White City Stadium

White City Stadium
Aerial view of the stadium, 1908
Data
place	White City , London , England
Coordinates	51 ° 30 '49 "  N , 0 ° 13' 38.6"  W Coordinates: 51 ° 30 '49 "  N , 0 ° 13' 38.6"  W.
owner	White City Company
start of building	1907
opening	1908
demolition	1985
costs	£ 60,000
architect	JJ Webster
capacity	93,000
Societies)
Queens Park Rangers (1931-1933, 1962-1963) London Highfield (1933) White City Rebels (1976-1978) Greyhound Racing Association (1926-1984)
Events
1908 Summer Olympics British Empire Games 1934 4th Women's World Games 1934 Football World Cup 1966

The White City Stadium was a multifunctional stadium in White City , a district of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in London . It was built to host the 1908 Summer Olympics . Until its demolition in 1985, it was the venue for competitions in swimming , speedway , boxing , show jumping , stock car , athletics and other sports. Concerts, a game from the 1966 World Cup and greyhound races were also held here.

history

Designed by engineer JJ Webster, the stadium was built in nine months by construction company George Wimpey on part of the Franco-British Exhibition site. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on April 2, 1907 by the wife of Lord Desborough , the official opening by King Edward VII on April 27, 1908, the opening day of the 1908 Summer Olympics . The cost of construction is estimated at around £ 60,000 . After the opening, the stadium had space for 93,000 spectators. Numerous rest, meeting and changing rooms were available for the athletes and judges under the stands. The outermost part of the interior formed a 660  yards (603.5 m) long concrete cycle track with banked curves. Inside this was a cinder track with six lanes, the length of which was a third of a mile (536.45 m). On the inner field there were jumping and throwing facilities in the curve interiors, a playing field for ball sports and an unheated swimming pool 330  feet (100 m) long and 50 feet (15.24 m) wide with a retractable diving platform .

Athletics competitions were held regularly until 1914, but apart from industrial fairs , the stadium was barely used during World War I and in the following years. In 1926 the Greyhound Racing Association (GRA) acquired the stadium and in the following year had the running and cycling tracks covered with grass so that greyhound races and speedway motorcycle races could be held on it. New covered grandstands and a restaurant were also built. On the inside of the grass track, a new athletics track was built in 1931 with a length of 440 yards (402.336 m); on this from 1932 to 1970 the British amateur athletics championships took place. The 4th Women's World Games and the British Empire Games were also held here in 1934 .

From 1931 to 1933 and in the 1962/63 season, the Queens Park Rangers football club had guest rights at the White City Stadium. In 1933 the rugby league club London Highfield made a guest appearance here . The Argonauts planned to use White City as their home ground, but the club never played a game. From 1932 to 1958 the stadium was the scene of numerous boxing matches ; for example, moved in 1934 the struggle between Len Harvey and Jack Peterson of over 90,000 spectators. During the 1966 World Cup , a group A preliminary match between Uruguay and France had to be played here: the owner of the Wembley stadium had refused to cancel the greyhound races taking place there, so the game was moved to White City.

That being said, greyhound and speedway racing were clearly the most important uses. Tens of thousands of visitors flocked to the GRA events regularly, especially during the popularity peak of the 1930s to 1950s. The main greyhound races were the English Greyhound Derby, the Grand National, the Oaks, the Wood Lane Stakes and the Longcross Cup. The last Greyhound Derby took place on June 23, 1984. From 1976 to 1978 the stadium was the home of the professional speedway team White City Rebels. It was also the venue for numerous races of the Speedway Individual World Championship and three times the finals of the Speedway Team World Championship (1976, 1979, 1982).

In 1985 the White City Stadium was demolished to make way for a complex of the British Broadcasting Corporation . The former finish line is marked by a marker on the current square. A plaque with the medal table from the 1908 Summer Olympics is attached to a nearby wall.

Cultural influence

The White City Stadium is the setting for the pivotal scenes of Basil Dearden's 1950 film The Blue Lamp . It can also be seen in an episode of the 1967/68 television series The Man with the Suitcase , as well as in the 1973 film Steptoe and Son Ride Again by Peter Sykes . In 1984, a few months before the demolition, arose in the stadium some scenes for the music video for the song Life on your own by The Human League .

Ray Davies , the lead singer and guitarist of the rock band The Kinks , caused an uproar at a concert at White City Stadium in July 1973 when he cursed on stage, announced his withdrawal from the band while on a drug intoxication, collapsed and had to be hospitalized . Davies recovered and carried on with the kinks. At a David Cassidy concert in May 1974, 750 people were injured in a crowd near the stage; a concert-goer died as a result. The folk band The Pogues celebrated the demolition of the stadium in the song White City , which appeared on the 1989 album Peace and Love .

Web links

Commons : White City Stadium  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• History of the White City Stadium (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ History of the White City site. (PDF, 208 kB) British Broadcasting Corporation , May 2005, accessed on August 12, 2018 . 
2. ^ Valerie White: Wimpey: The first hundred years . Wimpey News, London 1980, pp. 5 .
3. ^ C. Frank Zarnowski: A Look at Olympic Costs. (PDF, 63 kB) Citius, Altius, Fortius, 1992, p. 20 , accessed on August 12, 2018 (English). 
4. ^ Karl Lennartz : Olympic Games 1908 in London . AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 1908, ISBN 3-89784-112-6 , p. 53 .
5. ^ Howard Tarter: Greyhound Racing Encyclopedia. Fleet Publishing, London, 1949.
6. ^ White City Stadium. UK Running Track Directory, 2000, accessed August 12, 2018 . 
7. ^ Queens Park Rangers plan to quit Loftus Road for 40,000-seat stadium. The Guardian , December 12, 2013, accessed August 12, 2018 . 
8. ↑ Dave Twydell: Denied FC Yore Publications, Harefield 2001, ISBN 1-874427-98-4 , pp. 30-31 .
9. ↑ The 20 biggest-ever boxing attendances in history - where does Joshua vs Klitschko rank? The Daily Telegraph , April 26, 2017, accessed August 12, 2018 . 
10. ^ White City Stadium. worldcupstadiums.net, accessed on August 12, 2018 . 
11. ^ Roy Genders: The National Greyhound Racing Club Book of Greyhound Racing . Pelham Books, London 1990, ISBN 0-7207-1804-X .
12. ^ The Blue Lamp (1950). movie-locations.com, July 8, 2018, accessed August 12, 2018 . 
13. ↑ Man in a suitcase. Avengerland, accessed August 12, 2018 . 
14. ^ Danny Baker, Danny Kelly: Classic Football Debates Settled Once and For All . Ebury Press, London 2009, ISBN 978-0-09-192851-3 , pp. 52 .
15. ^ London's Long Lost Sports Grounds. Derelict London, 2018, accessed August 12, 2018 . 
16. ^ Doug Hinman: All Day and All of the Night . Backbeat Books, London 2004, ISBN 978-0-87930-765-3 .
17. ^ Crushed to death at a David Cassidy concert. The Independent , May 23, 1999, accessed August 12, 2018 . 
18. ↑ Owen Blackhurst: The 21 Greatest Pogues Lyrics. Sabotage Times, February 27, 2018, accessed August 12, 2018 .