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Pete Jenkins: a trek around and through the Millennium Stadium

I had been photographing at Cardiff Arms Park for nearly two decades when they decided to knock it down, pick what was left up,  turn it through 90 degrees and rebuild it again. Photographing Wales beating England at Wembley was certainly one happy moment that came about from the rebuild it is true (I can't find the negs for that game either, although I do have the Wales South Africa set).  I remember turning up at the ground. I had parked the bike close by (probably near Wales News Pictures as I knew the then team quite well having wired from there a few times), and walked to the ground.

Of course in the good old days it was little more than a walk across the road, and bish-bash-bosh I was in the ground.  My memories are of walking around the ground looking vainly for the new entrance. As a photographer I was expected to arrive at the ground many hours before kick-off, often it seems before an staff had turned up, certainly before any press officers appeared to be present.  However I digress (again). Eventually I found it the entrance and was given my instructions. I had to walk down to the basement, (The car park), and then walk around the circumference of the stadium through (if I counted correctly), 17 fire-doors. Each huge heavy duty and very shut, that had to be prised open and shut again behind me.

Now I accept that opening and shutting a few doors doesn't really sound too arduous does it, not really, so what is the man whingeing about. Let me explain.  This was back in the good old days of film. Digital was not quite with us, and would not be wide-spread amongst sports photographers  for a few months yet. Indeed this would have been one of the last events before the arrival for the Nikon D1, a 2.7 mega-pixel digital camera produced by Nikon and introduced in June 1999. The first of the truly useable digital cameras for professionals - at the World Cup a few months later quite a few people had them, but not for the Wales v SA match in June.  So I carried three quite substantial bags full of my indispensable professional photo kit. On my back I had a British Army Bergen 100litre+ sized affair which contained a negative scanner, computer, and modem, as well as all the other digital detritus so necessary for sending digitised images down phone lines.  Not a light set of kit.

In my left hand, I carried a bag that was not much smaller, which contained a colour film processor as well as all the chemicals required to make it work, and in my right what seemed to be  the world's largest camera bag with at least three bodies, one long focus lens (600mm probably), a 200mm f1.8, and a small selection of shorter lenses and a flashgun (just in case). Sherpa Tensing had nothing on me a professional sports photographer walking to the ground.

So having negotiated the Boulevard Périphérique of the Millennium Stadium, I was not done, although in theory I was probably no more than a few yards as the crow flies from where I would likely be working that afternoon.  No, the next  part of my Sherpa Tensing impression involved climbing many flights of stairs (including security doors) until I got to the Main Press Area.  Either there were no lifts, or they were not working, or just as likely as being a lowly photographer I was not allowed access to them, so the hence the continued Sherpa Tensing pack mule impression.  The press Room/area was the  pinnacle of my journey, well at least height-wise, but not the end, oh no, next I had to traverse the room, watched by a few bemused blunts, Radio and TV reporters, and unidentified hangers-on who all had arrived early, almost certainly to take advantage of the catering put on for the occasion. then out through the glass doors and down the terraces onto the pitch, and down again into the depths of the stadium to where the sports smudgers were hidden away with their bags of magic kit to process film, scan negatives and transmit their work back to their masters in London.  Once my kit was deposited, I had to go and stake my claim on my allocated photo spot, before returning to the dark place to set up all my magic toys.

There was no question that despite the (what seemed like) route marching required to get pitch-side, the Millennium Stadium was pretty impressive, and still is I am sure.

Memory added on July 3, 2021

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