West Ham announced this week an agreement to sell Upton Park to London developer the Galliard Group. Such an announcement was an inevitability given we are due to move into a new stadium in two years, but that did not stop an outpouring of grief from a large section of supporters.
Not only am I happy to be moving to the Olympic Stadium, I am more than comfortable with saying goodbye to the Boleyn Ground. Though it will be sad to no longer see James Collins whacking aimless long balls on the pitch that Bobby Moore once graced, sometimes in life you just have to move on.
Here are the ten things I will miss the least.
Catering staff
Catering staff is probably the wrong term. I’m not sure what the word is for an east London teenager who stares at you like you’ve just asked him to name the first 50 digits of Pi, needs to ask for assistance in making a cup of tea, pours the tea over himself, doesn’t know where the lids are (they’ve run out), gives your tea to someone else, can’t work the till and gives you the wrong change. He also charges you £1.20 for a Yorkie, but that’s not his fault.
One chip shop between the tube station and the West Stand (where I sit)
I know what you’re thinking – couldn’t you just eat before you come out? Sorry, but if I’m going to the football I want to eat some good-quality junk food. There is also a chip shop behind the Bobby Moore Stand with a queue, such as the one on Green Street that snakes halfway down the Barking Road. But unless you arrive more than an hour before kick off, your pre-match build up will largely consist of standing in this queue. Of course you may do something else before the game such as visiting the ticket office or club shop in which case your pre-match build up will largely consist of, er, standing in a queue.
Upton Park tube station
Yup, you guessed it – queues. It’s not just before the game that’s the problem. Unless you leave the ground before the end of the match, you will be joining a scrum of people jostling to make it, not into the station, but to the back of the queue. East Ham aside, the alternatives – Canning Town, West Ham – cannot be reached on foot much under 40 minutes. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people leave the ground before the end of the match to save time. How many times have you heard the tedious chant of ‘Is there a fire drill?’ from the away end. The sight of fans filing out of the ground cannot be particularly inspiring for the players.
Those stupid bloody castles in front of the West Stand
This is a place of football, not Disneyland.
The bogs
The toilets are a good size for a large pub, not so good for a football stadium that holds 35,000 people. The cubicles – of which there are probably fifty in the entire ground – can be used for a poo up until about 2.30pm on matchdays, after which point smokers and people who like to piss all over the seats have priority.
The East Stand
I know, I know – the Chicken Run, the history. In years gone by the fans in the front rows were right on top of the players, an undoubted bonus against weaker-willed opposition. But with that competitive advantage now gone, the stand just makes the ground look disproportionate – like Elland Road or Filbert Street.
Treatment of away fans
Not one match goes past when, as I walk from the tube towards the West Stand, I don’t see away fans walking in the opposite direction with disgruntled looks on their faces. At first, I assumed they were just dissatisfied with the service they had received when trying to buy a onesie from the club shop. It turns out, of course, that there are no signs outside the tube station explaining to away fans the convoluted and not at all obvious route they need to take to get to their side of the Sir Trev Stand. There are other nice touches laid on such as charging over £50 for the privilege of visiting E13 as well as not bothering to read out their team’s line up. I’m not an avid reader of the bible but, as someone who has visited dozens of grounds as an away supporter, I do go along with that “do unto others” stuff.
Positioning of the away fans
And yet and yet … once they are in the ground, where do we locate them? Do we tuck them away in an upper tier out of harm’s way, St James’s Park style? Along the side of the pitch away from the goals, as per Villa Park, Goodison Park, etc. No, we stick them right behind the goal. We have conceded more goals at home than away so far this season. 63% of opposition goals at Upton Park have been scored in front of the away fans, with free-kick takers (Leighton Baines, Jermaine Pennant, Yohan Cabaye, for example) appearing particularly relaxed when scoring their inch-perfect winning goals.
The big gaps either side of the East Stand
A bit too Britannia Stadium.
I have seen some right old shit in that ground
I have no problem with sentimentality but let’s not get too rose-tinted glasses about this. Yes, this stadium (or the stadium as it once was) has been graced by Bobby Moore, Trevor Brooking, Billy Bonds and many more legends. But most people attending matches in 2014, myself included, do not remember all that. I am old enough to eulogise Paolo Di Canio, Julian Dicks and – just about – Alan Devonshire. But for every great performance featuring such a player there were ten other nightmares.
John Fashanu steamrollering us in our first Premier League game; turning a 3-0 lead into a 3-4 defeat (more than once); some absolute hammerings (0-4 QPR 1993, 1-4 Aston Villa 1995, 1-5 Leeds 1999 … ); countless failed attempts to beat Millwall; drawing with Farnborough; nearly losing to Emley; losing to Wrexham; half a season without victory under Roeder; the Crystal Palace match that was called off halfway through when the floodlights went out ...
The fact that it keeps drawing me back
Hundreds of times. To paraphrase Thom Yorke, the Boleyn Ground, full of accidents waiting to happen, is like a siren singing us to shipwreck. In that sense, nothing really compares to it.
Tenuous tune of the week: Radiohead, There There
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