CN reporter Joe Gallop visits Tottenham Hotspur Stadium attraction, the Dare Skywalk, on the week of its public launch
For all the criticism Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy has received from both his own club’s supporters and the football world in general, it’s fair to say he’s helped deliver one hell of a stadium in North London.
Alongside the longest bar in Europe, the £1bn Tottenham Hotspur Stadium boasts some impressive hospitality packages and concourses, featuring live music on some match days. With NFL matches and a Guns N’ Roses gig scheduled, there’s a clear focus on bringing other forms of entertainment to customers at the stadium. It’s come a long way since plans for a VIP cheese room were scrapped a couple of years ago.
The 62,850-capacity stadium, which opened in 2019, also has its own adrenaline-filled attraction, the Dare Skywalk. The 90-minute experience involves scaling the height of the stadium and stepping out onto the glass walkway 47-metres above the pitch, before choosing to rappel back down. Probably not one for the fainthearted…
On 24 June, the day of my 23rd birthday, and one day before its delayed public launch, I was lucky enough to try out the attraction at the home of my beloved Spurs.
While I wasn’t overly anxious, I had never felt nerves like that on a matchday, which is surprising considering the trauma the team has caused me over the years. After putting on the Skywalk gear – featuring a pair of all-black Nike trainers and a Tim Sherwood style gilet – followed by watching an engaging but not so reassuring safety video – it was time to head up.
Me and four others were strapped in with a harness and secured to a rail, sliding the safety hook up and down while lined up in single file like at Go Ape. Apart from anything the initial steep walk to the top was, despite being brief, a decent quad workout.
Of course the first thing to do when at the top is admire the overcast London Skyline and pick out some of the attractions; The Shard, BT Tower and the IKEA in Edmonton. There’s also some of the other stadiums you can see; Wembley, the London Stadium and that other smaller North London ground four miles away.
With house and garage bangers playing on the speaker and the chance for guests to purchase a drink, there’s a nice rooftop atmosphere up there and it’s probably even more enjoyable in a nighttime setting. It’s certainly not your average football stadium vibe.
Overlooking the retractable pitch, which takes just over an hour to convert into another one used for NFL or rugby matches, sits the iconic golden cockerel. We walked around the cockerel, contentedly patted it on our way, while we were given more facts by our instructor; did you know the Spurs single-tier South Stand can fit more fans than AFC Bournemouth’s entire stadium? And did you know when the old White Hart Lane cockerel was re-scaled for the new stadium, they recreated the bullet dents from when Paul Gascoigne shot it with an air rifle in the late eighties? Classic Gazza.
Before taking part in the ‘Edge’ abseil, you have the choice to face backward, forwards or just straight up refuse and head to the bottom. Having seen a daring gentleman face the ground horizontally in the previous group, I thought I would try the same. Except when I tried it, my jelly legs buckled, leaving me to dangle awkwardly for a couple of seconds just below the platform, before being safely levered down to the Park Lane Square.
While spinning in the surprisingly relaxing descent to the bottom, in one of the stadium windows I caught my reflection, which unfortunately due to the helmet and the tight harness squeezing my crotch, resembled an ungainly Boris Johnson hanging from a zip wire back in 2012.
But despite this, I had a fantastic time. Doing something thrilling with people you are not too familiar with is definitely a great way to build relationships and you would be hard-pressed to find a team building experience at a sports stadium quite as good as the Dare Skywalk. It’s just a shame we’ll never get to see that cheese room.
