Not The Wembley Way

TOM BLACKETT explains why he doesn’t agree with the decision to allow Tottenham to become tenants at the world-famous venue this season…

I MUST admit that I haven’t heard of people complaining that Tottenham are playing all their home games at Wembley Stadium this year, but, for me, it’s not right.

Why? Well, let me explain. Wembley is the home of football in this country, a special place. It’s where England won the World Cup (admittedly before the stadium was knocked down and rebuilt) and the likes of Hurst, Moore and Peters carved their names into English football folklore.

Everyone will have their own favourite memories. Perhaps it’s Alan Sunderland scoring that last-gasp winner for Arsenal against Manchester United or Tottenham’s Ricky Villa netting his FA Cup solo goal against Manchester City.

In the past, there weren’t that many games at Wembley and that helped to keep the mystique. It was a special place and very few footballers got to play there.

But over the years it’s opened up more and more. To a certain extent that’s fine. There should be the chance for a decent proportion of players at all levels to play at the home of football, but there’s a danger that it’s gone too far.