West Ham supporters have complained that extra security measures have had a knock on effort to the disabled and elderly supporters delaying their exist by an hour or more.
Hammers season ticket holder Mark Gower tweeted “Disabled supporters had to wait over an hour for accessibility buses to take us to Stratford Station”
West Ham fan Stephen Cherry added “Was it really necessary to block this road for 40 mins? Police said West Ham ordered this.” adding “Police made it clear the link road behind the stadium (West Stand) blocked at club’s request.” and “First time road blocked. 40 min delay. No trouble. Disabled fans included. Poor treatment.”
The likelihood is the road closure request came from operators London Stadium 185 rather than the club.
Many thousands of supporters were forced to walk the long way round the London stadium after the final whistle or wait 30 minutes for the away segregation barrier outside the stadium to be lifted.
Another Hammer Carl Benson tweeted: “Not allowed to turn left out of gate half hour wait . 80 yr olds freeze. Disgraceful whufc” later adding “Disabled & elderly left out in freezing weather because police wouldn’t let us walk left from gate A. Ashamed of this club. I’m done” and “Saw people in wheelchairs and disabled people turned away. Some parked near me in wick lane mile walk to cars or wait 2hrs”
Hi I sit in the east stand there is 6 of us 3 adults 3 children two are 11 and a five year old we park at the trumans so was affected by the away fans barriers we took the option of walking up the bank by the east stand and around the cordon and back down and too our utter astonishment walked straight into all the away fans that after being guided away from the stadium was allowed to climb up the bank and mix with Westham fans so anyone really intent on looking for trouble could have found it not those inside the stadium under the obvious clear of cctv stewards and police but people who are pro active in looking for a fight could easily meet in the pitch black no cctv and no police so begs the simple question why when the away fans are brought to the bottom of the stadium aren’t there there coaches there which they should be put on then those who aren’t held and marched to the station when we go stoke away we are held in a waiting bay also why not keep away fans in for twenty minutes clear the area of home fans then shut of that section why 10 mins before the game ends we are supposed to be at home but we get treated like second class citizens be it Stratford shopping centre or our own club it’s embarrassing and the club only act after an incident well I tell you know that bank is a disaster waiting to happen but until it does we will all have to suffer x
Same happened to my sister and me. I sent an email to the club(below) do you think I’ll get a response?
I will do the same. Have you heard anything back?
I would like to thank West Ham,the stadium owners,the stewards and everyone else involved in the running of the club and stadium. After the match today, I set off with my sister on our normal route to Bromley by Bow station, only to find it blocked off by stewards. When asking a steward why, he could not give an answer. Asked how to get to Bromley by bow, he also didn’t know. All he did know was tell us to ask a steward that did know. So we asked another steward who pointed us past the stadium shop and turn right down the next set of stairs. When I asked he why we had given no notification our route was closed, he replied ” we didn’t ask you to move stadium”. We left angry. After walking down the stairs, and through a car park we exited opposite the greenway. So turning right, we found ourselves in the Stoke fans we had been segregated from. Well done stewards, well done. So much for segregation of fans.
I raised these concerns on a founders feedback,got no reply,only find ourselves as customers and not fans. According to Ms Brady, it doesn’t matter as there are over 50,000 on the waiting list for season tickets.
Please take ownership of this safety issue.