April 28, 1923, 100 years ago: The Empire Stadium opens, in Wembley, West London. It was renamed Wembley Stadium in 1927. The 1st event is the Football Association (FA) Cup Final. West Ham United, from the East End of London, crosses town to face Manchester-area team Bolton Wanderers.
The official capacity of the stadium was 125,000, making it the largest in the world at the time. But so many people came in that many were standing on the field -- or, as they say in Britain, the pitch -- thus threatening to make it impossible to play the game. Some sources have the total at 300,000 -- probably an exaggeration, but it may still have been the most people who ever attempted to attend a sporting event on planet Earth.
Finally, mounted policemen were brought in, to clear the crowd from the pitch. George Scorey, a London policeman, was not on duty that day, but answered a call for emergency assistance at the stadium. He mounted his horse, Billy, and drove the crowd back. Although Billy was gray, this event became known as "The White Horse Final," as most people in the British Empire saw the newsreel in black and white, and saw Scorey on Billy as a heroic "man on a white horse."
The game began 45 minutes late, with fans standing around the pitch, kept back by the mounted cops and a string fence. Bolton forward David Jack scored the stadium's 1st goal just 2 minutes into the game, and Jack Smith added another in the 53rd minute, giving the Wanderers a 2-0 win.
After the game, a tradition was born: The Bolton players climbed the 39 steps from the pitch to the royal box, and their Captain, forward Joe Smith, received the FA Cup from none other than King George V, father of the eventual King Edward VIII and King George VI, grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II, and great-grandfather of King Charles III.
The original Wembley opened 10 days after the original Yankee Stadium opened in New York, and 3 days before the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum opened. The Twin Towers at its front gate became iconic long before anyone thought to design New York's World Trade Center that way, and its roof was extended around the ends in 1963.
It hosted the FA Cup Final every year until it closed in 2000. It was the main stadium for the 1948 Summer Olympic Games. It hosted the Finals of:
* The 1963 European Cup: AC Milan of Italy defeated Benfica of Lisbon, Portugal.
* The 1966 World Cup: England won on home soil over West Germany.
* The 1968 European Cup: Manchester United defeated Benfica.
* The 1971 European Cup: Ajax Amsterdam of the Netherlands beat Panathinaikos of Athens, Greece.
* The 1978 European Cup Final: Liverpool beat Brugge of Belgium.
* The 1992 European Cup Final: FC Barcelona beat Sampdoria of Genoa, Italy. And...
* The 1996 European Championship: Germany beat the Czech Republic.
It also hosted 9 NFL preseason exhibitions between 1983 and 1993, the London Monarchs of the World League of American Football in 1991 and '92, and home games in the UEFA Champions League of soccer team Arsenal in the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons, due to their North London home field, Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, seating only 38,000.
The last event was a match between the national soccer teams of England and Germany, a Group Stage match for qualification for the 2002 World Cup, and a restaging of the stadium's most famous event, the 1966 World Cup Final (when Germany was still West Germany). This time, the Germans emerged victorious, 1-0.
The stadium was soon demolished. A new, 90,000-seat Wembley Stadium suffered serious construction delays, finally opening on March 9, 2007.
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