The Bubbles burst
HAMMERS HAVE LOST THIER HEART
WEST HAM used to be associated with Green Street – now it’s Greed Street.
That’s the conclusion after seeing how the Hammers have languished since moving to the London Stadium.
The financial temptation was just too great to move from the Boleyn Ground to an arena where, due to the running track around the former Olympic Stadium, it feels more like watching Subbuteo.
Some fans have even been spotted viewing their flops this season with binoculars.
As for the atmosphere, there isn’t any and the walk to the stadium – along a closed-off road from Stratford Station – is simply depressing.
The only thing of note on my stroll last Sunday, for the 3-0 home defeat by Southampton, was a bored-looking woman with one of those giant floppy hands on, with the word stadium on it.
The trouble was it was upside down and she was standing in a position with the giant building right behind her.
Inside the concrete edifice, there’s no heart and soul or domestic football history and its no coincidence that the Irons have lost their mettle, making their worst start to a season ever, losing five out of six games. Upton Park had intimacy and was – at times – intimidating, with the club’s admirably frank-talking skipper Mark Noble stating on Sunday that it would guarantee the Hammers 20 points a season. Slaven Bilic and his team seem stunned by their new surroundings and who can blame them, with the stadium being about 90 per cent empty by the end of the Saints match? It was ironic this week that Sam Allardyce, a former Hammers boss, lost his job as England coach due largely to him wanting to pick up some easy cash. That, surely, was the lure of the London Stadium for the West Ham board, with the 80,000 venue more than doubling the capacity of the Boleyn Ground in one fell swoop and the club reaping the instant rewards which come with it.
It is still early in the season but the Hammers’ cunning plan already seems to have backfired badly.
Tottenham, who were West Ham’s rivals to move into the London Stadium, planned to knock it down and rebuild it as a dedicated football ground, pointing out as far back as January 2011 how woefully inadequate it was for the game.
David Keirle, the chairman of Spurs’ architects KSS, said at the time: “It’s a sophisticated Meccano set.
“It does what it’s meant to do – provides a great experience for athletics. Football is different. Our whole design is based on bringing fans closer to the pitch.”
On that topic – and speaking as a Colchester fan who still pines for Layer Road, rather than the bland and uninspiring Weston Homes Community Stadium which the Us now play in – why don’t clubs come up with stadium designs that inspire and amaze rather than the usual sporting variation of a new supermarket?
Or would that impact on the number of seats – and the resulting revenue – that can be crammed in?