Wembley has performed a record turnaround from a concert to football venue, with the stadium transformed after Oasis’s gigs last weekend to be ready for Sunday’s Community Shield.
No sooner had the Gallagher brothers’ Mancunian tones started to fade away and 90,000 concert-goers left Wembley last Sunday than the work began to prepare the stadium for the traditional season curtain-raiser between the Premier League champions Liverpool and FA Cup winners Crystal Palace.
The Oasis set-up was cleared from the pitch by 5.30pm on Tuesday, with the stage removed and the seating reconfigured. A huge operation then began, with a crew working all night to clear 800 tonnes of soil and turf.
About 90,000 concert goers were at Wembley to see Oasis play last Sunday, with the venue having since been swiftly transformed to host the Community Shield
STEPHEN CHUNG/ALAMY
The work to install a new pitch began at 5.30am on Wednesday and the final rolling was finished by 10pm on Thursday, allowing Friday to be spent marking the lines, installing LED boards, checking security systems and putting the final touches to preparing for a capacity football crowd.
A Wembley spokesman said: “We can confirm it is a record turnaround from a concert into football for Wembley Stadium.”
The transformation included 550 rolls of turf of the hybrid grass — natural ryegrass reinforced with synthetic fibres — that has become the signature of the Wembley pitches.
Two teams worked around the clock at both Wembley and the farm that produces the turf to get the new pitch ready and installed. The changeover work included 77 truck journeys to and from Wembley, with 230 vehicle trips inside the stadium removing the old pitch and installing the new one.
Wembley uses “hybrid grass” made from natural ryegrass and reinforced with synthetic fibres
MI NEWS/NURPHOTO/GETTY IMAGES
One senior figure involved in the work told The Sunday Times: “We knew this was going to be a challenge from the moment we learned about the timescale, but we were always confident that it could be done.
“Having said that, the teams have been working day and night on this and they have been absolutely fantastic, dealing with all the unforeseen issues that inevitably arise but still keeping to the deadlines.”
Wembley started using new pitch technology two years ago, allowing the stadium to be ready to host football matches in a matter of days after a concert when previously it would have taken up to five weeks to get it ready. The grass does not live forever and has to be replaced after a concert.
The hybrid “Lay and Play” grass pitch is made at a turf farm using a specific blend of sunlight, water and fertiliser and takes 14 weeks to grow before it is trucked to Wembley. The old pitch is separated into grass — which is allowed to decompose — and sand and plastic, which are recycled.
Oasis are playing two more concerts at Wembley, on September 27 and 28, but stadium operators will have slightly more time to prepare the venue for England’s friendly against Wales ten days later on October 8.