I BRAVED WEMBLEY AND TWICKENHAM DAYS APART AND ONE IS CLEARLY SUPERIOR
Recent TV drama The Sympathizer featured a magnificent dramatisation of the last plane out of Saigon. The show depicts shells exploding on the runway as a Lockheed Hercules slews this way and that, desperate evacuees clinging to its undercarriage.
I remember watching it and thinking “just like getting the train out of Twickenham after an England match”.
Whether during the Six Nations or autumn internationals, retreating from the rugby is notoriously difficult. Narrow Victorian streets and elderly transport links make an uncomfortable fit – quite literally – with 80,000 half-cut fans. And so it was that, after the glorious victory over the All Blacks on Saturday night, I found myself wedged into the corner of a creaky old South Western Railway service, my nose in the next fellow’s armpit. Eau de damp Harris Tweed.
My presence here was part of an experiment. In order to make a head-to-head comparison between two of our sporting meccas, I had prefaced England v New Zealand with a trip to England v Serbia at Wembley last Thursday – a far more modern experience.
Where Twickenham and its crowds give off the crumbling vibe of an LS Lowry painting – especially now that flat caps have made a return to fashion – Wembley is slick and impersonal: sport’s answer to an airport departure lounge.
There was food that had not been deep-fried or barbecued, plus an electric jazz band noodling away in the corner. There were comfy seats and loos that didn’t resemble the Black Hole of Calcutta. The rail links via Wembley Stadium Station were expertly handled to minimise overcrowding. And yet, one important quality was missing: soul.
Twickenham or Wembley? It’s a tough debate to rule on. So let us go through the categories and see which venue comes out on top.
Food and drink
Wembley
I grabbed a dubious chicken-tikka wrap as soon as I emerged from Wembley Stadium Station, fearing that the pitchside fare would be restricted to hot dogs. Oh ye of little faith! An M&S Food stall offered such bougie delights as poke bowls and millionaire shortbread. Beer-wise, I spent five minutes queuing for a pint of Camden Town IPA, which was not a major hardship. 7/10
Twickenham
What an extraordinary variety of frying meat assailing the nostrils, even on the walk from the station to the stadium itself. There is biltong, hog roasts and burgers by the dozen, plus more exotic treats like churros and bao buns once inside the gates. And barely a single thing that a nutritionist would approve. Never mind. I walked straight up to the bar and paid my £8 – gulp – for a pre-match pint.
6/10
Atmosphere
Wembley
The fans were only semi-engaged, perhaps because Thomas Tuchel’s clinically efficient World Cup qualification campaign had turned this match into a friendly before it even began. As a result, it often seemed as though the main entertainment involved hurling paper planes from the upper decks of the stadium. Sad absence of songs.
4/10
Twickenham
The stands vibrated with excitement from the off, reflecting a tangible sense that England were ready to end their 13-year drought in this fixture. With Swing Low on fine form, the fans booed the haka and relished the implosion of the All Blacks’ mystique. One mark docked for Tony Perry’s gurning DJ set at half-time, which felt glaringly out of place.
9/10
Loos
Wembley
Hygienic and convenient. I was impressed to see cleaning staff buzzing around with floor-polishing machines.
8/10
Twickenham
The pre-match bottlenecks at the entrances to the gents resembled five-metre scrums. However, once you had fought your way through the crowd, the old-fashioned metal facilities themselves were actually quite roomy. The Rugby Football Union has also provided Portaloos on the route back to the station, to dissuade any potential Mandelsons.
6/10
Comfort
Wembley
As it was a night of torrential rain, and I couldn’t remember the covering arrangements, I packed some plastic over-trousers. Happily, they were not required. My ticket bought me a well-sheltered seat in the front row of the stand, complete with cupholder. As you can’t take beer to the stands at Wembley – at least, not for men’s football – most people were using their cupholder for umbrella storage.
8/10
Twickenham
A good thing that the weather had cleared up by Saturday afternoon, as my position near pitchside was quite exposed. Drinking is very much allowed in the stands here – encouraged, even – to the point where every Twickenham-goer is familiar with people constantly shuffling in and out of their seats for bar visits and loo trips.
6/10
Journey
Wembley
Credit to the staff overseeing Wembley Stadium Station, who carried more clipboards than a gang of charity chuggers. The approach to the station was broken up into four different colour-coded pathways, all separated by barriers, depending on where you were travelling to. My lot – bound for High Wycombe and beyond – were held on the bridge above the platforms for 20 minutes while we waited for our train, then sent on our way with a cheery “Have a lovely evening”.
7/10
Twickenham
The squeeze in my railway carriage was tight enough to have passengers eyeing up the luggage racks as a possible escape route. Thankfully, there were no disruptions to the rail timetable itself, of the kind which created a genuinely scary crush after the Tonga match of 2021. Also, you don’t mind a little discomfort when you have just witnessed sporting history. But it is easy to see why, when England are either losing or playing aerial ping-pong, Twickenham’s travel logistics can feel like a drag.
4/10
Value for money
Wembley
My seat cost £121.50. It seemed a bit steep for a World Cup qualifier, at twice as much as a lot of Premier League matches. The stadium wasn’t full, with just over 74,000 of 90,000 seats occupied. Add around £20 for food and drink.
6/10
Twickenham
It was £163 for the ticket, and another £17.50 for fish, chips and mushy peas. But then you have to factor in the demand: the RFU could probably have sold out this stadium twice over.
6/10
Total scores
Wembley: 40/60
Twickenham: 37/60
A solid result, then, for Wembley. Football is both bigger and richer than rugby, and the quality of the stadium experience reflects the disparity.
Do not forget, though, that I have only been rating the fixtures and fittings.
Moving on to the actual sport, a rugby international – especially against top-tier opposition – will always be the hotter ticket unless you are talking about a World Cup or European Championship. England v New Zealand represents rugby at its peak, whereas in football the top club sides are both more thoroughly drilled and more passionately supported than the national team.
This exercise has thus revealed a paradox. As a sort of sporting mystery shopper, my findings favour Wembley on almost every point: convenience, infrastructure, cost. Even so, if I had to choose between the two options, I am taking Twickenham – sorry, the Allianz Stadium – every time.
2025-11-17T10:05:43Z