The stadium

kevinchicharitokevinchicharito
in Stadium & Training Ground
I am a big hammer from Norway, been to the new stadium a couple of times. Haven't been to Boleyn, (only watched every documentary about it) but just can't help the bitterness of missing the ground and the old West Ham feeling.
What do you guys actually think of the stadium and the atmosphere.
Do you guys think we will move away from London Stadium anytime soon? and actually get our own stadium.
Anyways good game yesterday, we really looked like an football team today, give him 10 years!

Comments

  • buffybegoodbuffybegood
    It's been a while since I last went to the London Stadium, and I wasn't that impressed tbh, and, reading here and on other forums, it's only getting worse (in part by the fact that it's starting to age already). The main thing for me is the stadium itself, the fans are so far away from the pitch. It wasn't designed to be a football stadium, or even a permanent stadium of the current size as the top half was supposed to be dismantled leaving capacity at about 23k I think. The rake of the seating is just too shallow, so, even allowing for the athletics track, the shallow rake means that the seats go out rather than up, and it isn't anywhere near as easy to create a good atmosphere. I'm not saying a good atmosphere is impossible, just that it's much harder.

    Added to this is the fact that a constant complaint seems to be the number of neutral supporters or, even worse, openly opposition fans in the home sections which not only dilutes the atmosphere but has started to lead to trouble between opposing fans within home sections.

    As to moving away, my gut feeling is that we're going to stick it out until we're allowed to buy the stadium; it's losing millions of pounds every year, and the maintenance costs are only going to keep rising. Whether we then look to buy it to build a new, purpose built stadium on the site, or only buy it with planning permission to completely redevelop a prime piece of real estate into, say, housing with us moving to a new site, who knows? I can't see the stadium still in council hands in 20 years' time if it's still losing a fortune and costing Londoners money each and every year, thanks to a lease they can't get out of.
  • ASLEFshruggedASLEFshrugged
    edited January 29
    Where would we move?

    There’s nowhere to build a stadium in Newham so it would be outside the borough and given the cost of land it might have to be outside London

    Wherever we went there wouldn’t be the level of public transport that Stratford has
  • OutcastLondonerOutcastLondoner
    You can’t create atmosphere if most people don’t want to get involved. Plenty of grumbling but so many actually just stay quiet whenever someone tries to get a song going. It’s not about neutrals, I’ve got a season ticket right next to the away fans, which is probably one of the best parts of the stadium but still can be very disappointing.

    Stadium’s not great but I think it’s more about the modern premier league fan.
  • claretandblueskyclaretandbluesky
    I suspect we will remain as tenants until the Govt feel they can off load it without too much political kickback. At that point we will buy it at a good price using the work needing doing as the means to negotiate down. We will then redevelop what's there into a slightly better football stadium. I imagine this will take place after a new owner comes in for us. I felt sure that Kaplinsky was going to buy out Sullivan and Gold's shares once the sales clause with the Govt had expired, but with his purchase of the Post Office he may have changed his intentions.
  • buffybegoodbuffybegood
    edited January 29
    I'm guessing you meant Kretinsky and Royal Mail? Not sure who Kaplinsky (Natasha? 🤣😂🤣) is and no-one is buying the Post Office, certainly not while the mis-carriage of justice is still being resolved.
  • claretandblueskyclaretandbluesky
    edited January 29
    That's the one...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg93390808o

    This is where it's at at present regard Royal Mail. He seems very committed to it.
  • ASLEFshruggedASLEFshrugged
    The stadium is owned by the Mayor of London/Greater London Authority rather than the government and the sales clause expired in March 2023

    When asked in July about selling Sadiq Khan said "If a deal was too good to say no to then we’d have to have a conversation". I don't think we'll be getting it cheap
  • buffybegoodbuffybegood
    ASLEFshrugged said:

    The stadium is owned by the Mayor of London/Greater London Authority rather than the government and the sales clause expired in March 2023

    When asked in July about selling Sadiq Khan said "If a deal was too good to say no to then we’d have to have a conversation". I don't think we'll be getting it cheap

    Give it another 15 years of losing millions of pounds each year, with necessary maintenance costs rising, and I think they'll just be looking to offload it. By that stage the people making the decisions will be distanced from the original deal and any legacy sentiment; they'll just be looking at how much it's costing them every year.

  • ASLEFshruggedASLEFshrugged
    A bit of context

    Stadium loss 2023/24
    £20.9m

    Total GLA expenditure inc Met Police, TfL
    2023/24
    £16.3bn
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