Sunderland Echo reporter Tony Gillan shows us around the Stadium of Light - a place whose every corner he knows well, thanks to having previously worked there
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00:00 Well clearly it was never a red card, I don't know what he was thinking of.
00:03 Hello and welcome to the Sunderland Stadium of Light for our little film.
00:08 The stadium, as you may or may not know, was built in 1997, that's when it opened, replacing
00:14 the old Roker Park which was 99 years old and of no further use.
00:20 The stadium was built over the old Wearmouth Colliery which was closed in 1993.
00:26 When the stadium was being built there were some ridiculous stories at the time about
00:30 how it might sink because it was above a mine.
00:32 It's not actually above a mine.
00:34 There are three shafts surrounding the stadium, they're not directly underneath it, they go
00:38 away down a mile or so and then out to the coal which is still there beneath the North
00:44 Sea.
00:45 There are caps venting, letting out the methane from the vents but there never is and never
00:51 was any danger.
00:52 Although regular checks are still made for the gases, everyone's perfectly safe.
00:57 Now when the club moved from Roker Park it didn't forget its immediate past as evidenced
01:03 by what you see here.
01:04 This is some lattice work from the old main stand at Roker.
01:09 Roker Park was designed by the famous football ground architect Archibald Leach who also
01:13 designed Goodison Park and Ibrox among other places.
01:17 It was reported when the club first moved to the Stadium of Light that the club had
01:24 scrapped all of this stuff.
01:27 The report was wrong.
01:28 Heaven forfend that a newspaper would get it wrong.
01:30 It wasn't this newspaper I hasten to add and the club still awaits the apology.
01:34 The inaugural game here was a friendly against the mighty Ajax of Amsterdam in July 1997.
01:42 At midnight, one minute into the day of the match, the announcement was made in what is
01:49 now Quinnies Bath that the ground was to be called the Stadium of Light.
01:54 It did not go down well at the time.
01:57 Angry supporters outside weren't happy.
02:00 It was assumed by many that it was going to be called Weermouth Stadium or the Colliery
02:04 Stadium or some such.
02:05 The name Stadium of Light boiled up.
02:07 The light refers to the light of the Devy lamp, the light coming out of a tunnel or
02:13 shaft.
02:14 It is not actually named after the Estadio de Luz, home of Benfica in Portugal.
02:19 This is the magnificent marble entrance to the Stadium of Light, middle of the West Stand.
02:25 And behind me is the unmissable painting by Thomas Heamey.
02:28 Give him his full name.
02:29 It was Thomas Marie Madawaska Heamey, 1852 to 1937.
02:35 The painting is of a game between Sutherland and Aston Villa on January 2nd, 1895.
02:41 The game took place at one of Sutherland's previous grounds at Newcastle Road.
02:47 This is even before Roker Park.
02:50 It finished 4-4.
02:51 Sorry to spoil the result for you if you got it taped.
02:55 Almost everyone on the pitch is in the painting.
02:59 It's been suggested that Aston Villa were chasing a last minute equaliser.
03:02 But it was actually 4-4 with 10 minutes to go.
03:05 So I think Mr Heamey just had a bit of artistic licence.
03:08 It's a huge painting.
03:09 It used to be on loan at Sutherland Museum until it came over here when the stadium opened.
03:14 We're now standing behind reception, behind that famous painting.
03:17 And we're still at street level.
03:20 We're about to go down into the tunnel.
03:21 It's ever so exciting.
03:24 Through the tunnel and onto the pitch side.
03:27 It's quite dramatic.
03:28 Come this way.
03:29 So we're now going down to the pitch side, which is below street level, back where the
03:35 stadium was built.
03:36 We're now in the tunnel.
03:37 The tunnel.
03:38 The players' tunnel.
03:39 And you can see me going out.
03:42 Now, this is where those of us who are absolutely rubbish at football have a little fantasy
03:48 to ourselves.
03:49 So here we are at pitch side, next to the home dugout where all of the swearing and
03:58 chewing of gum goes on on a match day.
04:01 Now the ball of the stadium is, as you can see, quite spectacular.
04:05 Most of you are familiar with this part of the stadium.
04:08 The bit below ground level, which is where we are, the first tier, the concrete was poured
04:14 in.
04:15 It came off the back of a lorry and it was poured in.
04:16 Everything else was delivered precast and delivered by a crane into what we see now.
04:24 The north stand, the top part of that, did not exist when the stadium first opened in
04:29 1997.
04:31 It came about three years later, which took the capacity of the stadium up from about
04:35 42,000 to around about 48,000, depending on segregation.
04:42 The more eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted behind me the pitch, which is actually
04:47 crucial to the proceedings.
04:48 Everything that goes well on the pitch means that everything is well for the rest of the
04:51 club.
04:53 It's about average size for a professional football pitch and despite the appearances,
05:00 not entirely grass.
05:01 It's a mixture of grass and a sort of plastic artificial grass called cisgrass.
05:08 It has eight-inch sprinklers, which are used regularly.
05:11 I've seen it years ago when the sprinklers have been on in the pouring rain during half-time.
05:17 Despite appearances, the pitch is not a billiard table flat.
05:21 There is a camber, it's a spine running down the centre of the length of the pitch, and
05:26 it's about a foot higher than the edges to allow water to flow away.
05:30 Like all good stadiums, it has under-soil heating too.
05:34 Essentially it's a giant radiator beneath the pitch.
05:37 There are 26 miles of plastic piping there.
05:39 Ten inches below the ground, hot water runs through them.
05:42 There's a boiler room near here.
05:44 I won't tell you where it is, but essentially that's how it works.
05:47 The same as the radiator in your bathroom.
05:49 It was a clear red card, he's got nothing to complain about.
05:52 We're back in the players' tunnel, and that bit of tomfoolery you just saw was filmed
05:56 here.
05:57 It's very simple actually, it's just the backdrop where the post-match ranting and
06:02 raving or gloating goes on, right in front of the world's media.
06:06 Right now we really are in the inner sanctum here.
06:08 This is the home dressing room.
06:11 It's a bit more spruce than it was originally.
06:14 It was originally just hooks on a wall.
06:17 It's got this nice woodwork effect now, and it'll all be locked up on a match day.
06:21 The door's locked on a match day, and nobody gets in apart from us, who are absolutely
06:25 essential.
06:26 There are showers, baths for the older players, and everything you would want down here.
06:32 So there is a warm-up area, for warming up as you might expect.
06:38 The away changing room has no such thing.
06:40 Boo hiss, we're in the away dressing room.
06:43 It's not quite the same.
06:45 You immediately notice it isn't quite as nice as the home dressing room.
06:49 There's no warm-up area.
06:50 It does have baths, but they aren't quite the super-duper large jacuzzi type baths that
06:55 you have in the home side.
06:59 Just plain old hooks.
07:01 Not entirely dissimilar to Hilton World playing fields.
07:03 You'll also notice, this has been here since day one, the sort of beige and blue tiling
07:11 effect.
07:12 It's meant to create a murky effect, to make visiting players a bit more depressed and
07:17 ready for it.
07:18 It might all be sight-world babble and nonsense, but it was deemed to be, at the time, worth
07:22 a try.
07:23 Things do go wrong sometimes, even in a modern stadium.
07:26 I think it was in the year 2010 or 2011 that the visitors were Manchester United, and sadly,
07:33 some people might say, a sewage pipe burst, and its contents ended in the hair.
07:38 Such the chagrin of Sir Alex Ferguson.
07:42 He took it quite well, actually, it has to be said.
07:45 And it was referred to in the newspapers as something gait, but we'd better not refer
07:48 to exactly what the term was.
07:50 This is one of the official changing rooms, where the referees and line assistants run
07:56 up and down.
07:57 There are several of them.
07:59 In the early days, there was just male and there was female, although in that time, the
08:04 female dressing room was rarely, if ever, used, but it's quite commonplace these days.
08:08 They don't mention the gender these days, it's just match officials one, match officials
08:13 two, etc.
08:14 But they are very well looked after.
08:17 This is the media suite, or press lounge, as it used to be known, and it is what it
08:22 is.
08:23 The world's media, depending on the size of the game that's been going on, gather here
08:28 and there.
08:29 They're probe managers.
08:30 You get the occasional tantrum delivered from this very chair.
08:33 There was a beauty last season from Reading manager Paul Ince, whose thoroughly boring
08:38 side were beaten 1-0.
08:40 This was pointed out to him and he went berserk.
08:43 Very entertaining.
08:44 Yes?
08:45 And behind that door, I can tell you, I'll take you into my confidence here, that Samson
08:51 the Cat and his girlfriend Delilah actually used to live in that room.
08:55 Some people say that mere costumes of them were put in there, but it was the actual Samson
09:00 and Delilah.
09:01 It's now a teaching facility, much of this area is.
09:03 A lot of educational work was on here.
09:05 And this is the treatment room.
09:08 A bit overused last season, some might say.
09:10 It's right next to the changing rooms apparently, and it's seen some interesting blood and gore
09:15 over the years.
09:22 This is the lift to the basement.
09:23 There are four lifts in the stadium.
09:27 Two posh ones and two more service-y type lifts.
09:30 You need to know the codes to get down into this one, so we're quite privileged.
09:35 This is the area beneath the premier concourse, which is the highest part of the seating deck
09:40 outside.
09:43 It's rather nicer than the rest of what you might call the ordinary parts of the stadium.
09:47 There's concourse all the way around.
09:49 There's more room here.
09:50 The lower concourse is a bit more restricted because of the geometry of the stadium to
09:56 do with the pitch being sunk.
09:58 This has been open since day one.
10:01 When it was being built, it was described as the club was trying to sell tickets as
10:06 an airport lounge style bar.
10:08 They made that description in good faith, but it didn't quite happen.
10:12 However, it's still rather nice.
10:16 When it was built, plenty of female toilets.
10:18 The number of female toilets outnumbered the male toilets.
10:21 I won't go into the details of that, but it was to do with the demography.
10:26 People realised at the time what was happening in football.
10:28 More and more women were attending matches, and they've been proved correct.
10:31 We're now in one of 48 executive boxes.
10:34 They're all on the second floor of the stadium, and very nice they are too.
10:39 Obviously used on a match day, but also sometimes during the week for meetings with various
10:43 people and companies who hire them.
10:48 You have your match day experience here, a lovely meal and a few drinkies, and then kick
10:53 off and you step outside, leaving your drink behind you.
10:56 There are no drinks allowed.
10:57 This is the law of the land, not the law of the stadium.
10:59 And you come out here.
11:01 These are the nice padded seats.
11:05 Beautiful view of the game.
11:06 The camera gallery is just below us, so you can hurl abuse at commentators and so forth.
11:11 No you don't, will you?
11:14 One of the best seats in the house.
11:16 This box here is actually a double box.
11:18 It knocks through there, and it serves as a studio when live coverage is given to Sunderland
11:24 home games.
11:25 So there's obviously some very famous people sat in here.
11:29 Roy Cain, for example, likes to contradict everybody else sitting around the table from
11:33 here.
11:35 Sometimes the fans will spot an old favourite, like Kevin Phillips, and they'll surge and
11:39 start singing his name and so forth.
11:42 Sometimes they'll see someone like Alan Shearer, and they don't tend to mention it as much.
11:46 This rather nice part of the building is the box holders bar.
11:50 So the executive boxes are one floor up from here, and at half time and full time, the
11:55 good box holders come here and disport themselves with a Pimms and Orange.
12:00 We won't go in the James Herriot suite because it's a bit busy at the moment.
12:03 But I can say that from memory, it's one of the nicest, but not the largest suite in the
12:11 stadium.
12:12 It is quite beautiful in there.
12:13 It's named after the author James Herriot, who, despite a lot of people out there who
12:18 were wrong about it, he was a Sunderland man.
12:20 He had a Scottish accent.
12:21 He was born in Sunderland and considered himself a Mackam.
12:24 He was born in Brandling Street in Roker, where a blue plaque was unveiled to him, finally,
12:30 in 2021.
12:31 And this place was named after him.
12:32 He was made life president of Sunderland AFC in 1993.
12:37 Unfortunately, he never got to see the stadium of light because he died in 1995.
12:43 But his children are still passionate Sunderland supporters and are regularly seen here.
12:48 This is the largest suite in the stadium.
12:52 It used to be just called the Banquetting Suite.
12:54 It's now the Montgomery Suite, named after Sunderland's record appearance maker, the
12:57 great goalkeeper, Jimmy Montgomery, of course.
13:00 You can get about 400 people in here and it's quite a sight on a match day.
13:04 It looks quite nice at the moment, actually, but when it's all laid out, band on the stage
13:08 there.
13:09 You get beautiful service in here and it's recommended for a number of functions.
13:13 They've been kind enough to let us in here.
13:15 So I should point out really that you can have your wedding here, 21st birthday or anniversary
13:21 or bar mitzvah, you name it.
13:22 This is the place to be.
13:23 This is the players lounge where after a match, the players and their wives and girlfriends
13:27 all come and socialize.
13:28 They're all very nice to each other.
13:30 You sometimes get visiting players in here as well.
13:32 I'm sure it's all very jolly.
13:35 Just for clarity, I actually used to work in the stadium of light and that wall, we
13:38 were told one time, to put up portraits of all the current players in alphabetical order
13:43 and we're supposed to have it done by the end of the day.
13:46 I got someone else to do it.
13:47 I can't use a screwdriver.
13:48 The problem was it was also a transfer deadline day.
13:52 So the lads who were putting it up had to merely hope that Suttler didn't sign anybody
13:56 whose name was lowered down the alphabet and they'd have to move the whole lot.
14:00 Now this is another inner sanctum.
14:02 It's the boardroom.
14:03 It's not really used very much outside of a match day and it's quite beautiful.
14:09 Now this table, beautiful round table, is made of pear wood.
14:15 It was made by the same company who made furniture for the Beatles.
14:18 The Beatles had a company called Apple and all of their furniture for their offices was
14:21 made from apple wood.
14:22 Pear wood is very soft and it needs special wax to clean it with.
14:26 You don't just whack a bit of Mr. Sheen on that.
14:29 The table cost in about 1997/98, because the boardroom wasn't open at first, it cost around
14:39 about £30,000.
14:40 So you're going back 25 years.
14:42 This is an expensive table so I don't know what it would cost now.
14:45 The chairs at the time, I think from memory, cost around £1,500 each and as I say 25 years
14:51 ago.
14:52 Consequently, we're too frightened to actually sit in them.
14:55 We should just admire them.
14:57 It's quite a beautiful room though.
14:59 And over there is what's called an ante room.
15:02 So all of the great and good have been in here from football, except for Roman Abramovich.
15:08 There's a story behind that which I better not tell to the camera.
15:12 Still in the boardroom and we're standing outside the finest conveniences known to man.
15:18 Really plush.
15:20 This is what would normally be called the gents.
15:22 You can't merely be a gent to use these though.
15:25 As you can see, you have to actually be a bonafide hero.
15:29 On the other side of the room, there's a similar room for heroines.
15:35 So when you stride out of the boardroom, you come and take up your seat in this, the director's
15:39 box.
15:40 So the seat I'm using will be used by perhaps the owner of the club.
15:45 Managers might sit here depending on how they want to watch the game and other VIPs.
15:49 There are seats further along which are padded and lovely.
15:54 These seats are even more padded and lovely, lovely.
15:57 Cost a few quid but if you've got the few quid, some people find it worth it.
16:03 A fantastic view of the game.
16:07 You miss nothing from any seat in the stadium actually but it's particularly nice here.
16:11 This by the way, in case you're interested, is just a barrier.
16:14 Transparent so you can see the match and not fall over.
16:17 Two great things.
16:18 The pitch is in beautiful nick.
16:20 It's been put back to the way it was after recent concerts by Beyonce and Pink.
16:25 It's mud on average every couple of days.
16:30 The floodlighting, it's not traditional anymore.
16:33 You rarely see floodlights on the old pylons such as at Roker Park.
16:38 They're on either side of the pitch.
16:41 There are about 130 in total and it costs around about £1,100 just to use them on a
16:49 match day when they're on all day.
16:51 I actually know where the switches are to turn the floodlights on and off but I'm not
16:55 going to tell you where they are.
16:57 What I will say is though, they're actually a bit disappointing.
17:01 They're just light switches such as you would have in your house where you might imagine
17:05 a great big handle such as you see in the horror films with lightning coming off it.
17:09 Nothing to say really.
17:13 Now we would have gone into what is Quinnies Bar these days.
17:17 It used to be just called the Sports Bar.
17:19 It's a couple of doors through there but they're doing some work at the moment.
17:22 It's going to be wonderful when it's done out.
17:24 That's also been there since day one.
17:27 Originally they were going to have a turnstile there.
17:30 In fact they did put the turnstile in but the gimmick was supposed to be that every
17:33 tenth person who walked through the turnstile, which is an old Roker Park turnstile, would
17:37 get a big cheer as they ended.
17:39 It never happened.
17:40 But there's all sorts of interesting paraphernalia in there including a fireplace from the boardroom
17:45 at Roker Park.
17:46 There are cabinets either side of the reception ostensibly to put trophies in so you can make
17:52 your own unpleasant jokes but there are still things to put in them.
17:56 This for example is dedicated to 1973.
17:58 We all know what happened then.
18:00 And there's a little trophy there that was the Sports Personality of the Year Award.
18:06 Sunderland were given Team of the Year for 1973.
18:08 And there's the trophy to prove it.
18:10 Well thank you for watching.
18:11 We hope you've enjoyed our little film.
18:13 And a very big thank you from us to Sunderland Football Club for their very generous access
18:18 they've given us to the beautiful Stadium of Light.
18:21 26 years old now but it's still the finest sports stadium within 250 miles of here.
18:27 It's not the biggest, it's still the best.
18:29 [Music]