New Wembley rolls out red carpet

[georg]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/fa_cup/6668447.stm

New Wembley rolls out red carpet

New Wembley will roll out the red carpet to stage a star-studded celebration of the stadium's history at Saturday's FA Cup final.

Footballing greats from the past 50 FA Cup finals at Wembley will be take part in the opening ceremony before Chelsea meet Manchester United.

Prince William will be the chief guest as the £757m stadium goes on show for a worldwide television audience.

There will also be a celebratory Red Arrows fly-past for the 90,000 crowd.

These are among a series of events planned by the Football Association as the final returns to Wembley after a seven-year absence.

Other highlights will include the marching band of the Corps of the Royal Engineers, who won the cup in 1875, plus big screen footage of both clubs' roads to Wembley.

FA CUP FINAL PRICES

Burger: £5

Hot dog: £4

Pint of lager: £4.50

Pie: £4

Bottle of water: £1.80

Official match programme: £10

However, many fans are unhappy about proposed prices within the stadium.

Fans of both Chelsea and Manchester United are being advised by their peers to boycott food, merchandise and programmes inside Wembley on Saturday.

Steve Powell, head of development for the Football Supporters' Federation, said: "Football fans are fed up of being treated as turnstile fodder who will pay whatever they are asked, so we are asking fans to boycott the catering outlets inside the stadium."

An official match programme will be priced at £10, a burger will cost £5 and a pint £4.50.

Wembley PLC insists it has taken fans' concerns on board and that a survey of 1,500 fans after the England Under-21 game against Italy found customers were concerned about queues and temperature of food more than prices.

There has also been criticism of ticket prices for the game. Of the 25,000 tickets allocated to each club, only 4,000 were £35, with the rest costing £60 and even £95.

Watch Tony Blair's good luck message to Wembley

And about 400 individuals and companies who had spent up to £10,000 to join "Club Wembley" - which gave them a licence to purchase tickets at the stadium for the next 10 years - had not received their tickets for the final on Thursday because of a computer problem.

Wembley PLC promised to contact all the individuals affected and to courier tickets to them if necessary.

"We are sorry it happened and will conduct internal enquiries to make sure it doesn't happen again," a spokesman for the company told BBC Sport.

606: DEBATE

Comment on the FA Cup final

Football League chairman Lord Mawhinney admitted it would take time for things to run smoothly at the new Wembley.

Saturday's final is the first showpiece event at the stadium, which was originally planned to cost £326.5m and be open in time for the 2003 FA Cup final.

"It will take us all a little while to get used to get used to an efficient administration of occasions here at Wembley," Lord Mawhinney said.

"We need to have arrangements where people can get smoothly in, smoothly out and fed smoothly.

"There is just a learning curve to go through."

The Football Association will hope its pre-match events on Saturday can placate any unhappy fans.

Des Lynam will interview Sir Bob Geldof, who organised the Live Aid concert that took place at Wembley in 1985, Sir Henry Cooper, who floored the then Cassius Clay at the stadium in 1963, and Sir Geoff Hurst, who scored a hat-trick for England in the 1966 World Cup final victory against West Germany.

Other guests will include Peter McParland, scorer of both Aston Villa's goals in 1957 through to Marcel Desailly, who won the Cup for Chelsea at the last Wembley final in 2000.

Ricky Villa, scorer of one of the best-ever Wembley goals in Spurs' victory against Manchester City in 1981 will also be present as will Mark Hughes, the only man to have won four FA Cups at Wembley.

Players will go for the traditional walk around the pitch before local Brent schoolchildren parade the colours of the 72 teams who have won the cup between 1923 and 2000.

Meanwhile, outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair posted a good-luck message to Wembley on the video-sharing website YouTube.

Watch the FA Cup final live on BBC ONE from 1240 BST

Are you going to Wembley on Saturday? Text us your thoughts about the new stadium on the day on 81111.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The full guest list is: Peter McParland, scorer of both Aston Villa's goals in 1957, Roy Hartle - right-back for Bolton, 1958, Chic Thomson - keeper of Nottingham Forest in 1959, Bill Slater, - Wolves captain, 1960, Bobby Smith - Tottenham scorer in 1961, Cliff Jones - Tottenham's Welsh winger, 1962, Denis Law - opening goalscorer for Manchester United, 1963, Sir Geoff Hurst - scored for West Ham 1964, Ian St John - Liverpool's winner in 1965, Derek Temple - Everton's winner in 1966, Dave Mackay - Spurs captain in the first all-London final, 1967, Graham Williams - West Brom captain 1968, Mike Summerbee - Manchester City, 1969. Ron Harris - Chelsea captain, 1970, Frank McLintock - double-winning Arsenal captain 1971, Peter Lorimer, Leeds star 1972, Jim Montgomery - Sunderland's keeper, 1973, Ray Clemence, Liverpool's keeper, 1974, Alan Taylor - scored both goals for West Ham, 1975, Lawrie McMenemy, managed Southampton, 1976, Lou Macari - Manchester United and Scotland, 1977, Kevin Beattie - Ipswich defender, 1978. Frank Stapleton - scored for Arsenal, 1979, Sir Trevor Brooking - headed winning goal for West Ham, 1980, Ricky Villa - one of Tottenham's Argentinian duo, 1981, Glenn Hoddle - Tottenham's scorer in both games against QPR, 1982, Arthur Albiston - defender from Manchester United, 1983, Trevor Steven - Everton midfielder, 1984, Norman Whiteside - Manchester United;a winner 1985, Ian Rush - Liverpool's record goalscorer in FA Cup Finals, 1986, Keith Houchen - header for Coventry, 1987, Lawrie Sanchez - Wimbledon's winner 1988, John Barnes - winner with Liverpool, 1989, Lee Martin - Manchester United's replay hero, 1990, Terry Venables and Gary Mabbutt - manager and captain of Tottenham, 1991, Michael Thomas, scorer of opening goal for Liverpool, 1992, Ian Wright - scored in both games for Arsenal, 1993, Mark Hughes - only man to win FA Cup four times at Wembley, 1994, Neville Southall - Everton's keeper, 1995, Gary Pallister - three-time an FA Cup winner with Manchester United, 1996, Dennis Wise - Chelsea skipper, 1997, David Seaman - four winners medals for Arsenal, 1998, Peter Schmeichel - three FA Cup wins for Manchester United, 1999, Marcel Desailly - France World Cup winner who won the last Wembley final for Chelsea in 2000.