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Talking Point

The West Ham Match Day Experience

Guest post by Florida Hammer

One of the more contentious issues in West Ham United history recently has been the complaint of the London Stadium as a suitable venue for our beloved football club. Many supporters have deemed it unfit for purpose, I suspect many older supporters due to their long-standing romance with the Boleyn Ground will never warm to the London Stadium under current circumstances.

When you try to nail down the source of this angst from long-time supporters, I feel it may be due in large part to the bare surroundings near the London stadium causing the poor matchday experience. I have only been to the current West Ham football ground once for a live match (in November 2017) and personally found the walk to the stadium a rather bland experience. There’s just nothing there to intrigue, excite and energize supporters walking in for the match. In fact, the entire surroundings are rather underwhelming of a purpose-built facility for sports and entertainment. On a personal level I might have found the entire match-day experience a big disappointment if not for my amazing hosts Heedsy & Iron Liddy along with the amazing folks that I met from West Ham Till I Die inside the stadium that evening. In true British fashion I was treated to some amazing hospitality, of course plenty of alcohol but most of all excellent company and new friendships that produced a wonderful experience I will always treasure. I feel sad for all those that don’t have a Heedsy & Iron Liddy to accompany them for every matchday.

In comparison my last proper West Ham matchday experience prior to the London Stadium was of course at the Boleyn in 1984 just before my family emigrated to the USA. It was memorable to me for various reasons but more so because I remember walking to the Boleyn from my uncle’s home in Plaistow. And no matter where you started your journey coming up via the Barking road or simply taking the train to Upton Park the moment you stepped onto Green Street the entire experience was one of a kind. The sounds, the sights, the smells were all a unique flavor of East London that would just smack you in the face. All of a sudden, you’ve entered a mental state between fantasy and reality, much like the Twilight Zone. There was something so right with the world when you made that walk onto Green Street on the way to the Boleyn.

However if you play devil’s advocate though and offer some deeper thought It really is difficult and possibly a bit unfair to compare the London Stadium with the atmosphere on Green Street and at the Boleyn, it’s an apples to oranges comparison at this point as the London stadium area is simply devoid of the character and resources we experienced at the old home. Rather than continue to complain and moan about the whole experience I encourage a discussion on what we can do to improve the current atmosphere and surroundings of the stadium. Collectively I’m sure we can gather a host of options to present to the hierarchy at the club.

Over here in the USA (pre-Covid) when walking to a sporting event or concert you would see an amazing array of food and drink options everywhere. Most common at these events people are “tailgating” which is a time-honored American tradition that often involves consuming lots of alcoholic beverages, grilling burgers and hot dogs. Tailgating creates an environment that can produce a gourmet chef out of a mere ordinary man with his home-made ribs smoked to perfection so that the meat just falls off the bone. You also have kids throwing the football and participating in pick-up games, you have newly created friendships that transcend the fiercest of rivalries. Tailgate parties occur in the parking lots at stadiums and arenas, before and after most games and concerts. In many cases tailgating often involves the passing of culinary traditions between father and son, often with ordinary people braving some of the harshest of blizzard like conditions to add to the entire Stadium going experience. Many die-hard tailgaters will readily eat flesh colored sausages with blue colored fingers in arctic like temperatures (see Buffalo Bills, Minnesota Vikings & Green Bay Packers fans).

Tailgating produces that unique energy and excitement that every fan/supporter wants to feel prior to walking into a sports stadium. It is precisely this feeling we need at the London Stadium to add much needed character and atmosphere. It makes you wonder why our current ownership never considered or tried to invest in the infrastructure approaching the stadium to recreate what the supporters had on Green Street. An opportunity has sadly gone begging for our owners to reach out to vendors such as the Rib Man, Ken’s Café or Nathans Pie & Mash shop and bring them over to Stratford and place them on the approach to the London Stadium. I just don’t get why it’s so difficult to arrange for some trendy food trucks to be parked outside the stadium with a nice seating area and tent coverings provided for each food truck. It would have merely taken a small investment in the infrastructure and inventory for various vendors to serve their unique offerings to our energized supporters.
All ideas and opportunities are somewhat moot in the age of Covid. Many of us can’t really leave our homes without fear of the consequences these days, but there is going to come a day at some point the owners and commercial team at West Ham will have to produce the full stadium experience to maintain the strong level of support our team currently enjoys from the supporters.

I wanted to take a moment to thank Jimmy, Dan, Hamburg Hammer, Nigel and all the other amazing writers that continue to keep this blog ticking. We are living in unprecedented times right now and you folks have worked so hard in continuing to produce new material for discussion. Somehow against the odds you all continue to keep us entertained and informed. As such you have my utmost respect. Let’s look forward to the time when things slowly get back to normal, we can hopefully start to attend live sporting events, fly around the world and just live a normal life.

In the meantime, I urge everyone to continue staying healthy and safe in your various locations around the world.

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