Details have started to emerge about the process Hammers Bondholders are going through to choose their seats in the Olympic Stadium.
In the wake of the Hillsborough disaster in April 1989, the Lord Justice Taylor Report paved the way to all-seater stadia in the top division. With the aim of funding the redevelopment of the Boleyn Ground, West Ham launched the Bond Scheme in November 1991.The club asked supporters to purchase bonds in three price bands – £500, £750 and £950, ownership of which would confer the right to buy a match day or Season Ticket for a designated seat for 150 years. Although the Bond Scheme was a PR disaster 808 fans took up bonds. In 2014 Bondholders voted in favour of sixteen amendments to the Bond conditions at the General Meeting held on Monday 24 November 2014 to allow us to transfer their rights to the new Stadium.
The 808 Bond holders have been given priority to choose their Olympic Stadium seats in appointments between April until the 15th May.
Using the group option a bond holder has the ability to register an unlimited number of existing season ticket holders online to join them at their priority appointment at the reservation centre to choose seats next to them in the new stadium. This week, one bond holder bought a group of 40 season tickets holders with them to book their seats along side the single bond holder. Some have argued that this system can be abused to allow fans to effectively jump the queue and get a better seat if they know a bond holder rather than waiting for their own appointment. Presumably each one of those forty season tickets holders also has the right to introduce up to two new season tickets each to join them thereby also jumping the queue of others.
I understand that the West Ham reservation staff have stopped printing off and emailing virtual images of fans views of their seat in the Olympic Stadium after early images appeared in forums and on social media, something they are keen to clamp down on. Reservation staff have also refused to discuss or show bond holders other seat bands in the Olympic Stadium outside band 1 insisting it is on a need to know basis and they don’t even know.
It is understood that band 1 tickets will take up the middle five sections of the lower and middle tier sections of the new East Stand with the 1,966 “1966” seats in the middle of that section at a higher price of £1,100. The back 14 rows of the middle three lower tier sections and the first 14 rows of the middle tier three sections in the East stand will accommodate the 1966 seats although there is understood to be poor take up so far of these more expensive seats.
In the West stand, the three middle lower tiers are understood to be all occupied by corporate members including the 1,000 Boleyn Bar members meaning band 1 season tickets holders will be shunted sideways to two sections either side of the middle three sections.
Bond holders are not required to buy a season ticket and can instead buy their tickets game by game, if they do not buy a season ticket they do not need to pay a 25% deposit like season ticket holders, however their seat is sold game by game if they do not buy a ticket 2 weeks before a game.
