Will we move to the Olympic Stadium? Last week The Standard revealed that the athletics track will have a guaranteed 100-year-lease and that home matches would have to be moved if an international athletics tournament clashed with the football season. Now David Gold has told TalkSport of his doubts, saying:
"I have mixed feelings. The Olympic Stadium is very exciting, but we need a consultancy procedure with our fans, that is important. I am ruling out developing the Boleyn, that would be pouring money down the drain. But what we can't do is nothing. West Ham have been at the Boleyn for over 100 years. I believe we are the eighth largest supported club in the country, and yet we perform more like the 20th biggest, and that's because we are at the Boleyn. So we have to change that. The obvious change that everyone is looking at is the Olympic Stadium. But there is a doubt, there are issues unresolved."
Not sure why he blames the Boleyn for our ills, we could still redevelop it to a 40,000 plus stadium by rebuilding the East Stand. But the alternative, the Olympic Stadium is far from a done deal.
4 comments:
The contraditions are very concerning. Read the quotes here from Gold and then balance them against comments from him on Twitter 24 hours later when he says that staying at the Boleyn would not be a disaster and that if the OS falls through that is exactly what we will do, but without any further development of the ground. So how does that balance with the words 'doing nothing isn't an option'?
Its good to communicate with the fans but to do so with statements that are totally at odds with each other is worse than saying nothing at all. He is simply losing the goodwill of those who have offered their support.
I agree - in any case he should be talking up the Boleyn as an option if he wants to negotiate a cheaper rent for the Olympic Stadium. And is it worth selling a stadium to rent one?
I thought we had planning permission from the Brown Out years to rebuild the East Stand (home to the real cognoscenti of course) and do the corners, which would take capacity over 40,000. Mind you, they also said they would refurb the Tube station, and that never happened.
Whatever it happens, it can't be as bad as Coventry, who moved from a city centre ground that was easy to get to, to one that is almost 7 miles away, with no station (unlike Bolton, say), and no car parking. How us real fans are meant to get there on Saturday is anyone's guess....
There are no pubs there either! It's set among roundabouts and car parks and soulless... so bad they have to play Chelsea Dagger if City score to try and generate some atmosphere.
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