A huge TV screen showing England's World Cup games in the centre of Birmingham has collapsed in high winds.

The digital screen made up of LED cubes at Millennium Point's Fan Park - one of Europe's largest - was tipped over on Tuesday afternoon. No-one was hurt.

 

It was designed to fall backwards so the LED cubes did not smash.

 

A smaller screen has beeng brought in by organisers for the Sweden v England game, which is expected to attract thousands of fans.

 

The larger screen, measuring 6m high by 10m wide (20ft by 30ft) is held up by scaffolding and the area surrounding it had already been cordoned off because of fears about it collapsing in the high winds.

 

'Twisted scaffolding'

 

David Nelson, who was filming for the council at Fan Park, said: "I was setting my camera up and everyone was looking at the screen and thinking 'that is going to go'.

 

"There were groans around the ground when it fell. It is all twisted scaffolding now."

 

Officials said the screen had been lowered to the ground on Monday night as high winds were forecast.

 

Just minutes before the accident 20 workers had been working on the structure but the area was evacuated just before the screen came down.

 

One of the workers at the site, Ashley Clarke, said: "I was standing at the side and the engineers said 'That's going to go in a minute, it's swaying in the wind'.

 

"We watched it going forward and back and it just fell down and hit the floor."

 

Safety concerns

 

Birmingham City Council, which is operating the screen, said workers were in the process of securing the structure but before they could act a "freak gust of wind" toppled the screen.

 

 

Two thousand people had already bought tickets to watch the England v Sweden game on the screen.

 

 

Kevin Brown, head of events at the city council, said: "It's business as usual and obviously we want everyone to turn up and have a good time.

 

"We did notice some movement in the screen earlier in the day but before we could take remedial action it toppled over.

 

"Safety is our primary concern and we will be working closely with technicians and safety officers to ensure the continuation of what has been a great success so far."

 

Sponsors T-mobile said fans attending the England v Sweden game will be given free tickets for both second round matches on Saturday and Sunday to be screened at the park.

 

The city council decided to limit the screening of England games to the Fan Park site because of fears of violence.

 

Trouble erupted at open air screenings in the city during the Euro 2004 tournament.

 

Last week nearly 3,000 football fans turned up to see England's match against Trinidad and Tobago.

 

Fans are charged £3.50 to watch England games at the park.

 

 

 

See the video here

:stunned: Blimey! <-- thats in honour of you! :P

gee thanks missus!!!! :P can't be corrupting you with swear words now, can I?

 

you watching tonight?

listening in spanish radio from work... :wink3: I perfer the Spanish speaking announcers over the Americans.. lol they are much more animated!! lol

 

Go ENGLAND!!!! :sneaky:

ace!! I can imagine the spanish being better commentators.

yea.. whenever a goal is scored they go like this..

 

"GOL GOL GOL GOL!!! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!"

 

its quite entertaining...

^ they are, here in Australia you'd think we'd have some with aussie accents

but they sound british and for most of the game they are quite calm. I don't mind it though cause they sometimes sneak little witty remarks.

"There were groans around the ground when it fell. It is all twisted scaffolding now."

 

Officials said the screen had been lowered to the ground on Monday night as high winds were forecast.

 

Just minutes before the accident 20 workers had been working on the structure but the area was evacuated just before the screen came down.

 

One of the workers at the site, Ashley Clarke, said: "I was standing at the side and the engineers said 'That's going to go in a minute, it's swaying in the wind'.

 

"We watched it going forward and back and it just fell down and hit the floor."

 

 

 

See the video here

 

 

woah! luckly no one was hurt

listening in spanish radio from work... :wink3: I perfer the Spanish speaking announcers over the Americans.. lol they are much more animated!! lol

 

Go ENGLAND!!!! :sneaky:

lol for some reason, there's this one random irish guy who commentates, it's quite funny. and when italy played the us, they brought someone from the italian delegation to commentate. needless to say, that was QUITE interesting :laugh3:

yea.. whenever a goal is scored they go like this..

 

"GOL GOL GOL GOL!!! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!"

 

its quite entertaining...

 

the english commentators were quite witty last night. Gareth Southgate was on form, a couple of times he had me giggling away!