Sport & Fitness

Time Out recently had four staff members in training for the London Triathlon, which is all very well if you like that kind of thing but nothing compared to the exhausting sporting quadrathlon I am about to undergo. A company called Sport 4 All Seasons has just launched a £40 ticket that offers behind-the-scenes tours of three of London’s top sporting venues – Lord’s, Twickenham and Wimbledon – plus Stamford Bridge. The ticket is valid for 12 months, but I’m going to see if I can do all four in one day. Now that’s what I consider a sporting challenge.

We start at Lord’s, which is humming in preparation for the day’s Army v Navy match. Tours here are conducted by MCC members – there are 18,000 to choose from – and so have a tendency to follow the whims of the enthusiastic amateur. Happily, Michael, our guide, proves to be on the chirpier end of the buffer scale, willing to give Twenty20 a guarded welcome but still beholden to the traditions of the place.

Indeed, in this respect Lord’s makes an intriguing contrast to our second stop, Stamford Bridge, where tradition is less pronounced and the financial aspects of professionalism harshly emphasised (a rundown of the club sponsors is cringeworthy). The downside is that the Lord’s focus on the Long Room, the Pavilion, the Bowlers’ Bar (for ‘players’, when they were still distinguished from ‘gentlemen’), the real tennis court and the egalitarian home and away dressing rooms can’t help but make the ground seem stuck in the past rather than quaint. However, it does boast the most architecturally interesting building we see all day, the still-sensational Media Centre. Feature continues

Stamford Bridge’s redevelopment, constrained as it was by time and money, did not allow for such bravura touches. Although it is a decent enough place, it is also a perfect example of football’s unimaginative post-Taylor design. A large-scale model of the ground circa 1950 is in the club’s excellent museum, and this detailed recreation of a once-whimsical stadium is a tour highlight.

Another highlight is the dressing room. At Lord’s, Michael had been critical about stadia that allow disparity in such facilities: cricket’s HQ prides itself on offering exactly the same to the home team as it does the away (one reason for England’s lamentable record there?), partly for reasons of fair play but also because the ground is often used by neutral teams for cup finals. Would such an attitude hold at a club stadium, and in a sport as cut-throat as football?

Almost, it seems. While the Chelsea home dressing room is undoubtedly more comfortable (‘It needs to be, because the players are often in here three times a week,’ points out our guide, Trudy), the away room is perfectly acceptable, bar one or two cheeky little touches. The tactics board hidden behind the front door is masterful – one of many innovations by José Mourinho, the subject of numerous rich anecdotes.

It’s a surprising contrast to our fourth stop, Twickenham, where rugby’s moral superiority to football is often espoused by beer-soaked bores and where finals involving neutral teams are regularly staged. Here, the away dressing room is hugely inferior to the one usually designated to England, offering the home team an obvious advantage. Back at Lord’s, Michael would be horrified. Otherwise, the tour – conducted by Wasps fan Barney – is impressive, with the view from the top of the towering North Stand offering the biggest single ‘wow’ moment of the day.

But the best tour is the one that precedes Twickers, at Wimbledon – even if we aren’t allowed to look inside the changing rooms. This is partly thanks to Andy, a blue-badge guide who brings a noticeable touch of professionalism to the art, and partly to do with the venue. There is history here in abundance but never in your face. There are contemporary buildings – No 1 Court is a low-key classic. And there is an overriding sense that this is a venue regularly looking ahead to anticipate challenges and dealing with them elegantly. That it is only in use for a fortnight every year probably helps.

The net result is an impeccably maintained venue which maintains a perfect balance between the sometimes overbearing tradition of Lord’s and the modern trappings of Stamford Bridge and Twickenham. But see all four and judge for yourself. And if you can do them all in one day, welcome to the club. Triathlon, pah!

Tour de force
One man, four venues, eight hours...

08.45 St John's Wood tube
09.00 Lord's tour and museum
10.30 Tube to Fulham Broadway
11.10 Stamford Bridge tour and museum
12.30 Tube to Southfields
13.15 Quick lunch
13.30 Wimbledon tour
14.35 Taxi to Twickenham
15.15 Twickenham tour
16.45 Well-deserved drink

Sport 4 All Seasons (020 7915 2915/www.sport4allseasons.com).