”
Robson turned down media requests to serve as a commentator for the final game, so that he could view the match simply as a fan.
“I shan’t be asking for any souvenirs--a yard of turf, half a goal post or anything like that--not when I have so many outstanding memories which will never fade from my mind.”
One of England’s greatest memories was the 1966 World Cup that ended with the hosts’ victory after three goals from Geoff Hurst, including the controversial go-ahead goal that West Germany claimed never went over the goal line.
Thirty years later, when the European Championship was staged at Wembley in 1996, Paul Gascoigne scored a stunning chip and volley goal in a victory over Scotland, but England lost in the semifinal to Germany on a dramatic penalty shootout after the teams had tied, 1-1.
On Saturday, Germany’s victory was another English heartbreaker.
The host country now is in danger of failing to reach the World Cup for the second time in eight years. The team, with a 0-1 record, is already six points behind Germany (2-0) in Europe’s Group Nine and needs to find a coach in a hurry. England plays Finland at Helsinki on Wednesday.
Germany, which has never lost a road game in World Cup qualifying, scored Saturday when Dietmar Hamann’s quickly taken 35-yard free kick slid past an unprepared English defense and off the fingertips of goalkeeper David Seaman.
There was little excuse for England’s lapse on the lone goal.
Paul Scholes lost the ball and then fouled Germany’s Mehmet Scholl. England’s defenders hadn’t even started to line up to try to block the free kick when Hamann ran up and sent a low, right-footed shot past an outstretched Seaman.
“It was a superb performance by my team, and I am very proud,” German Coach Rudi Voeller said. “Winning 1-0 against England in the last game at Wembley--I knew there . . . was such a historic significance for the whole country.”
