The Olympic Stadium [new poll]

[paulhs1]

Now I usually hate the Daily Tory-graph, but this is a fantastic article that summarises exactly why we find ourselves in the ludicrous situation today of being lumbered with that ‘effin Running Track, that could and should have been avoided back in 2006!!

At least the iclandics had the right idea buy insiting that they would not take OS with the track, even Hearn and Orient didn't and still doesn't want it as a 25,000 seater stadium with a track, but we may get lumbered with it!

Every time I look at pictures of the stadium I want to throw up,even after you have taken into account the track there is still extra space behind that before you get to the seats, we will be miles away!

These plans by gold and Sullivan better me something special!

[Doc H Ball]

WestHam IFC's post sums up the whole sorry saga perfectly. The club looked at this a few times and came to the obvious conclusion that the stadium would not work for football without configuration BEFORE building and not afterwards.

Gold/Sullivan/Brady then caved in completely. They should have submitted effectively the same plans as the Totts.

I never thought I'd say this, but I really hope Barry Hearn wins.

[paulhs1]

WestHam IFC's post sums up the whole sorry saga perfectly. The club looked at this a few times and came to the obvious conclusion that the stadium would not work for football without configuration BEFORE building and not afterwards.

Gold/Sullivan/Brady then caved in completely. They should have submitted effectively the same plans as the Totts.

I never thought I'd say this, but I really hope Barry Hearn wins.

Gold, sullivan and Brady must now realise how soft they have been in agreeing to keep the track. It actually looks more desperate then anything and clearly shows that they want the stadium at any cost!

[LondonPride]

To be honest I think Barry Hearn has been completely hypocritical and stupid in his remarks. One moment he thinks any club moving in there will kill Orient (which I don't buy, Orient's attendances I highly doubt will be affected, simply because they are so close knit and small), but he then doesn't mind a club moving there if he gets the Hockey Stadium, so he is perfectly happy to move into the same complex.

[GideaParkHammer]

Being restless at work, I was looking at the Orient Forum to see what their views were on the OS.http://leytonorient2.com/forum/viewtopi ... f149b52a63.

As you can see there is an interesting reply that clearly shows the Premier League's viewpoint on both the proposed Spurs and West Ham bids of the OS.

Thanks to Amanda from FSF for this
This is PL's reply to a supporter who wrote about the Olymoic Stadium . Am assuming it's a generic reply that anybody contacting them will have received:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The first point to stress is that the Premier League has no view on the merits of the two bids. The decision on which bids to shortlist and then on which to select lies entirely with the OPLC itself.

Our focus in this matter is solely that of considering whether the bids from the Clubs, Tottenham Hotspur FC and West Ham United FC, breach our Rules, specifically Rules I 5 and I 6.

In reaching our decision we took into account that West Ham fans who were expressing opinions on the matter, although showing some desire to remain at Upton Park, on balance supported the proposal to move to the Olympic Stadium site. Similarly it seemed that most of the THFC fans who were expressing their opinions on the matter did not support a move to Stratford. These indications seemed so clear that we felt nothing was to be gained by undertaking further fan consultation on the subject.

We received the views of Leyton Orient FC, the football Club most local to the Stratford site. They felt that they could support neither move but felt that the WHUFC option would pose them the greater problem because they have a smaller fanbase than THFC. LOFC felt that WHUFC would, via cheap ticket offers and other methods, recruit more energetically from football supporters in the immediate area, whereas THFC has a larger and more dispersed fanbase, so would sell out a larger stadium more readily and therefore be less of a threat to them.

In addition, we took the view that the safety and security factors that form such a large part of the planning and development of the Olympic site will mean that policing football matches on the same site would not be worse than those dealt with by the Police at other grounds.

Taking into account these views the Board of the Premier League came to the decision that neither THFC nor WHUFC should be barred from bidding for the site. The distance of the site from White Hart Lane is about 5.5 miles, that from Upton Park is about 2.5. Should the OPLC allow either Club to obtain the site then neither fan base would have any difficulty travelling to matches there due to the exceptional transport facilities at Stratford. It was also noted that White Hart Lane and Upton Park are linked by the shared geography of the Lee Valley with the river and lands around them where north and east London merge into each other and there is no defined boundary between the two.

The Premier League also needs to take into account the interests of all fans, not just those who live within the shadows of White Hart Lane or Upton Park. Ruling out either bid on the grounds that a move was too far would create a difficult precedent for any Club in a highly contested urban where land on which to build a stadium is difficult to come by.



Thank you for making us aware of your feeling.



Kind regards,



Supporter Services

[Bada Bada Bing]

Hmmmm...

from The Guardian:- http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog ... ic-stadium" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Boris Johnson and Tottenham

In the recent Commons debate about the Spurs bid, Tottenham MP David Lammy spoke diplomatically of "rumours" that the Mayor had encouraged the club's chairman Daniel Levy to seek to move into Olympic bowl post-2012. Though I'd prefer West Ham to win and Spurs to stay in Tottenham I've argued that if Boris did egg Levy on he has a perfectly serviceable defence against any criticism this might attract. I can see too why Boris might prefer no one to know about it, given that he and the government will have the final say over the stadium's fate and in view of the fractious, potentially litigious, tone of recent public exchanges between representatives of Spurs and the Hammers.

Might that explain why the Mayor's office is taking such a long time to respond to a Freedom of Information request by Lammy about any correspondence, phone calls, meetings and so on between Boris and Spurs, the Olympic Park Legacy Company and Transport for London concerning the stadium or the club's proposals for redeveloping White Hart Lane? The request was made on 5 November last year. On 29 November City Hall replied:

The GLA does hold information that is relevant to your request Some of this information may, in our view, be subject to the exemptions at section 36 (prejudice to the effective conduct of public affairs) and section 43 (commercial interests) of the Freedom of Information Act. Section 10(3) of the FOI Act allows public authorities to extend to period for responding to requests if information requested may be subject to an exemption and more time is needed to consider the public interest arguments.

It was explained that it was "necessary" to extend the deadline to 24 December. This new deadline came and went. Nineteen days later Lammy had still received no reply. He wrote to City Hall again, pointing this out. The pursuit continued by phone the following day (yesterday). According to Lammy's office City Hall said the information was being gathered but couldn't say when it would be supplied except that it would be "soon." Now that the Olympic Park Legacy Company has postponed deciding which bid it prefers it will interesting to see how soon "soon" turns out to be.

[ottsands]

I think you lot have all fallen into the thinking that this is going to be a football ground . . . . for the Dave's it's actually going to be any number of events going on there, football just being one that happens every couple of weeks during the winter.

There's no "caving in" going on here, just hard headed business decisions in which we only play one of the parts.

[uptonparkhurst]

Does anyone seriously think that, if the roles were reversed and WHU was trying to move out of Newham and into
another PL teams borough (i.e Spuds), that the Premier League would let it happen?
No way. This is a stitch-up.

[smfc]

The Telegraph article pretty much sums up what I have thought for a long time - that the decision makers were useless and that no one took our Icelandic owners seriously (and doubted they would actually come up with the money for retractable seating).

If it goes to us basically anyone who wants a good view and a good atmosphere will go to away games. Those who want to have an easy travel to the the game and feel like they are having a ****ing "experience" will go to the O/S and probably have a latte and get their stupid little beards trimmed before they pick up some sude mocassins in the shopping centre and finally head off to the game where they will spend most of the time admiring the stadium and talking on their mobile phone.

What they ought to do now is revert to Plan A - leave it as 25k for athletics and then instead of thinking about it being £5m a year loss to cover the costs they ought to leave the main stands up and save the £35m to knock it down and instead use that money to really promote athletics and have a **** load of meetings there. Without knocking down the main stand you could in theory start having meetings as soon as the olympics is over and save having to close it for months while it is reconfigured. You never know, it might just start paying for itself and be a TRUE legacy for the olympics. If not, I could give a flying f*** at a rolling donut about their "sport".

Incidentally, where are the clubs plans for the O/S, weren't they going to publish today?

[whu92]

There have been some really interesting articles in the most recent posts. Something that has struck me about all this talk of the OPLA and FA saying it would be OK for Sp**s to move to Newham, is that we have been offered an alternative site (Parcel Force) that could be developed as a stadium. If they were being honest , the agenda of the the Sp**s board is to profit financially including prevent us getting an opportunity to better ourselves (open for debate I know) and the OPLA want to avoid a white elephant even at the expence of achieving legacy. There is no way in the world Sp**s could be offered an alternative site in Newham so why don't Sp**s and the FA and the OPLA stop bulls*itting.

[m-h]

Incidentally, where are the clubs plans for the O/S, weren't they going to publish today?

Just a opinion, but with the indefinite delay of naming the preferred bidder, doubt we will see the plans published today.
If they announce they will make a decision next Friday, then wouldn't surprise me to see the plans released next Wednesday.
Could be wrong of course.

[Doc H Ball]

There's no "caving in" going on here, just hard headed business decisions in which we only play one of the parts.

What I meant is they caved in by giving up our footballing concerns. They arrived saying they would listen to supporters and then turned a deaf ear. I'm well aware that they coudn't give a toss.

By the way, I don't think it's a 'hard headed business decision' either. W Ham at The Desert Bowl mixed with Newham council, a few hundred javelin fans and occassional cricket sounds like a public finance liability. What the Daves want is to be backed by Newham's public spending largesse.

[paulhs1]

I think you lot have all fallen into the thinking that this is going to be a football ground . . . . for the Dave's it's actually going to be any number of events going on there, football just being one that happens every couple of weeks during the winter.

There's no "caving in" going on here, just hard headed business decisions in which we only play one of the parts.

I agree and the majority of the fans opinion does not really matter as in my opinion the daves have hijacked the club for their own financial gains, which is fair enough as owners and business men however should they decide to sell in 2015 then we are left with a stadium with an athletics track whilst they count the money in their wallets!!

[Hammer110]

By the way, I don't think it's a 'hard headed business decision' either. W Ham at The Desert Bowl mixed with Newham council, a few hundred javelin fans and occassional cricket sounds like a public finance liability. What the Daves want is to be backed by Newham's public spending largesse.

They can't have any public funding for the running of the O/S, all bids must be self funding and the bids are going to form part of the binding contract on the winners, this is probably why the Daves are (allegedly) putting up personal sureties if it goes tits up.

[mushy]

I agree and the majority of the fans opinion does not really matter as in my opinion the daves have hijacked the club for their own financial gains, which is fair enough as owners and business men however should they decide to sell in 2015 then we are left with a stadium with an athletics track whilst they count the money in their wallets!!

Agreed, and also a stadium that we do not own. To me this is a major factor, buying the grounds freehold was the best bit of business the club ever did. Having someone come in and sell it from under our noses is like your new step father selling the family jewellery.

[Hammer110]

Being restless at work, I was looking at the Orient Forum to see what their views were on the OS.As you can see there is an interesting reply that clearly shows the Premier League's viewpoint on both the proposed Sp*rs and West Ham bids of the OS.

In reaching our decision we took into account that West Ham fans who were expressing opinions on the matter, although showing some desire to remain at Upton Park, on balance supported the proposal to move to the Olympic Stadium site. Similarly it seemed that most of the THFC fans who were expressing their opinions on the matter did not support a move to Stratford. These indications seemed so clear that we felt nothing was to be gained by undertaking further fan consultation on the subject.

So they spoke to the fans............................. and ignored them.

We received the views of Leyton Orient FC, the football Club most local to the Stratford site. They felt that they could support neither move but felt that the WHUFC option would pose them the greater problem because they have a smaller fanbase than THFC. LOFC felt that WHUFC would, via cheap ticket offers and other methods, recruit more energetically from football supporters in the immediate area, whereas THFC has a larger and more dispersed fanbase, so would sell out a larger stadium more readily and therefore be less of a threat to them.

So they spoke to Orient............................. and ignored them.

In addition, we took the view that the safety and security factors that form such a large part of the planning and development of the Olympic site will mean that policing football matches on the same site would not be worse than those dealt with by the Police at other grounds.

They didn't speak to the police

Ruling out either bid on the grounds that a move was too far would create a difficult precedent for any Club in a highly contested urban where land on which to build a stadium is difficult to come by.

They made their decision based on land availability, not on the effect it would have the clubs and their fans.

Edit, They don't seem to have even spoken to us or Spurs!

I smell a lawsuit.

[ForeverHammers]

"@whufc_official: West Ham United have issued an Olympic Stadium update - http://www.whufc.com/articles/20110126/ ... 84_2277483" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;"

[Doc H Ball]

[quote="Hammer110I smell a lawsuit.[/quote]

I smell loads of them.

Ironic really that we get fined £5.5m and sued for £20+m for fielding a player his agent could sell against PL rules, yet now the PL avoid their own rule about one club not damaging another by relocating. If Tevez cost us over £25m, then if Spud$ get the site we should sue them and the PL for a billion.

[Yorkshire 'ammer]

I can't seem to find the CG image of what the stadium will look if we get it. Is it on the official site?

[Hammer110]

"@whufc_official: West Ham United have issued an Olympic Stadium update - http://www.whufc.com/articles/20110126/ ... 84_2277483" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;"

Still no real details and no pictures!