It's all over for Wembley's Twin Towers

Wembley: Last match under the towers

By Nick Wrenn, Editor CNN.com Europe

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Squeeze out of the tube station on a big match day and you get swept away with the crowds down Wembley Way. At the end of the road, the Twin Towers of Wembley Stadium - white concrete giants overlooking a vast arena and the dreams, cheers and tears of millions of fans.

For 77 years, going to Wembley has been the ultimate goal for players and supporters around the world. Now the great stadium is about to host its last match. It will be demolished after England’s footballers play Germany on Saturday.

The World Cup qualifier is a fitting final bow. The two nations shared Wembley’s most memorable day in 1966 when England were crowned world champions for the only time.

Built for the 1924 British Empire Exhibition, Wembley became the Mecca of football. Now the wonder and magic has cracked to reveal crumbling concrete. Wembley was overtaken by imposing and comfortable state-of-the-art stadiums with fantastic facilities and perfect sight lines, like the Stade de France and Sydney’s Olympic Stadium.

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The thrill has gone for fans tackling the traffic congestion of north London on a Wembley pilgrimage, only to find cramped plastic seats, a crush at the pie stand and packed stinking toilets. It's hard to sprinkle the magic dust around when the man next to you is urinating up a wall.

So it had to go. The 80,000-seater stadium will be torn down and replaced by a new national stadium, designed by Sir Norman Foster, the architect of the Reichstag in Berlin. The Twin Towers are up for sale. Instead fans flocking to the new Wembley will be greeted by the sight of a 133 metre-high arc.

The cost of the new stadium on the same site is set at £326 million ($477 million) with building expected to take more than two years. The original went up in less than a year for £750,000 ($1.1 million).

A venue for the 1948 Olympics, Wembley hosted numerous sports and rocked with live bands -- Live Aid started there on a sunny summer’s morning in 1985.

But it is best known for football, and some of the game’s classic matches. The English FA Cup final was Wembley’s first event in 1923 when an estimated 200,000 fans crammed into the stands and spilled onto the pitch. The match could only start after policeman George Scorey on a white horse called Billie pushed back the crowds.

Thirty years later Ferenc Puskas shattered the myth of English invincibility as Hungary beat England 6-3 -- the same year that the legendary Sir Stanley Matthews graced the FA Cup final.

Sir Matt Busby led his Manchester United “Babes” to European Cup victory in 1968, but the enduring image is that of Geoff Hurst, smashing in England’s fourth goal against West Germany in 1966 as television commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme told the nation: “Some fans are on the pitch, they think it’s all over - it is now.”

And it will be on Saturday.

From CNN.com Europe.

Picture of stadium plan courtesy of World Stadium Team (Foster and Partners and HOK+LOBB Sports Architecture).

Wembley Stadium
Stadium plan (Foster and Partners)
Fans' guide to Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium (Brent Council)

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