Update
Updated Stadium & Arena List for London in 2012 (above 20,000, all-seater capacity)
Wembley - 90,000
Twickenham - 82,000
Olympic Stadium - 80,000
Stamford Bridge - 65,000
Emirates Stadium - 60,000
White Hart Lane - 50,000
The Valley - 40,600
Boleyn Ground - 40,500
Craven Cottage - 30,000
Lord's - 28,000
Selhurst Park - 26,309
Millennium Dome - 26,000
Griffin Park - 25,000
The Oval - 23,000
The New Den - 20,146
As you can see, the list for London's ever-growing stadia continues - perhaps the most immense list of stadia any city could ever imagine!!!!
News
As if the list I showed at the beginning of the thread was enough, yet more news of stadium expansion come to light!!!
Chelsea
Work is well underway at both of the main stadia in London. But the shock defeat of Chelsea to Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League (Liverpool will now play AC Milan in the Final) has meant they will only have to relish winning the Barclaycard Premiership. It has also pushed forward more rumours for their new stadium with something in the region of
60-70,000 now likely as the capacity.
Tottenham Hotspurs
Tottenham Hotspurs are also still looking at the problem of overcrowding at their current (36,214 capacity) White Hart Lane stadium. Just like Arsenal's Highbury Stadium, White Hart Lane is surrounded on all sides by residential streets. Unfortunately while Arsenal will be moving to their new 60,000, Tottenham simply do not have the funds (even though they have by far the largest fan support base in London and its metropolitan area than any other football team) to move to a whole new stadium. They did once have a plan to rent out the new Wembley Stadium - but that would be sacrilege and simply would never happen!
However recent developments have come to my attention that Tottenham are pursuing to redevelop the West Stand, so that the stadium would have a seating capacity of around
50,000. As such news is fresh, there are as of yet no images detailing the new stand, but the design is expected to be semi-circular in design to get as much use out of the land as possible.
Charlton Athletic
Roughly midway in the Premiership, Charlton Athletic have big plans for 'The Valley' stadium. Currently the capacity is 27,116 after restructuring work of a few stands back in 2002, but Charlton still aim higher. Last December, the club have now gained planning consent to expand the ground to 30,900 and are now loking to build the stadium up to a whopping
40,600 all-seater capacity stadium with work starting in 2007.
Fulham
Fulham are a reasonable team in the Barclaycard Premiership that have had several problems in trying to find a site for a new stadium. They had to ground-share with QPR for sometime, but are now back at their home for 111 years: Craven Cottage which was totally rebuilt to a capacity of 22,000. Plans are in motion though to expand up to
30,000, the only problem being financial - the cost is estimated to be at around £100mn, but the team is still committed to expansion.
West Ham
Possibly one of the best youth generating clubs around in English football, practically a quarter of the English Squad have roots in West Ham. Yet the team was relegated to the Championship last year, but hope remains with a Play-Off which could see them rise back up into the Premiership if they continue to play their current cards right! Until then, the plans to extend the Bobby Moore & Centenary Stand and re-build the East Stand are on-hold. Capacity would rise to
40,500
Brentford
Located in League One (technically the third league, after the Premiership and Championship), Griffin Park has a capacity currently of 12,763. They are currently within a short distance of being promoted into the second division of the English football leagues (The Championship). The team have big plans and stated that in November 2002, that they would sell the current stadium and build a new Griffin Park with nearly double the capacity of the current ground:
25,000. Planning permission is being sought for this. Then again anything is possible - Milton Keynes Don's are already building a stupidly large 30,000 all-seater + all-covered stadium and are ranked 64th in England interms of league position!
Wembley Stadium
Pictures from
www.stadtionwelt.de from the 6th May 2005.
Emirates Stadium
Panorama of the Emirates Stadium
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