Anyone for tennis?

Tuesday July 28


The last stop on my UK tour was to Wimbledon and the home of the most famous tennis tournament in the world, or as the locals call it, “the Championship”.


I got quite a buzz walking into the place which, despite the event concluding three weeks ago, was still humming with people.

After a minor miscommunication and transfer of a few meetings, I first took the stadium tour, which was really interesting.

There are four tours a day, leaving on the hour from 11.00am until 2.00pm, each going for 90 minutes. There were 47 people on our tour, which I think was slightly too many.

The tour guides used at Wimbledon are professionals as part of the Visit Britain program. They don’t wear a uniform, just a pin identifying them as a pro, but she gave a very polished performance. There was also a security guard along for the tour as well, just to stop us running amok, no doubt.

It was interesting being at a venue that had more than half a million people in it three weeks ago from all over the world, but now goes quiet until the big event rolls around next year. So much effort for just two weeks.

The tour went to all the places it should have, including Show Court 1, Henman Hill, outside courts, media facilities (huge), players’ restaurant and, finally, Centre Court and its new roof.

Unfortunately, due to the time of year, a lot of the courts were being dug up for refurbishing, so there was a lot more brown than green!

Afterwards, I visited the Wimbledon Museum and then met for an hour with the website manager and media officer, which was quite productive.

The museum is fantastic – possibly the best I’ve seen that focuses on one sport.

The audio tour was very helpful. Great attention to detail throughout the museum – I didn’t know tennis was originally called Sphairistike! There was the cup first presented at Wimbledon in 1877, right through to what they play for today – plenty of video interviews and match highlights – I had to relive Pat Cash’s 1987 triumph just for old time’s sake!

There was also the earliest footage of tennis, the old gentlemen’s changeroom – I also learnt that Wimbledon was bombed 16 times during World War II.

There is some great footage of Rod Laver playing in the 1960s – a good reflexes interactive, a great outline of the evolution of playing attire and then the McEnroe Pepper’s Ghost to finish it off.

All in all, a really enjoyable afternoon at the hallowed home of tennis.

Next stop – Germany!

A day at Lord's

Mon July 27

Next stop on the London stadium tour is the home of cricket – the hallowed Lord’s cricket ground and the Marylebone Cricket Club.

Of all the venues on my tour, this is the only one I have been to on a previous visit, having watched the first day of the 2005 Lord’s Test and also played in the MCC v MCC match that followed it (not very well, mind you!)

So, given that Marylebone CC is also one of our reciprocal clubs, I was more aware of what was to come.

What I was interested in, though, was the makeup and structure of the ground/museum tour, the intricacies of the media facilities and some in-depth discussion with their communications people. I had already met with the Lord’s website manager last week.

Unfortunately, one or two of the key people withdrew on the day due to personal matters, so the bulk of my visit was the tour and then lunch and meeting with Clare Skinner, MCC media manager. It was a very productive session and another important contact created for later benefit.

The Lord’s tour

Our tour guide Joslyn was certainly very English, with that deep, slow, distinguished and proper manner about him. We had nearly 35 people on the tour and almost all of them were Aussies.

The tour starts in the MCC Museum, which is not too dissimilar in feel to our own MCC Museum, although with items of far greater vintage and an obvious sole focus on cricket.

Being a cricket nerd, I didn’t gain a lot of new information from the guide as we stopped to admire the real Ashes Urn (thanks to David Studham, any other versions of the Ashes origins I hear now are simply myth!), nor the Sheffield Shield, which I thought was supposed to be in our National Sports Museum, so must check that when I get home…

There wasn’t a lot of time allocated to browsing around the museum, which is a shame because there is so much great material. However, we were told we could come back at the end of the tour and stay as long as we like.

It was then into the pavilion, where we were told in no uncertain terms that, like in the museum, photography was not permitted. Interesting to compare it to the MCG Tour on that point.

We ventured into the famous Long Room (love the portraits of Bradman, Miller, Grace, Warner, Lord Harris, Thomas Lord and so on), then the Committee Room (not a patch on ours in terms of the view and size) where a portrait of the great John Wisden adorns the walls, then the President Honourboard and across to the Long Room Bar, where there are three great portraits of England teams painted by renowned artist Andrew Festing.

We then entered the player changerooms (both teams), allowing a view from the players’ balcony out to the ground that you see so often on television. We then watched a Real Tennis match in progress – the first time I’d actually seen it, after two or three years of writing about it back home.

(Did you know…that archery will be held on the Lord’s arena at the 2012 Olympics?)

We then went around the stadium and eventually to the infamous media centre “spaceship” which, while it might look a bit radical and “un-Lord’s”, is actually a wonderful facility for the media that puts the MCG in the shade.

I bumped into our turf tradesman Adam Thorne while on the tour, which was a nice bonus. He’s over here on a six-month exchange and working pretty hard by the sounds of it.

Facts:

1. The ground slopes 6ft 6in (8ft according to Adam…)
2. There are 18,000 MCC members
3. You can’t be nominated for membership until you’re 18 and then it’s about a 15-20 year wait, before you do an interview and get ratified by a committee member. Much harsher than at home!

The tour then took us out to the Nursery and then finished in the merchandise shop. I went back to the museum to catch up on what I had missed earlier!

They had a very interesting interactive guide to the museum collection, which I wonder whether we could do at home…

Wembley Cup in style

Sun July 26

After two days at a relaxed pace in Northampton, it was back to the big smoke of London, where I’ll be now until Wednesday, when I head off to Munich, Germany.

Today was quite a thrill – myself and a friend (James) were guests of Wembley Stadium in a corporate suite at the final day of the inaugural Wembley Cup.

This pre-season tournament was played on Friday and today, with Sunday's menu featuring two matches – the first between Egyptian champions Al Ahly and Spanish giants Barcelona and the main game between English Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur and Scottish icon Celtic.

After visiting Wembley last Monday to meet staff and take a tour, it was great to see it in event mode. Although there were only about 30,000-35,000 fans in attendance, the passion and the chanting of the Celtic fans was quite overwhelming. I can hardly imagine what it would be like with 90,000 in the stadium for the FA Cup final.

The corporate suite itself was great, with some fabulous food and drink on offer. I can proudly say we were the last to leave the suite when the lights went off and were one of the last seen leaving the stadium! A nice post-event pint and beef pie in a nearby pub rounded off the day nicely (fair to say I’ll be coming home larger than when I left…)

One interesting aspect of football at English venues is the no alcohol in the seats rule. In reality, it’s a national legislation that prohibits “consumption of alcohol by anyone with a view of the pitch.” So, corporate suites need to have the blinds shut while the game was in progress, meaning you either drank inside and missed the game or didn’t drink and watched the game outside. Quite strange.

Anyway, we had a great view and Celtic upset the local favourites 2-0, both goals scored in the first half. As far as “football” matches go, it was fairly entertaining. The team then walked up to the Royal Box, which was virtually right in front of us, to accept the Wembley Cup.

(Note – you can check out tour photos on my Facebook page.)

Off to Lord’s in the morning for a full day with the Marylebone CC people, followed by an MCC reunion with Josie, Narissa and Tomasz – and, of course, Fred the Ted!

Then it’s the All England Club on Tuesday for a taste of life at Wimbledon.

Twickenham Stadium

Wed July 22

Chloe checked out of London and headed for Northampton with my luggage, where I’ll join her the following day.

Today was all about heading to Twickenham and to the home of English rugby, Twickenham Stadium and the World Rugby Museum.

I had heard much about the museum from my colleague Jed Smith, who was heavily involved in its development for many years.

I arrived for my midday stadium tour with MCC mascot Freddie the Teddy in my possession, having secured him from Scott Butler at the Lord’s dinner the previous evening. He was to play a starring role in many photos throughout the day.

Twickenham Stadium is the largest rugby union stadium in the UK and has recently been enlarged to seat 82,000. This makes it the second largest stadium in the UK (after Wembley) and the fifth largest in Europe. The stadium is the home of the Rugby Football Union (RFU), and as such is primarily a venue for rugby union. It is considered an icon of English rugby.

Interestingly, before the stadium was developed in the early-1900s, it was used to grow cabbages, and so Twickenham Stadium is affectionately known as the 'Cabbage Patch'. I wonder what the MCG nickname would be then?

When Twickenham Stadium was redeveloped recently, the Marriot Hotel – including a gym and conference centre - was constructed adjacent to the stadium, which makes for an interesting façade.

Also, the scoreboard screens are only temporary and are moved around to other stadiums for use in order to reduce operating costs and make better use of the screens. Imagine if we tried that at the ‘G! Like us, they use the arena grow lights and the birds of prey to frighten away the pigeons, so good to know some problems are universal…

The corporate suites are a little different to the MCG, with most of them having the dining area facing away from the stadium, so you eat in one room and then cross the corridor to sit outside and watch the match, rather than watch from behind glass. There are 150 suites, ranging in size from 10-50 people and cost £3000 per person per game for a minimum three-year lease.

The tour starts in the rugby store and finishes in the World Rugby Museum, which is a wonderful product. Plenty of interactives, audio and broken into more than a dozen separate exhibitions, which means the whole thing is not so daunting when you walk in. Really enjoyed it – Freddie enjoyed it even more than I did!

Afterwards, I met with RFU communications personnel in their offices which are, strangely, situated outside the stadium and over the road. Lots of information gleaned, particularly about the extent they have gone to in the last decade to create a relationship with the local community, after a fairly tumultuous period.

After Twickenham, it was home briefly to Erin and James’ house (my wonderful hosts in London now that Chloe has moved on) before dinner with one of my PVMS colleagues (Amy Grant) and her sister at a local watering hole – very British.

After a very busy three days, I’m keen on a long sleep and a couple of days R&R in Northampton, scene of Australia’s tour game.

Head back to London on Saturday and will report again after Sunday’s day in a corporate box at the Wembley Cup!

Dinner with a difference

Tue July 21

After securing a late invitation to the MCC Members’ Tours farewell dinner at Lord’s (an invitation too good to pass up) I arrived in search of a drink and a quiet night at my table with some casual chit-chat and good food.

How wrong I was…

Not long after arriving, Peter French asked me if I could do him a favour.

“Sure Pete, what’s up?” I asked with some justified trepidation.

“I need you to interview Mike Gatting on stage after main course for me,” he replied.

So it was that, after a long day and a headspace that was a trifle cloudy, I found myself in front of 150-plus people chatting with the former England captain. I was told to ask him about “anything you think the audience wants to hear”, which is certainly a flexible brief!

I muddled my way through, touching on the previous day’s Lord’s Test result, injuries to Freddie Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen, Mitchell Johnson’s woes, umpiring, the future of Test cricket and, of course, the Warnie ball! It all seemed to go ok.

To cap off the night, I was seated next to former Australian fast bowler Rodney Hogg, which – for those who know him – never has a dull moment. It was fascinating to tap into a former player’s views on anything cricket-related.

He also correctly recalled that he and I captained against each other in Third XI Premier Cricket a few years back when he filled in to help out his son’s team at Fitzroy-Doncaster.

So there you have it. What promised to be a cruisy evening after a long day proved to be an audition for my own chat show – you never know what is around the corner do you?

Emirates Stadium - Arsenal

Tues July 21

It was up early and on the tube in the rain out to Arsenal in north-east London to visit Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal Football Club, one of the game’s super powers.

Emirates Stadium opened in 2006 and has a capacity of 60,355 - fifth largest football stadium in the UK and the third largest stadium in London, after Wembley and Twickenham.

Arsenal’s administrative headquarters are based at Highbury House, a short walk away from the stadium, the equivalent distance of Rod Laver Arena to the MCG.

During the day I met with Arsenal’s facilities, media, marketing and customer service managers on an individual basis.

While we appear to be streets ahead in some areas like environmental management (in particular waste and water recycling, which seems almost non-existent in the UK) it was mind boggling to discover the resources at the disposal of the club’s marketing and communications teams.

Points of interest:

· The club has in-house website and publications team and two full-time photographers.
· Sky Media sells advertising space on Arsenal’s website.
· The stadium can only hold three events per year that are not Arsenal FC matches.
· Like most UK football stadiums, drinking in the seats is outlawed.
· There are 48,000 people on a waiting list for a season ticket!
· The home rooms are in a horseshoe shape, because manager Arsene Wagner believes square rooms give off a bad vibe! Not surprisingly, the away rooms are a square shape…

The media facilities certainly put the MCG to shame. There is a 200-seat post-match media conference room, with a separate work room (no view of the ground) that seats 200-plus with individual workstations, plus 120 seating positions outside to watch the game.

Aside from the meetings, I took the stadium tour. Luckily, today was one of the two days a week when a Legends Tour is held, this one being taken by 1960s-70s Arsenal star Charlie George.

Although I know precious little about the game’s history, it was obvious from others in the 40-strong tour group that Charlie is one of the greats, so it was good to get the inside word from a former player’s perspective.

The players’ change room is so well resourced that there is a hospital x-ray unit on-site, while it was also interesting to see that a time capsule was created five years ago, just outside the entrance to the pitch.

A quick trip to Lord's

After leaving Emirates Stadium with plenty to think about, I journeyed to Lord’s, where I met with the Lord’s website manager, who is unavailable when I do the full day with MCC on Monday.

It was a very fruitful discussion and I can see us helping each other a lot in future. Having now seen MCC CEO Keith Bradshaw’s members’ blog, it has convinced me we should be investigating similar functionality for our members.

Of course, my meeting coincided with the conclusion of the MCC v MCC cricket match, which sadly led to a Melbourne loss by six runs under the Duckworth Lewis method. Oh well, at least they put up a better effort than we did four years earlier!

Finally, the day ended with dinner at Lord’s.

More on that in the next post…

Off to Wembley

Mon July 20

First stop on my stadium tour was to Wembley Stadium, the home of UK football.

After taking a stadium tour (more on that below), I met with some of the staff at Wembley National Stadium Limited, the organisation owned by the Football Association, which manages the venue.

I had very productive meetings with the communications manager, marketing manager and group facilities director. They were very open about what they do and certainly interested in what is happening at the 'G.

The Wembley Tour

The tour is very professionally operated, from the moment you arrive via Club Wembley entrance and are met by suited staff who check your ticket. Next is a bag search by security and then up two flights of escalators to the tour booth and departure point.

You are given a sticker to pin on your chest and ushered to a waiting area containing a kiosk/café/television and three Xbox 360 terminals where you can play soccer while you wait – for free!

The tour was fascinating, particularly when compared to how the MCG Tour is constructed. There were 12 people in our group, hailing from Malta, Austria, Belgium, Scotland, Leeds and the lone Aussie. Daniel the tour guide was young, friendly, enthusiastic, knowledgeable and clearly passionate about the venue.

Some tour facts:

• The 1966 World Cup trophy won by England (a fact we hear a lot on the tour!) went missing shortly afterwards and was found by Pickles the Dog.
  
• You can get a corporate suite on a three-year license for just £200,000 per year…
  
• This summer, the venue has hosted more than one million people for concerts alone.
  
• The ground’s capacity of 90,000 is the largest in the UK and is the largest stadium in the world that has a roof structure. Although the roof itself does not cover the pitch, it covers every seat in the venue.
  
• Wembley has more toilets (2618) than any venue in the world.
  
• Wembley can only host a maximum of 36 events per year, due to council restrictions to do with operating in a residential zone.


• Every bar in the venue is named after a famous moment or person in the stadium’s history.
  

The tour takes you up to Level 4 seating, then into the Press Room, which seats 400 and is quite amazing. There are no TV cameras permitted in post-match media conferences, it is simply for print journalists.

We were shown a video while in this room, with the lights down, chronicling the history and highlights of the old Wembley (opened in 1923), as well as the construction and key events since the new Wembley opened in 2007. It's a reminder to me that we need to update the MCG videos when I get home.

Then it’s down to the dressing rooms, where England player shirts drape the lockers for a nice effect, followed by lining up in two teams and walking out onto the pitch with crowd applause playing over the PA, just like you were walking out for the FA Cup final. It was brilliant.

As he did throughout the tour, our guide took photos on our behalf and then invited us to walk the 107 steps up to the Royal Box, where the FA Cup trophy awaited for photo opportunities. It is interesting to note that the tour does not allow you to go onto the pitch, unlike the 'G.

Finally, it was outside to view the Bobby Moore statue and then, like any good tour, finishing in the merchandise store.

All in all, the tour was brilliant. A very helpful tour guide and plenty of opportunities to relive the experience of the players at Wembley. Top marks.

Tomorrow is a massive day - off to Emirates Stadium and then back to Lord's for a meeting, watch the end of the MCC v MCC cricket match and then dinner with the MCC member tour groups.

London arrival

Welcome to my inaugural post as a blogger!

I must thank Scott Butler for the inspiration to set this up so I can keep you all informed about my movements over the next three weeks or so.

I arrived safely in London on Saturday evening UK time, after a fairly painless but tiring flight. Had no sleep on the Singapore leg of the journey, but managed to sneak in enough shuteye on the leg to Heathrow to see me through the remainder of the day.

Arrived to the news that Tom Watson is leading the British Open (this is the first time I've watched it live on TV during the daytime after all those nights staying up hoping for a Greg Norman miracle - strange experience) and that England are doing a number on Punter's men at Lord's - the sporting world has indeed gone mad.

However, some things stay the same no matter where you go - the first article I read in the British press was about Marylebone CC members queuing from 3.00am to get good seats for the firs day at Lord's. Just like our members at home...no mention of a reserved seat ballot in sight!

Thankfully, I can report that Chloe is in good spirits despite the workload that goes with such a job as this one. Just a couple of weeks to go before she takes a well-earned rest in New York with me.

Anyway, the plan is to visit Wembley Stadium (Monday), Emirates Stadium (Tuesday) and Twickenham Stadium (Wednesday) in the next three days, so it's a fairly hectic start to the journey. Will also sneak in the first of two visits to Lord's to watch the end of Tuesday's MCC v MCC match and to hopefully secure our club mascot, Fred the Ted, for the remainder of my trip.


Will report with more, including photos, after visiting Wembley tomorrow.