West Ham Vice Chairman Karren Bardy has dashed the hopes East Ham businesses and locals who hoped to keep the Champions statue featuring Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters at the junction of Barking Road and Green Street.
A new campaign to keep the statue in East Ham has seen posters displayed in local businesses and a recent Claret and Hugh poll revealed that over 83% of 1,036 West Ham supporters taking part want it to stay where it is.
When asked the question by West Ham Group United yesterday Brady claimed that commissioning a new statue at the London would be incredibly expensive and said the junction where it is currently located is being redesigned by Newham council so the statue will need to move somewhere anyhow.
The 16ft four-tonne bronze sculpture cost £725,000 to create in 2003 with £400,000 coming from a government grant and the remainder mainly funded by West Ham. The statue was the idea of Newham councillor Graeme Cambage and was designed by Philip Jackson.
Belongs at our Home Ground where it will be worshipped and respected ,, not on a street corner of a bygone age where it would lose its significance .
I am totally against this as am sure many fans are, the World Cup winning trio have no link to the Olympic Park they should be left where they have been since 2003 as a reminder to the locals and also as a source of inspiration for young kids, a new Statue that is in fitting with Olympic Park should be commisioned, this will just look like an eyesore in a modern environment, which is probably in keeping with DS sense of interior design judging by what we have seen of photo’s of both his and his sons ostentatious decorations at their homes. Classic nouvea riche and lack of class.
good we need this statue where it belongs with the west ham fans next to our stadium. i want to walk past this on the stadium approach as was promised to us in all those stadium mock up drawings and in all the marketing for the new stadium. this statue is a west ham icon. its a link from the past to the present and on to the future.