The building at 22 Frith Street has a blue plaque that most people walk straight past. John Logie Baird demonstrated the world's first working television in its attic rooms in January 1926. Today, it's Bar Italia, and every World Cup, it carries that historic torch.
A neighbourhood built around public gathering
There are many places in London to drink, Soho was never just that. By the postwar decades it had become London's main creative engine, where advertising agencies, film editors and music studios packed into roughly one square mile. So when the World Cup arrived every four years, it’s no surprise that the neighbourhood already unusually good at gatherings was attuned to such festivities.
The 1966 final drew over 32 million UK viewers, it’s still the most-watched television event in British history despite our population grown a lot since then. Then came Italia 90 which was credited as the real moment football crossed class lines in England, pulling in audiences who otherwise hadn't thought the game was theirs. Soho was already moving into a media and creative quarter by 1990 so it absorbed that change almost immediately. The Premier League and Sky Sports in 1992 made it permanent - the connection between sport and social life in Soho has since been married.
The tournament that keeps Soho talking for weeks
A league season is long and cyclical, so the World Cup hits very differently. The group stage draws people, so there’s a constant buzz (even more than usual). But it’s the knockout rounds where suddenly every pub conversation has a thread running through it.
48 teams, 104 matches means 40 more games than usual. Because it’s in the same time frame, it just means more games per day, lending itself to more business and foot traffic in the area. It’s great for those who want to catch random games, as there’s always something on at night.
Fantasy football competitions, workplace sweepstakes and World Cup betting are all the hot topics of conversation, day and night, up and down Soho’s pubs.
Soho's most specific World Cup institution
Bar Italia on Frith Street was opened by the Polledri family in 1949, in what was then Soho's Italian quarter. Long before smartphones, jobs were found here by word of mouth and messages from families back in Italy were left at the bar.
During the 1982 World Cup, the bar was reportedly packed around a single television with no air conditioning, willing Italy through match by match. When Italy won in 2006, around 8,000 people gathered on Frith Street outside. The English Heritage Blue Plaque on the very same wall records Baird's first television demonstration at this address in 1926, the same building where Italy fans have cheered every tournament since.
Of course, Italy failed to make the tournament, and any slack left behind (hardly, really) is being picked up by other fans. With the additional countries, it’s allowed Soho to be less Italian-focused and more diverse. It shows you what Soho actually is, not one city, but many folded into a handful of streets.
