The Principality Stadium
A national stadium with a roof that closes in minutes, a city-centre site beside the River Taff, and a spell as a Covid field hospital. Meet Cardiff's great bowl.
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Quick Facts
- Location
- Westgate Street, central Cardiff, beside the River Taff
- Opened
- June 1999, as the Millennium Stadium
- Renamed
- Principality Stadium in 2016, after a sponsorship deal
- Capacity
- Around 74,500 for rugby and football
- Special feature
- Fully retractable roof, closing in about 20 minutes
- Built on
- The site of the old National Stadium at Cardiff Arms Park
- Owner
- Welsh Rugby Union
- Big occasions
- Rugby World Cup 1999, FA Cup finals 2001–06, Champions League final 2017
The stadium that hides in plain sight
Most stadiums sit on the edge of town. This one is wedged into the middle of Cardiff, a few minutes' walk from the castle and the main railway station. On match days, tens of thousands of people pour out of the pubs of St Mary Street and straight through the gates. The four tall masts at the corners hold up the roof, and they make the place visible from across the city centre. That is the Principality Stadium's trick: it looks enormous because it is enormous, and it is surrounded by streets and shops.
Why Wales built a new national stadium
The ground stands on the old Cardiff Arms Park, the home of Welsh rugby for generations. The previous National Stadium there was developed in stages from 1969 and completed in 1984. By the 1990s it was reaching the end of its life, and the Welsh Rugby Union wanted something that could host a Rugby World Cup. So the old ground came down and a new one went up, built by John Laing and designed by the Lobb Partnership with engineers WS Atkins. The timing was tight. While it was being finished, Wales played home games at Wembley. That included the 1999 Five Nations clash with England, when Scott Gibbs scored a late try and Neil Jenkins kicked the winning conversion, giving Wales a 32–31 victory. The new stadium opened in June 1999, and Wales beat South Africa for the first time in its opening match, 29–19. The stadium was then the main stage for the opening of the 1999 Rugby World Cup.
A roof that changes the noise
The retractable roof is the stadium's party piece. It takes roughly 20 minutes to close, and when it does, the sound has nowhere to go. The Welsh national anthem, Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, then rattles around the bowl in a way that regularly gives players goosebumps. The hymns help, too. Calon Lân and Cwm Rhondda ("Bread of Heaven") are sung by tens of thousands of voices, and the roof is a big reason Cardiff on a Six Nations afternoon is one of the loudest places in sport. It also lets the stadium switch between very different jobs. The turf is a hybrid pitch that can be laid over, and for events such as speedway and motorsport the pitch has been covered and the arena turned into a racetrack.
The football years
When the old Wembley closed for rebuilding, Cardiff briefly became the home of English football's showpieces. The FA Cup final was played here every year from 2001 to 2006, and the League Cup final moved to Wales as well. Liverpool beat Arsenal in the 2001 FA Cup final, the first to be played in Cardiff. The stadium later staged football at the 2012 London Olympics. In June 2017 it hosted the UEFA Champions League final, which Real Madrid won 4–1 against Juventus. For a city of Cardiff's size, that was a very big night.
From rugby ground to field hospital
In spring 2020 the stadium did something no one had planned for. During the first wave of Covid-19, its concourses and hospitality areas were converted into a field hospital called Dragon's Heart Hospital, with space for hundreds of patients in the first phase and room to expand much further. It was a striking contrast: a place built for crowds was turned into an emergency ward for the nation.
Names, nicknames and what to look for
For its first 17 years it was the Millennium Stadium. In 2016 Principality Building Society took the naming rights, and the stadium became the Principality Stadium. Plenty of fans still call it the Millennium. If you visit, look up at the masts and the roof structure from the riverside, and then walk round to see how closely the stadium is squeezed between the Taff and the city streets. Next door is Cardiff Arms Park, where Cardiff Rugby play, a reminder that the national stadium and the club ground share the same patch of Welsh rugby history. Stadium tours take you into the changing rooms and down the tunnel, which is the best way to understand just how close the pitch is to the city outside.
Notable people
- Scott Gibbs
- Neil Jenkins
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