The Empire Pool / Wembley Arena Story - Part 4

 The fourth and final part of the guest blog by local historian Philip Grant on a key piece of local history. Many thanks to Philip Grant for his tireless efforts to ensure our local history is acknowledged and celebrated.

 

1.  The original (west end) entrance to Wembley Arena in 2003. (Image from the internet)

 

Welcome back for the final part of this story. As we saw at the end of Part 3, the Empire Pool had been renamed Wembley Arena, and although it was still home to some sporting events, it was now being used mainly to stage music and entertainment shows.

 

If I tried to name all of the acts who have performed at the Arena, the list would take up the rest of this article. I will just mention a few, and if I miss one of your favourites, you are welcome to add your memories of the time(s) you saw them at Wembley in the comments below. Among the top British bands that have performed here are The Rolling Stones, The Who, Status Quo, Queen, The Police and Dire Straits. The first two of those both had drummers from Wembley, in Charlie Watts and Keith Moon!

 

It would be unfair if I didn’t also name a few of the top acts from overseas that have also performed here since the name was changed in 1978. Did you see ABBA, AC/DC, Diana Ross, John Denver, Madonna, Meat Loaf, Dolly Parton, Tina Turner, Whitney Houston or Stevie Wonder at Wembley Arena? If so, please feel free to add your memories below.

 

2.  A Torvill & Dean programme from 1985, and a recent Holiday on Ice show. (Images from the internet)

 

One of the original purposes of the Empire Pool was to provide an ice-skating rink. Although Wembley stopped staging its own ice pantomimes, spectacular touring productions from the “Holiday on Ice” franchise have been a regular feature at Wembley Arena since 1978. If you saw it on TV, as I did, you will never forget Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean’s gold medal-winning “Bolero” ice dance at the 1984 Winter Olympics. The following year, as part of their World Tour, they sold out the Arena for seven weeks with their own ice show.

The building was now more than fifty years old, and in the late 1980s Wembley Stadium Ltd invested £10m to upgrade the Arena’s facilities for both performers and the paying public who came to see them. The improvements allowed even more spectacular effects to be included, as the 1990s saw more than 900 concerts performed at the venue. One of the most unusual for Wembley was an arena staging of Puccini’s opera “Turandot” by the Royal Opera in 1991 (building on the popularity of the aria “Nessun Dorma”, which the BBC had used as the theme tune for its coverage of the football World Cup in Italy the previous year!).

 

3.  Concert of Hope, George Michael singing in 1993, and watching other performers with Princess Diana.
(Images from the internet)

 

Charity events had been a feature of the Arena’s programme for decades. The annual Concert of Hope for World Aids Day was supported by Diana, Princess of Wales, and top performers, including another famous musician who grew up in Brent, George Michael.

 

 

Cliff Richard, who first performed here in 1960 as part of a NME Poll Winners’ concert, had 49 shows at Wembley Arena in the 1990s, and was still packing the venue with his 50^th anniversary tour in 2007. A different genre of pop music also came to the Arena in the nineties, with shows from boy (and girl) bands, including Take That, Boyzone, The Spice Girls and Westlife. Two of those groups were from Ireland, but another Irish import, Michael Flatley’s “Lord of the Dance”, was so successful in 1997 that it returned for 21 sell-out shows the following year.

 

4.  “Lord of the Dance” programme and video screenshot. (Images from the internet)

 

February 1999 saw the first solo stand-up comedy act at the Arena (many more would follow) when Eddie Izzard performed “Dress to Kill”, in aid of The Prince’s Trust. Britain (and Brent’s) increasing cultural diversity also saw Wembley Arena hosting more Asian / Bollywood music shows, by performers including Amitabh Bachchan and Asha Bhosle.

 

5.  Eddie Izzard programme and Asha Bhosle poster. (Images from the internet)

 

By the end of the twentieth century, the original Wembley Stadium was about to be demolished and replaced. It had been bought, together with around 100 acres of land that Arthur Elvin’s company had acquired, by the Football Association’s Wembley National Stadium Ltd, but they were not interested in redevelopment. In 2002, they sold some of the land, including the Arena, to Quintain Estates and Developments Plc, which eventually bought 85 acres of Wembley Park.

 

Wembley Arena was only eleven years younger than the 1923 stadium, and Quintain were soon making redevelopment plans, including a major refurbishment of the Grade II Listed arena. Work began in February 2005, and included moving the main entrance to the opposite end of the building, with access from a new Arena Square (it is actually a triangle!). The project cost £36m, and the “new” 12,500-seat Wembley Arena re-opened on 2 April 2006, with a concert by Depeche Mode.

 

6.  The Wembley Arena redevelopment in progress, 2005. (Image from the internet)

 

You can see the Arena being refurbished in the photograph above, but beyond it you can also see an exhibition centre, a triangular office block and a round building, Wembley Conference Centre, which were built by the Wembley Stadium company in the 1970s. The Conference Centre had been the venue for the annual Masters Snooker Championship since 1979, but after Quintain demolished that building in 2006, to make way for its Quadrant Court flats development, “The Masters” moved to Wembley Arena from 2007 to 2011.

 

7.  Scenes from the Olympic badminton and rhythmic gymnastics events at Wembley Arena in 2012.
(Images from the internet)

 

We saw in Part 2 how the then Empire Pool was used for some sports in the 1948 Olympics, and when the Games came to London again in 2012, the now Wembley Arena played host to two different Olympic competitions. First it was the badminton events, followed by the rhythmic gymnastics. Together they brought hundreds of competitors, from more than fifty nations, and thousands of spectators to Wembley.

 

8.  Wembley Arena, with Hilton Hotel and LDO beyond, in 2013.

 

Redevelopment continued around the refurbished Arena and its square. Forum House was the first of Quintain’s many blocks of apartment homes, built between the western end of the Arena and Empire Way. The Hilton Hotel was another early addition, just across Lakeside Way (remember that the Empire Pool was built at one end of the British Empire Exhibition’s central lake!) from the Arena entrance. The former Wembley exhibition halls made way for the London Designer Outlet shopping centre, which opened in 2013, as did Brent’s new Civic Centre, on part of the site of the former BEE Palace of Industry, across Engineers Way from Arena Square.

 

9.  Arena Square, with Brent Civic Centre beyond, summer 2014.

 

Arena Square, with its seasonal fountains, has become a popular open space (especially since the trees planted along its Wembley Park Boulevard side have grown large enough to provide some shade). Another of its features, designed to celebrate some of the Arena’s most popular performers, is the Square of Fame. Although this is on nothing like the scale of the Hollywood Boulevard “walk of fame”, it has become an attraction in its own right. Madonna was the first star to have bronze casts of her hands put on display, in 2006. The most recent addition is Dame Shirley Bassey, in 2019, sixty years after her appearance in the first popular music show at the Empire Pool (although she continued to perform here well into the 21^st century).

 

10.  A Square of Fame compilation, showing some of the stars who have made their mark at the Arena.

 

In 2013, Quintain handed over the management of Wembley Arena to a U.S. music promotions company (now known as ASM Global). They, in turn, entered into a 10-year naming rights deal with Scottish and Southern Energy, so that the building became known as The SSE Arena, Wembley. This made little difference to the shows put on at the venue, which included the annual live final of the X-Factor TV talent show (with previous episodes filmed at Wembley Park’s Fountain Studios, until they closed in December 2016).

 

11.  Outside and inside The SSE Arena on X-Factor finals night. (Images from the internet)

 

The Arena’s name changed again, after SSE sold its retail business to another electricity supplier, OVO Energy, in 2020. What began in 1934 as the Empire Pool is now the OVO Arena Wembley. And twenty years after buying the Arena, Quintain sold it in 2022, raising capital to pay for the construction of more buy-to-let apartments as part of its continuing redevelopment of Wembley Park. Its owner is now ICG Real Estate, part of the private equity firm Intermediate Capital Group.

 

12.  OVO Arena Wembley, from across Engineers Way, July 2024.

 

I hope you have enjoyed discovering more about the history of this famous Wembley Park landmark and venue. It is a story that I have wanted to share for several years, and the building’s 90^th anniversary felt like a good time to do that.

 

As long ago as the 1990s, Brent Council and the Stadium company worked together to celebrate the sports and entertainment heritage of Wembley’s Stadium and Arena. They did this with a series of ceramic tile murals, which welcomed visitors coming from Wembley Park Station through a new subway and onto the newly pedestrianised Olympic Way. Unfortunately, in 2013, the Council agreed to allow Quintain to cover those tile murals with advertisements!

 

13.  Some tile mural scenes celebrating events from Empire Pool / Wembley Arena history.

 

Along with Wembley History Society and a number of local residents, I have been campaigning since 2018 to get these tile murals put back on public display. In 2022, Quintain agreed to put the mural scenes on the walls in Olympic Way, which they own, back on public view. They include the ice hockey tiled picture at the top of the image above.

 

The other four mural scenes in that image are on the walls of the subway, which Brent Council own. I had taken a photograph of the mural celebrating the Horse of the Year Show in 2009, but the other three images, showing a female singer (Shirley Basey?), an ice skater and a basketball player (Harlem Globetrotters?), are all extracted from old views of the walls. All four of these murals are still hidden from view, behind LED advertising screens.

 

Brent Council had the chance to put the subway murals back on public view from the end of August 2024, and there was a strong case for doing so. Sadly, Brent’s Cabinet was unwilling to consider that case, choosing instead to receive slightly more advertising rent. That decision will mean these parts of the Arena’s history (and more scenes from Wembley Stadium’s history) will remain hidden from residents and visitors for at least another four years.

Philip Grant.

 

UEFA Women’s Euros football tournament is coming to Wembley in July - OFFSIDE and more Women’s Football events from Brent Culture Service

 Many thanks to Philip Grant for this guest post

 

 

This July, the UEFA Women’s Euros football tournament is coming to Wembley, and Brent Culture Service is celebrating this with a number of special events. The season kicks off with a performance of the acclaimed drama “OFFSIDE”, at Willesden Green Library on Friday 17 June at 7.30pm. Tickets are £5 to £7, and can be booked here.

 

It’s a story about the struggle for women’s right to play football, and the challenges still faced by female players today. Futures Theatre, who are touring the play around the country ahead of the Euros, give this information about it:

 

‘It is 1892. It is 1921. It is 2017. Four women from across the centuries live, breathe, and play football.

 

Whilst each of them face very different obstacles, the possibility that the beautiful game will change their futures – and the world – is tantalisingly close.

 

Offside is told through lyrical dialogue, poetry, and punchy prose, placing the audience on the touchline of the game of a lifetime.’

 

Scene from “Offside”, being performed in Edinburgh. (Photo by Lidia Crissafulli)

 

If you want to see this “one night only” performance in Brent, I’d suggest that you book your tickets now! But there are plenty of other events celebrating women’s football, for all the family and most of them free, taking place over the next two months.

 

The Women’s Euros tournament begins on 6 July, with England playing their opening group match at Old Trafford in Manchester. Just over 50 years ago, that would not have been possible. The Football Association (“FA”) was run for men, by men who believed that football was not a suitable game for “the fair sex”. For decades it had banned all of its member clubs from allowing women to play football on their pitches!

 

Things began to change when 44 women’s teams from across the UK met in 1969 to set up the Women’s Football Association of Great Britain (“WFA”). By the 1970/71 season they held their first Cup competition, the Mitre Challenge Trophy. This has gone on to be the Women’s FA Cup, and Brent is celebrating with a free coffee morning talk, at Kilburn Library, on Wednesday 6 July from 11am-12noon: “A History of the Women’s FA Cup Final – 50 Years, Gone in a Flash.” (Please see details and register your interest on Eventbrite).

 

The England Women’s football team, 1972.

 

Brent could not have found a better speaker, to guide her audience through the development of the women’s game since the 1960s, than Patricia Gregory. She was Secretary of the WFA from 1972 to 1982, and saw an official England Women’s team play a first international match against Scotland in 1972 (a full century after the first men’s international between the two old rivals). The WFA carried on until 1993, when control of women’s football in England passed to the FA.

 

Wednesday 6 July also sees the start of a Brent Museum and Archives programme of talks at Wembley Stadium, which carries on until Saturday 30 July. “One two, one two” will give Brent residents the chance to hear inspirational stories about women’s football history from some of our local football heroes. Look out for more details online, or at Brent Libraries!

 

You can also see portraits of Brent’s Female Football Stars, specially commissioned from local photographer Roy Mehta, in an exhibition at Brent Civic Centre, which runs from 18 June until 6 November. The “Women of the Match” exhibition, prepared by Brent Museum and Archives, will also include vintage photographs and football memorabilia.

 

Manisha Taylor, QPR football coach. (Photo by Roy Mehta)

 

One of the football stars featured in the exhibition is Manisha Tailor MBE. She is a coach for the Academy players at Queens Park Rangers F.C., and the first South Asian woman to hold a coaching role at a men’s Football League club. One of the women who inspired her was Rachel Yankey (who I wrote about in my “Football IS Coming Home” article last summer). After having to pretend to be a boy, so she could play for a football team, while at Malorees Primary School in the 1980s, she had a long and distinguished career as a player, then went on to earn her coaching badges.

 

Rachel Yankey, in a football coaching role. (Image from the internet)

 

Wembley High Road will see events to help all the family to get into the UEFA Women’s Euros spirit, during the tournament. “Bend it Like Beckham, Be A Lioness!!” will take place on the wide section of pavement near Nando’s on a number of afternoons from 1-5pm. The fun activities will include the chance to take a penalty kick in a football shoot-out with a controlled AI simulator, watch exclusive female football freestylers and take selfies with a lioness mascot!

 

Although the 1923 FA Cup final was first played at the Stadium in 1923, Wembley hasn’t always been the home of women’s football. The “Lionesses” didn’t play their first international match here until November 2014, and the first Women’s FA Cup final at Wembley was in 2015. That attracted a crowd of around 30,000, which had risen to nearly 50,000 for the May 2022 final. It will be a “full house” at Wembley Stadium for the UEFA Women’s Euros final on 31 July, and in the build up to that Brent Culture Service is staging two big events. 

 

“A Stadium Of The Future -  If I can't dance , I don't want to be part of your revolution”, on Friday 29 July, from 2-8pm at Bridge Park Leisure Centre, promises a unique event for women combining music, dancing, activism, food and celebration. The group “Idle Women” will be collaborating with women in Brent, and say: ‘It’s about women taking up space and making visible their essential role in solving the social and environmental challenges with face locally and globally.’

 

On the eve of the final itself, Saturday 30 July from noon until 5pm, everyone is invited to Olympic Way for “Emma Smith's Supercompensation Cycle installation and dance performance”, along with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and local musicians performing the 'Brent Anthem'. This will celebrate the arrival of the 2022 UEFA Women’s Euros at Wembley.

 

England Women’s manager Sarina Wiegman congratulating some of her players after an Arnold Clark Trophy match earlier this year. (Image from the internet)

 

The excitement will be even greater if England are one of the teams taking part in the final. England Manager Sarina Wiegman (who won the previous Women’s Euros tournament with The Netherlands) has got an excellent squad, which has been playing well and won the Arnold Clark Trophy international tournament earlier this year. Can the “Lionesses” go one better than the England Men’s “Three Lions” team at Wembley last year? 

 

We will see! And as well as following the UEFA Women’s Euros championship, I hope that you can enjoy some of the Brent Culture Service events being held along the way to 31 July.

 

Philip Grant.

 

Joint Scrutiny Committee on Wednesday to consider the Casey Review into disturbances at UEFA 2020 Final in Wembley

 

The Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee (Chair Cllr Ketan Sheth) and Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee (Chair Cllr Roxanne Mashari) will meet in the Conference Hall at Brent Civic Centre on Wednesday 9th March at 6pm to consider a shared item on the Casey Review. The latter Committee will move on to consider other items on their agenda.

The Casey Review investigated the issues around the disturbances at Wembley Stadium at the Euro 2020 Final and made a series of recommendations. 

Recommendations pertaining to street drinking and licensed premises were implemented last weekend for the Carabao Cup Final. LINK

After the event Brent Coucill hailed the action as a success:

The drink-free zone around Wembley Stadium created a friendly and enjoyable atmosphere for those attending the Carabao Cup Final on Sunday (Feb 27).

Working with the police and The FA, the council used its powers under the existing borough-wide Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) to crack down on street drinking ahead of the final, between Liverpool and Chelsea, in a bid to limit anti-social behaviour.

3,000 bottles or cans of alcohol were confiscated from the small minority of rule breakers on Olympic Way and the surrounding streets.

Councillor Muhammed Butt, Leader of Brent Council, said: “Yesterday we saw 90,000 football fans from across the country come to Wembley for the first full-capacity event held at the Stadium since the start of the pandemic.

“When we welcome fans, as we have done for decades, we feel like we’re welcoming them into our home so residents really want visitors to treat the local area with respect. It was wonderful to see the vast majority of fans do just that and I would like to thank everyone who followed the rules by not drinking on the street. Not only did this mean local pubs, bars, fan zones and restaurants were all buzzing with excitement, it also reduced the amount of litter on the streets and created a more enjoyable family-friendly experience all-around.

“I also want to thank the council’s enforcement officers, the police, Wembley Park and The FA. By working together and having a visible presence in the area, these keyworkers made a real difference in cracking down quickly on the small minority of fans who chose not to follow the rules.

“Finally, thanks also go to the local off licenses and retailers who stopped selling alcohol to fans before the game. This new approach will be rolled out for all future matches in Wembley as we look forward to welcoming more fans back to the historic Stadium over the coming months.”

The item on the Agenda states:

Baroness Casey review of events surrounding the UEFA Euro 2020 Final 'Euro Sunday' at Wembley

To discuss the Baroness Casey review of events surrounding the UEFA

Euro 2020 Final ‘Euro Sunday’ at Wembley, alongside the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee

There is no accompanying report tabled at present.

Football IS coming home!

Guest post by Philip Grant

 

On Sunday (11 July 2021) England will be playing Italy in the final of the Euros football tournament at Wembley Stadium. There is nowhere else in our country more appropriate for this historic match, but why is that?

 

1. Wembley Stadium and its new steps, April 2021. (Photo by Philip Grant)

 

One hundred years ago, when the British Empire Exhibition was being planned, the then Prince of Wales, who was President of its organising committee, wanted it to include ‘a great national sports ground’. His wish was granted, and the giant reinforced concrete Empire Stadium, with its iconic twin towers, was built in just 300 days. It hosted the FA Cup final in April 1923, and a year later its first England international football match, against Scotland (a 1-1 draw).

 

2. The Empire Stadium at Wembley in 1924. (Image from the Wembley History Society Colln. at Brent Archives)

 

The long-term future of the stadium was in doubt, until it was saved from demolition in 1927 by Arthur Elvin. He ensured that annual events, like the FA Cup and Rugby League Challenge Cup finals were popular days out for spectators, as well as making the stadium pay its way with regular greyhound and speedway racing meetings. Although cup finals made the stadium famous in this country, the 1948 Olympic Games put Wembley on the world map. The Olympic football final at Wembley saw Sweden beating Yugoslavia 3-1, with Denmark taking the bronze medal after a 5-3 victory over Great Britain.

 

3. An aerial view of Wembley Stadium during the 1937 FA Cup final. (From a 1948 Wembley book)

 

It was 1951 before the stadium hosted a normal football international match against a country other than one of the home nations (Argentina). Then 1963 saw the European Cup final played at Wembley for the first time (AC Milan 2 – Benfica 1). The stadium was a key part of England’s staging of the 1966 World Cup, including the final, where England beat West Germany 4-2 after extra time, to win their only major international tournament (so far).

 

4. England's 1966 World Cup winning team. (Image from a book, shared by a Wembley History Soc. member)

 

When Olympic Way was being pedestrianised in 1993, one of the tile mural scenes in the new subway from Wembley Park Station, celebrating Wembley’s sports and entertainment heritage, was of England footballers at the twin towers stadium. The new structure was named the Bobby Moore Bridge, after England’s 1966 winning captain who had recently died from cancer, and a plaque in his honour, at the centre of the mural, was unveiled by his widow. It should have been unthinkable for this mural to be hidden behind adverts during the 2021 Euros matches. Luckily, that threat was prevented by a campaign which lasted from February to June!

 

5. England supporters by the footballers tile mural, 7 July 2021. (Photo by Irina Porter)

 

You will see that one of the two footballers portrayed is black. The artist is thought to have based this player on John Barnes, who played for England 79 times between 1983 and 1995. His family moved here from Jamaica when he was 12, and his talent was spotted by Watford when he was playing for Sudbury Court, in the Middlesex League, aged 17. All of England’s 1966 team were white players, and John Barnes was only the seventh black footballer to represent England in modern times.

 

It was not until 1978 that Viv Anderson became England’s first modern black player. That same year saw West Bromwich Albion field three black players, something which was so unusual for a top-flight club that they were nicknamed “The Three Degrees”, after a popular female singing trio. Such was the racial prejudice at the time that they suffered terrible abuse from fans of other teams, and from other players. Worse still, this was considered “normal”, and they just had to get on with it, and show that they were not intimidated, by playing even better!

 

6. Cyrille Regis (left) showing off his England shirt, and Luther Blissett. (Images from the internet)

 

One of the West Brom trio, who answered the abuse by scoring lots of goals, was Cyrille Regis. This former pupil of Harlesden’s Cardinal Hinsley High School (now Newman Catholic College) played for England five times between 1982 and 1987, and was the country’s third black footballer. The fifth was also a product of the Brent Schools football system, Luther Blissett, who went to Willesden High School (now Capital City Academy). During his long career with Watford, he played fourteen games for England between 1982 and 1984. Brent’s diverse community, which also saw black Council Leaders by the 1980s, was helping to show the way!

 

Prejudice in football, and generally, was not just a racial problem. In the 1980s, Rachel Yankey was a girl at Malorees Primary School who wanted to play football. As an 8-year old, she shaved her hair, called herself Ray (her initials) and joined a boy’s football team. She was so good that it was two years before they found out she wasn’t a boy! At 16, she signed for Arsenal Ladies, and between 1997 and 2013 she played 129 matches for England (a record at the time for men or women).

 

7. Rachey Yankey, playing for England (left), and for Team GB at the Olympics. (Images from the internet)

 

None of Rachel’s England internationals was played at Wembley Stadium, as it was not until November 2014 that it became a venue for “the Lionesses” home games. However, she did grace the Wembley pitch in one of her five games for Team GB at the 2012 Olympic Games, when they beat Brazil 1-0 in front of a crowd of 70,584. 

 

The Bobby Moore Bridge subway, with its heritage tile murals, was created as part of preparations for the Euro 1996 football tournament.  A local player who took part in that was Stuart Pearce from Kingsbury (Fryent Primary and Claremont High Schools). After leaving school at 16, to train as an electrician, he played non-League football for Wealdstone before transfers to Coventry City, then Nottingham Forest. A ferocious left-back, he won 78 England caps (nine of these as captain) between 1987 and 1999.

 

8. Stuart Pearce screaming with joy after scoring his 1996 quarter-final penalty. (Image from the internet)

 

One of the biggest disappointments of his career was when he missed a penalty in the semi-final shoot-out against West Germany at the World Cup in 1990. You can see the emotion on his face after he scored a penalty in the quarter-final shoot-out against Spain at Euro 1996, a feat he repeated at Wembley in the semi-final against Germany. Unfortunately, it was his team-mate, Gareth Southgate, whose penalty miss saw England fail to reach the final.

 

The original 1923 stadium was looking very old in 1996, and it was decided that a new national stadium was needed. Despite strong bids for it to be built away from London, the fact that Wembley was felt to be the home of English football swung the decision our way. The old “twin towers” were finally demolished early in 2003, although we still have a small relic of it. The concrete base of a flag pole, from the top of one of the towers, was donated to the borough by Wembley National Stadium Ltd, and can be seen in Brent River Park.

 

9. The flag pole base from a Wembley twin tower in Brent River Park, St Raphael’s. (Photo by Philip Grant)

 

The new Wembley Stadium opened in 2007, with that year’s FA Cup final as one of its first games. Soon afterwards there was a road sign in Honeypot Lane (I wish I’d taken a photo of it) with an image of the stadium arch, welcoming drivers to “Brent – the home of Wembley”. I do have a photo showing the stadium in May 2011, ready for the UEFA Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United. (Whatever happened to Brent’s planning policy to protect views of the stadium, such as this one from Bridge Road!)

 

10. The new Wembley Stadium, with its arch, seen along Olympic Way in May 2011. (Photo by Philip Grant)

 

“Football’s coming home” was England’s theme song for Euro 1996, and 25 years later it is being sung again. Wembley is staging some of the main matches in the delayed Euro 2020 tournament, and England, with Gareth Southgate as manager, have at last reached the final of a major tournament (for the first time since 1966)! This time, the England squad (and many of the other teams taking part) is much more representative of the country’s diverse population. 

 

Once again, there is a “boy from Brent” playing an important part in the team’s success. Raheem Sterling went to Oakington Manor Primary and Copland Community (now Ark Elvin Academy) schools, and could see the arch of the new stadium from his Neasden home. He played his first England senior game just before his 18^th birthday in 2012, and has been a regular team member since 2014, earning 67 caps so far. He has already scored 3 goals in the current Euros tournament, and helped with some of England captain Harry Kane’s 4 goals.

 

11. Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling embracing, after one of their goals. (Image from the internet)

 

Their togetherness, and that of the England squad as a whole, is a testament to the character of their manager, Gareth Southgate. Mutual respect, fairness and equality is something that he shows by example. Whereas in the past players might have been punished or excluded for expressing their views, such as Raheem on racism or his team-mate Marcus Rashford on food poverty, Southgate has supported them. Trust in their manager is part of the reason for England’s success.

 

A change in attitude towards racial prejudice has come about in English football since the 1980s. There are still some idiots who think it’s acceptable to boo players taking the knee, abuse them on social media, or to sing anti-semitic chants, while claiming to be England supporters. Thankfully they are now a tiny minority. 

 

12. UEFA's Equal Game logo for the Euros. (Image from the internet)

 

More recently this change has been reflected in UEFA. Their Respect and EqualGame campaigns are promoting inclusion in football, whatever anyone’s race, religion, sexuality, or ability. It is all about the benefits of diversity, something that Brent can show them through our everyday lives and experience. Football has come home, to the right place!

Philip Grant, 9 July 2021.

Footnote on Covid-19: I did not refer to the pandemic in my article, so that it did not distract from my main themes. I realise that fans want to be at Euros matches, and that the atmosphere they create is part of a big occasion. But with Delta variant cases rising rapidly, I think it is reckless for the authorities to allow 60,000 (or more?) spectators into Wembley Stadium. The final will go ahead, with a big crowd, but I suspect that it will prove to have been a mistake. Even if it does not cause more hospitalisations and deaths, it will mean additional cases, and more people suffering from long Covid.