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You and Yours - Transcript 大象传媒 Radio 4 |
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TX: 18.05.2007 - Wembley Stadium Access PRESENTER: LIZ BARCLAY |
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THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 大象传媒 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. BARCLAY Now cast your mind back to the highs and the lows in the history of the home of football - Wembley Stadium. MONTAGE OF EVENTS AT WEMBLEY BARCLAY Wembley will be ringing to the noise of the crowd again tomorrow as after a seven year wait the FA Cup Final returns to its home and 90,000 football fans will have the chance to give their verdict on the largest football stadium in the world. It's twice the size of and four times as high as the old stadium with a signature roof arch that's visible from around 40 miles away. But how will its facilities measure up for the thousands of disabled fans who are going along to cheer their team on tomorrow? Politician and Sheffield Wednesday fan David Blunkett and Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson went along to try them out with our reporter Mani Djazmi, who's blind, and he was given an access all areas pass to the stadium. DJAZMI Tanni, David and I have come down to the very edge of the Wembley pitch, in fact this [thumping] is the hallowed turf of Wembley. I don't know about you David but I think it's a rather privileged thing to do isn't it. BLUNKETT Yeah it's pretty unspoilt and they're ensuring that the dog doesn't spoil it, so we're keeping actually off at the moment. We've just come through the players' tunnel and we're going to examine, I think, the levels behind us. DJAZMI We're just walking to one of the 20 plus lifts, I think there are something like 30 escalators inside the stadium. It's quite big Tanni I imagine you'd could get quite a few wheelchair users in here. THOMPSON Well I think they're actually designed for two wheelchair users and two companions but kind of having travelled a lot you could probably get four to five wheelchair users in here very easily, which is nice because again it means that at least you get to where you want to go a little bit quicker than having to have one wheelchair user in a lift at the time, which actually ends up taking a huge amount of time to go anywhere. DJAZMI We're on the first level, we're about 30 yards from the pitch. First impressions, Tanni, what do you make of it? THOMPSON Well the first thing I notice, which is probably something that's very sort of unique for a wheelchair user, is that we are raised above the bank of seats in front, so if people stand up in front we can still see. Because I've been too many stadiums where as soon as something happens everyone's jumped up and you can't see a thing. But you do feel really close to the pitch actually. DJAZMI I can actually smell the grass from here. BLUNKETT It's critical that there is space available and that you're not actually shoved at the front in some sort of afterthought. I don't normally take my guide dog into the game but I could do here, although I think that there would be certain elements of the crowd who would still shout - Give the ref a guide dog - you know so I've got to watch this a little bit. DJAZMI Well I suppose you could oblige. BLUNKETT Well there's one or two occasions over the last season that I really would like to have done. DJAZMI Well here we are in one of the concourses, behind the stand. THOMPSON Well the first thing that I noticed is the bank of accessible toilets, which is a huge thing if you're a wheelchair user because I remember being in London when I was young and asking where the nearest accessible toilet was and being told it was eight miles away. BLUNKETT We're relying on Tanni at the moment. DJAZMI How are we getting on Tanni, it's a long walk to the toilets. THOMPSON We're very close to the toilets actually and I have my faithful radar key in my hand which every wheelchair user in the country should have. Right okay I'm really excited by this because they've got three disabled toilets just in one place. So it's quite impressive actually. And open outwards. DJAZMI They pull, are they okay for you because they're quite hefty aren't they? THOMPSON They're pretty good actually. DJAZMI And this is one of 147 accessible toilets among 2,618, I think it is, which is the most toilets in any building anywhere in the world. THOMPSON This is something else which okay is really important as a woman - an awful lot of accessible toilets don't have mirrors and it doesn't matter, even if you're at a football match you want to check your hair before you go back to watch the game. So it's fairly standard - just painted breeze block - but it's got everything. BLUNKETT I think we'd better leave you to it. [Laughter] DJAZMI Well I don't know about you Tanni I've never been up to a fifth level of a sporting stadium before, is this high enough for you? THOMPSON It is very high for me actually but it's quite interesting because I've never been able to get to the top of a stadium because they don't generally allow wheelchairs up that high. So it is great that you can get up here. I'm not very keen on heights but actually when you look at the pitch it kind of takes the focus away from high you are, and it's quite a nice gradual slope down, so it doesn't feel you're overhanging. I'm actually genuinely kind of quite pleased with how much you can see, I'd imagine it's quite a good atmosphere up here. So it's probably a first for a stadium in the world to allow wheelchair users this high up. DJAZMI And it does remind us that the 310 wheelchair spaces are pretty liberally sprinkled around the stadium, they're not all in one place, as they are in most football stadia, and that if you come here with non-wheelchair users there's a pretty high chance that you can sit with them and also within the crowd. THOMPSON Well I think that's really important because I've been to too many events, either concerts or games or sporting events, where you can't actually sit with your friends and that's the worst thing ever - it's actually just better off stayed at home and watching it on TV. So here you're completely included, access in and out is great, and it's very, very easy to get around, I'm really impressed with it. BLUNKETT It certainly feels high, I mean it sounds daft when you can't see, but you can feel the distance and you can feel, in my case, the fact that we're literally in the roof. DJAZMI Wembley certainly hasn't been without its history of trials and tribulations and even up until a year ago there was a lot of talk about whether blind and partially sighted fans would be able to get hold of commentary when they came here. We've been joined on this lofty perch by Brendan McGlinchey, who's the deputy stadium director at Wembley. Has that now all been sorted out? MCGLINCHEY It has been sorted out and we're really pleased with the system that we've ended up with. We've got a dedicated commentator and we're really pleased with the fantastic reception on all levels of the stadium, from level one to the levels that we are now in the back rows of level five, the audio enhancement system is absolutely first class. DJAZMI Tanni, with your Paralympic hat on, I know you're going to be involved with preparations for 2012, although how it's not entirely clear yet, but this kind of stadium surely has to be the blueprint doesn't it for venues in the Olympic park? THOMPSON I think it's absolutely stunning, I think it does prove that we can build things. A big part of London winning the Olympic and Paralympic bid was the strength of us as a Paralympic nation. You know I think 2012's going to be an amazing opportunity to highlight what we can do in British sport and if anything's halfway as good as this then I think we should be pretty pleased. DJAZMI David, you're a Sheffield Wednesday fan, I'm a Tottenham Hotspur supporter, although I'm not sure, do you still like people knowing that you're a Sheffield Wednesday fan? BLUNKETT If we hadn't lost eight games on the trot we'd have been in the play-offs for the Premier. So we're getting better, we just need to hold on to the players, eventually we'll be playing Tottenham Hotspur and who knows we might be playing on here next season. And it comes back to all of us, even to Tanni - Tanni I think her husband supports Leeds and we have to really commiserate about that. BARCLAY David Blunkett, a man can dream. And if you're off to Wembley tomorrow then please drop us a line or an e-mail or a text or even a call and let us know what you think. Back to the You and Yours homepage The 大象传媒 is not responsible for external websites |
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