CandH’s associate editor Sean Whetstone was an eye witness to last night’s events being right in the middle of the crowd disturbances. Here’s his report on what REALLY happened
Yesterday evening was always going to be difficult evening to navigate without headlines condemning West Ham fans. It became a self fulfilling prophecy.
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.
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 signing “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.
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.
As ClaretandHugh’s associate editor 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 https://audioboom.com/posts/5214363-west-ham-blogger-sean-whetstone-on-the-london-stadium-crowd-disorder-at-west-ham-v-chelsea
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.
I agree with you sean I was there at 4:30 and obviously a London Derby is going to be lively there was nothing out of the ordinary going on and most of it was handbags. In truth I thought it was going to be a lot worse than it actually was that aside what a great performance and result COYI
I agree about only the home supporters being blamed, imho our Stadium is a powder keg waiting to go off and at some point it will if this isn’t stamped out and offenders on both sides aren’t given sufficient deterants to prevent them repeating this behaviour. What is going on at the OS is not what is happening at numerous other stadiums, the scale is much bigger inside the stadium and the chief protagonists seem to be the old boys rather than some new generation of thugs, if the stadium acts decisively and with their eyes open rather than their heads buried in the sand or somewhere less pleasant then they can deal with this but they built this place not for football fans and they should then bear the no doubt costly price of properly segregating fans or at the least come up with solid solutions rather than band aid fixes. I caught the train in via Hackney and something went off before the game there, I was going to get out but there looked to be a huge number of fans penned in by Police and no way to get out of the station in a hurry, that was probably about 7:15 ish. Can you remember in recent times at the Boleyn just about every game where the away support and home support clashed so frequently ? I am not an ST holder but I don’t remember anything like the scale we are seeing inside the OS just the odd incidents here and there and that is why I think a robust response is required.
Young thugs,Old thugs,a variety last night.Unfortunately a few hundred spoil it for the near 50 thousand others.
Im honestly starting to wonder now whether there are some fans who didnt want to leave the boleyn & are now going to the LS looking to make a stir & really couldnt care whether they get life banned.
I’m probably totally wrong but i do wonder.
Impossible to say Tone but you could be right.
I know a few that are definitely starting to think that way and after what brady has just said will only make it worse I think personally
Its a pity all ths kicked off lastnight.It was a smashing game of football,we played some lovely stuff & the atmosphere was superb.
More matches like that with that atmosphere & the stadium will really feel like home for the players.
As for the fighting,i have seen worse at the January sales when the doors open hehe
Btw a good balanced article in one of the papers saying everything that happens at the LS is being magnified.Last season Arsenal fans ripped out some of the White Hart Lane away section,in response Spuds did the same in the return fixture at The Emirates.
Newspaper or Media stories on it…zilch.