Yesterday I found myself in the middle of today’s big story.
We arrived at the stadium early as requested to find good humoured fans on both sides in orderly but short queues and no sign of trouble despite a heavy police presence with a helicopter overhead at all times. Whilst in the ground we were told by a response steward there had been a little trouble on the south steps from Pudding Mill Lane DLR to the away turnstiles but he was only repeating what he heard over the radio.
I was originally sitting in my regular season ticket seat in Block 113 in the first half close to the 5,200 away fans. The singing and banter was good humoured in general and I certainly wouldn’t describe it as toxic. When West Ham scored their first goal there was an isolated incident in which a bald headed Chelsea fan was hit on the head with a coin which caused a cut. St John’s Ambulance dealt with his cut his head and police took a statement while he carried on watching the game but not before he posted pictures of blood streaming down his head on social media.
At half time we decided to walk around the inside of the stadium to spare seats in Sir Trevor Brooking lower as we wanted to be on the right side of the away fan barrier when full whistle was blown to make a quick exit to Stratford. Little did I know what was about to unfold.
Again the atmosphere was great and mostly good humoured, just a typical London derby. Around five minutes before full time some Chelsea fans started to leave and we started singing “Cheerio.” It was then that the first shower of coins rained down on us.
I was hit by a 20p and 10p on my back although there was around six other coins around my seat which missed me. I estimate several hundred coins were thrown in West Ham’s direction. We next noticed a Chelsea fan trying to cross the 13 seat wide segregation netted barrier lifting his hands up to provoke West Ham fans.
After that both sides started throwing coins, plastic bottles and a few seats and supporters from both sides attempted to breach the segregation between them at the top of the Sir Trevor Brooking lower stand.
Despite all the the images and reports, I have been told that the segregation was not breached and no Chelsea fan entered the West Ham end and no West Ham fan entered the Chelsea away end. Apart from the throwing and a lot of pushing I saw no actual fights or assaults and no arrests were made to my knowledge inside the stadium. The trouble was quickly brought under control and the game ended shortly afterwards with an amazing victory for West Ham.
The route from the London Stadium to Stratford was mostly peaceful with both sets of fans well behaved. The only trouble I witnessed outside the ground was a Chelsea fan who was ‘nicked’ for provoking West Ham fans close to the Stratford station.
Despite the pictures and video footage being flashed around the world today the majority of the 46,000 was well behaved and possibly less than one hundred fans from both sides were involved in the trouble. That said they all deserve life long stadium bans when caught.
I do believe the stadium is a soft target for the media and a minority of away fans appear to be intent to cause trouble at our new home by provoking home fans to gain bragging rights.
I will concede a small minority of West Ham fans are no angels but I wish the Press would blame both sets of fans rather than just focus on West Ham and their fans today.
I have done interviews on BBC Radio London, Radio 5 Live, BBC TV News, BBC World Service and LBC radio with Iain Dale but I feel the message to balance up the media coverage is falling on deaf ears.Here is my interview with Iain Dale on LBC Radio this evening.
Trouble at football has never really fully gone away; the media just stopped reporting about it. There is always trouble at Spurs and Chelsea away but the media never bother to cover it.
There was trouble again at Stamford Bridge on the first day of the season when they faced West Ham. The trouble outside Stamford Bridge never made the papers.
The London Stadium seems different. An iconic stadium which hosted the London 2012 Olympics and the taxpayer element adds more interest for the media. It is a geographically challenging stadium to secure due to vast spaces around it and the 1,100 stewards who work for London Stadium 185 has still a lot of learning to do.
This blog first appeared on www.claretandhugh.info but Iain suggested I share it with you here also.