Home Stadium
For the first fifty years of their existence, England played their home matches all around the country. They initially used cricket grounds before later moving on to football clubs' stadiums. The original Empire Stadium was built in Wembley, London for the British Empire Exhibition. England played their first match at the stadium in 1924 against Scotland and for the next 27 years Wembley was used as a venue for matches against Scotland only. The stadium later became known simply as Wembley Stadium and it became England's permanent home stadium during the 1950s. This stadium was demolished in 2001 and work began to completely rebuild it. During this time, England played at a number of different venues across the country, though by the time of the 2006 World Cup qualifiers this had largely settled down to having Manchester United's Old Trafford stadium as the primary venue, with Newcastle United's St. James' Park used on occasions where Old Trafford was unavailable. They returned to the new Wembley Stadium in 2007. The stadium is now owned by the Football Association via its subsidiary Wembley National Stadium Limited.
Read more about this topic: England National Football Team
Famous quotes containing the words home and/or stadium:
“Funny ain’t it. Here I am worrying about a woman. Men don’t worry much about women when they’re around. But when it gets way off from home like we are now, and where he knows he’s going a lot further away ... I mean that’s when a woman gets workin’ in your mind. You reckon you’re a fool for not noticin’ before how, how big a part of things they be. There ain’t nothin’ like seein’ a woman’s face.”
—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)
“It’s no accident that of all the monuments left of the Greco- Roman culture the biggest is the ballpark, the Colosseum, the Yankee Stadium of ancient times.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)