Wembley Stadium - England National Football
- Chris Tuck
- 3d
- 9 min read
Photos by Chris Tuck, Stadium Journey
Stadium Info FANFARE Score: 3.29
Wembley Stadium Empire Way
London, England HA9 0WS
Year Opened: 1923 (2007)
Capacity: 90,000
It Matters More at Wembley
Football cynics articulate a disapproving appraisal of the English national stadium. Football romantics have never lost faith in its history, meaning and aura.
For international football fans there is no debate to be had. Wembley Stadium is up there with the Maracanã and Estadio Azteca, the San Siro and Bernabéu. There really is no bigger footballing dream than scoring the winning goal at Wembley. As their latest advertising campaign says, ‘It matters more at Wembley’.
The original Wembley Stadium was constructed in breath-taking time, less than a year, so as to be ready for the British Empire Exhibition. The first FA Cup Final was played in 1923, attracting huge crowds, officially 126,047, plus one infamous white horse. The last key match at the old Wembley was played in October 2000. A crowd of 76,377 looked on as the Germans did what the Germans do – beat England. Between those two matches, the stadium provided lasting memories at every turn. In 1966, England hosted and won the World Cup, beating old foes Germany 4-2 demonstrating that the old stadium also delivered a nice line in miracles.
The twin towers, Wembley’s most imposing feature, were then demolished as part of a complete rebuild, eventually revealing a brand-new all-seater Wembley Stadium in 2007. Replacing the twin towers came a new iconic feature, a huge lattice arch, 133 metres high, curving up and over the north stand and now a London landmark. Construction was undertaken by Australian company Multiplex and the architects were Foster & Partners and Populous. The final costs were reported to be a colossal £962.4 million (some sources show £798 million), and bank loans contributed nearly half of the total. The English Football Association are based at Wembley and seek to maximise revenue through stadium use. While football remains the primary focus, the venue also hosts NFL games, Rugby League fixtures and major concerts.
Food & Beverage 3
Inside the stadium there are a reported 688 food and drink service points. Draught, real ale, and bottle bars are all available, serving up to 40,000 pints during the half time interval alone! There is a good variety of food available, ranging from pick-and-mix sweets to spinach and falafel, with an emphasis on locally sourced ingredients.
Eating and drinking at the stadium does of course come at a price. Example food options served include a Cumberland sausage roll (£8.30), cheeseburger and chips (£9.90) and a chocolate bar (£1.99). If you are thirsty, a pint of Camden Pale Ale or Goose Midway IPA (£7.25), there’s a 4-pint Budweiser ‘deal’ (£24), coffee (£2.99) and Pepsi costs (£4.20), and of course the ‘games gone’ G&T for £10!
Immediately outside, on the famous Olympic Way, concession stalls may have shorter queues, but are quite expensive. Loaded fries with cheese and bacon or chicken shawarma come in at an eye-watering £15. Along this iconic walk between Wembley Park Underground station and the stadium, visitors will also find a Starbucks and a Black Sheep coffee shop (with free Wi-Fi!).
To the east of the stadium is Wembley Park Boulevard, where there is a modern development of hotels, factory outlet retail units, and chain restaurants providing options such as TGI Fridays, Wagamamas, and Sugar Dumplin. All will be busy on match days.
If you arrive via Wembley Central train station, follow the bustling cosmopolitan High Road where visitors can visit a local pub like JJ Moons or grab some international food options. Far less polished than the branded offerings around the stadium, these independent businesses nevertheless benefit greatly from the custom that matchdays bring.
A visit to an English football match isn’t complete without a trip to a local pub (or two). For the bigger games, a list of over ten pubs per team are ‘allocated’ to ensure you can meet up and sing with fellow fans of your team. Baker Street is a great introduction to this tradition with The Globe on one side of the road and the Metropolitan Bar opposite.
Atmosphere 4
The stadium is operated by Wembley National Stadium Ltd, a subsidiary of the English FA and has a capacity of 90,000, the largest football stadium in the British Isles. The partially retractable roof allows all seats to be ‘covered’ from the elements. The seating wraps around the pitch with three main tiers. The top tier pleasingly curves and undulates like an ocean wave. The lowest/closest to the pitch are blocks 101-144. The second tier, known as Club Wembley, is reserved largely for hospitality guests and occupies sections 201-252. The top tier includes sections 501-552. All seats are generously sized with decent legroom and views are consistently good wherever you sit.
Scoreboards are embedded high above both goals in the top tier, providing all the usual information and updates. Above and below the large, impressive scoreboards are small sections of railed seating or ‘safe standing’. For bigger matches, supporters behind both goals often spend much of the game on their feet. Head to the side stands if you need to be seated!
The atmosphere at games here can be variable to say the least. England home games have become very ‘family friendly’ with cheap tickets sometimes available from as little as £20. This, and the relative malaise often felt by England fans, means these occasions are often subdued (we’re talking paper airplanes and Mexican waves here). Other occasions can be the complete opposite. Two sets of supporters thrilled to be at the national stadium, combined with more than a little alcohol, can generate noise that echoes impressively around the bowl. In just 24 hours the 2026 FA Cup Final attracted 83,337 to see Man City beat Chelsea. The next day, over 40,000 came for Non-League ‘Finals Day’ seeing AFC Stoneham and Southend United both win their respective games on penalties. Two weeks later, the FA Women's Cup Final saw a 43,917 crowd plus two sets of players thrilled to enjoy their big day out at the national stadium. It matters more at Wembley!
Neighbourhood 3
The area around the stadium is certainly not on the tourist trail, but there are numerous league and non-league sides in London if you want to catch more than one game. Wembley FC play at Vale Farm, a couple of miles from the stadium, and offer a warm grassroots welcome to visiting supporters. Wembley Arena is also next door. With a capacity of 12,500, it regularly hosts major concerts and live entertainment.
Most visitors to the national stadium take the opportunity to visit central London where many of the capital’s famous landmarks are located.
For accommodation, or visitors staying close to the stadium, the Wembley Hilton is a real treat. Situated directly opposite the stadium, the hotel has a swimming pool and a great rooftop bar where you can watch the incoming hordes in a peaceful and relaxed atmosphere. Hundreds of hotels, Airbnbs and hostels are dotted around the capital, of course which get cheaper the further you move away from the centre.
Fans 4
The stadium is home to the England national football teams and hosts national cup finals from the FA Cup to the FA Vase. It’s also been a regular European Cup and Champions League final venue. The first saw AC Milan beat Benfica in 1963, while the most recent final, in 2024, saw Real Madrid defeat Borussia Dortmund. In recent times the national sides have risen again. The England Lionesses' victory at the Women's Euros in 2022 (again beating Germany) saw Wembley at its loud and vibrant best. The men’s side also reached their Euros final a year earlier in 2021, losing on penalties to Italy. This match drew fewer positive headlines for Wembley Stadium as fans found a variety of ways to evade security and the FA were punished by UEFA for a variety of incidents relating to crowd behaviour.
Despite the gentrification of football, and Wembley in particular, there is still a magic about the possibility of your team playing there and when it happens it’s a ‘must-attend’ event. Lower-league and non-league clubs celebrate reaching Wembley because, for both players and supporters, it remains an unforgettable experience. It must be the most sung-about stadium in the world as fans dream from the earliest stages of cup competitions that their team might make it to Wembley.
The stadium does however evoke some negative feelings amongst fans for a variety of reasons. The prices of tickets are often criticised, tied to the sense that the FA need to recoup that extraordinary outlay for the rebuilt stadium. Recently, however, prices have stabilised, 2026 FA Cup Semi-Final tickets ranged from £30 to £130 which isn’t too prohibitive.
The decision to play men’s FA Cup Semi-Finals at the stadium, moving away from the tradition of neutral venues, has also, for many, devalued the competition and the excitement of getting to the final.
Fans still arrive in their droves to see the national team. Attendances at the new Wembley Stadium can range from 50-90,000, the highest so far coming in 2008 for a men’s match vs. Kazakhstan when 89,107 watched a 5-1 victory.
Access 3
London airports all have quick transfers into central London. Drivers can save money by parking at an outlying station such as Queensbury, Hillingdon or Richmond and then taking the train or Underground for the final part of the journey. Parking information for nearer to the stadium can be found on the excellent Wembley Stadium website. Postcode to aim for is HA9 0WS. Back on the train and from central London head to Baker Street, grab a beer there, then follow the crowds.
Wembley Park station, which is served by the Metropolitan and Jubilee underground lines, is the best place to disembark for a great view of the stadium. This route also allows a stroll down ‘Olympic Way’ to soak up the atmosphere. The mainline railway station is Wembley Central which necessitates a half mile stroll up the High Road to the stadium. There is also a station closer called Wembley Stadium, but this is only served by Chiltern Railways.
Tickets should be purchased in advance from the clubs involved or directly from the Wembley Stadium website. On the rare occasion visitors are purchasing or collecting physical tickets, the ticket office can be found adjacent to the Wembley Store under the north stand. Barcode readers will allow you to enter with your ticket and expect a bag search just before or after you transit the turnstiles. No bags larger than A4 size will be permitted. A substantial police and steward presence helps ensure visitors feel safe throughout their visit.
Once inside, you ascend to your seats via a series of escalators. Lifts are also available. If visitors have any issues with mobility or require accessibility assistance of any kind, there is some helpful guidance on the website.
Concourses can become busy, but overall, they are spacious enough to cope with large crowds. Toilet provision is generally good, although queues were noticeable in the women's facilities at the Women's FA Cup Final, particularly at half-time.
Return on Investment 2
According to William Shenstone, “Nothing is certain in London but expense,” and in truth a trip to Wembley and London does little to challenge that. A family of four who visits Wembley for a prestige match, like the FA Cup final, stays at the Hilton Hotel opposite, buys category A tickets for the game, eats inside the stadium, and visits a few attractions in London the next day, could easily spend £1,000. Not a great return on investment.
The Wembley store is on the second level on the north side of the stadium. Inside visitors can find the usual merchandise offerings. An England shirt costs £90 while a scarf costs £20 and a cap £18.
However, there are ways to avoid the high costs. England home matches, as mentioned, sometimes offer children's tickets for as little as £15. A hotel room outside of central London, somewhere like Hounslow, may be obtained for less than £100 per night. Visitors can also save money by eating away from the stadium.
Secondary selling merchandise stalls on Wembley Way will also be cheaper than the official store.
Overall, a visit to London, coupled with a trip to Wembley Stadium, will come at no little expense!
Extras 4
The Guest Support portal on the Wembley Stadium website provides a myriad of excellent answers to visitor enquiries, from pushchair access to park and ride, from accessibility to acrophobia (yes really!).
Tours of the stadium are available, currently £28 for adults for a tour lasting 75 minutes. In these corporate dominated times, a VIP tour is of course also available for £90.The foundations of Watkins Tower, a failed attempt to build an English version of the Eiffel Tower still lie underneath the stadium.
Wembley BoxPark is situated on Olympic Way ,and tickets can be purchased to visit on matchdays. Inside you will find a DJ playing popular music and numerous street food options. The party vibes attract many to the venue which is seen as both fun and safe for the whole family. For a more traditional pre-match experience, pubs like the Green Man will be boisterous and full of partisan fans singing and drinking as only the English do!
Final Thoughts
Wembley Stadium should rank highly on the list of must-visit venues for football fans. It’s a huge and impressive arena. The city of London too, for all its faults, is a wonderful place for the big attractions and the small lanes, parks, and markets. It is said in fact that “a bad day in London is still better than a good day anywhere else!” For old school, legacy football fans though, there may be elements that disappoint. Prices can be high, the trek to the stadium is long, and the atmosphere may well be diluted by thousands of ‘day trippers’.
An expensive, soulless, corporate, chore to visit, or the most magical day of your footballing life. Either way, as each game played there has national or international importance, there is no denying, it matters more at Wembley and if football ever did come home, it would come home to Wembley. Let’s leave the last words to Premier League legend Eric Cantona “I was never motivated by money. I would have played for nothing. I would have paid to play at Wembley.”
