Can't move for farewell pieces on the Boleyn Ground. There's an artistic slow-motion BBC video of some iconic Green Street sites (including Ken's Cafe); yesterday's Observer had two-pages of memories from the likes of Stevie Bacon and Tony Cottee: Saturday's Guardian had a great piece by Owen Gibson that revealed how poorly the local traders have been treated (surely they should all be granted licences at the Olympic Park?) While The Daily Telegraph has a double-page feature talking to many of the usual suspects, Nathan's pie and mash, Gary Firmager and his stepladder, the West Ham Supporters' Club, the Tonkins brothers who run the two-for-one sweet stall and the nuns at Our Lady of Compassion church on Green Street. The Telegraph piece concludes: "So, it is a fundamental ambivalence that will frame Tuesday's curtain-call, an uncertainty that for all the financial benefits the Olympic Park might bestow, a large section of the community is losing its hub, its spiritual heart." All well worth a read, if your tear ducts can take it.
Great video on West Ham leaving the Boleyn produced by the Guardian today. Includes interviews with many people involved in match days, such as Nathan's pies and eels, Gary Firmager of OLAS, the nuns who can see the ground from their window, the two for one sweets man and the Stevie Bacon burger stall. The video certainly gets over the feeling that a little more of the Premier League millions should have been spent on ensuring local traders can transfer to Stratford. It also includes Ronnie Boyce and former ICF man Bill Gardner, who has some great quotes about his troubled past sleeping in a graveyard in Aldgate East and a nice line in humour: "I've got it in my will that my ashes will be scattered on the pitch. But now they've sold it, I'll probably be in the mango aisle in Safeways." Click on the link to view.
