West Ham co-owner David Gold has challenged a West Ham supporter on twitter who claimed Etihad is not state owned like the London Stadium.
Gold corrected the fan saying:“The Etihad Stadium home of Manchester City football club is owned by Manchester City Council. dg”
Another supporter chipped in on social media asking “Interesting if you could explain how Manchester’s conversion to footy stadium cost £42m and yours is pushing £300m “
Gold defended the club’s position by saying: “Because the OS was designed and built on the absolute premise that it would never be converted to a football stadium. Government mistake. dg”
When another fan suggested that the move had ruined the club Gold snapped back
“I don’t agree with your defeatist view I go into next season with optimism and enthusiasm believing we will succeed, we are a great club. dg”
Supposing West Ham FC, after a few years, were offered the option of buying the stadium? does anyone know if it’s possible to lower the pitch at the London stadium? Much the same as was done at Barcelona’s stadium with the idea to bring fans closer to the pitch and allow for the seating to be arranged much the same as a football stadium should be. If that were to happen then another added benefit would be in bringing the LS to near the same capacity as the Camp Nou
Sounds like it would be a good idea. It would take a lot of work and money, because of the extensive drainage and heating under the soil.
I dream of the government getting ****ed off enough to let us have the stadium at a decent price ( for us ). The naming rightrs would be returned to us and so would 75% of the catering revenue.
Mark my words, one day the Government will pay West ham to take the loss-making stadium off their hands
Lol I am your most loyal believer in that Sean. May it come true. I suspect the Davids are also singing from the same hymn-sheet
I agree with you Sean. For me, it was always the benefit of finding the right location. One day, the ground will be levelled or hollowed out and a football stadium will rise from the ashes. Its cheaper to build a purpose built athletics stadium than it is to move the seats over 5 years. Patience required.
of course they will,
But then instead of just paying 2 ½ milll a season they will have to pay for all stewarding, policing everything else they get, but also the moving of the seats back and forwards,
Once cricket gets in they will be contributing as well, the stadium may soon start paying its way
West Ham dont need to take the stadium on, its the deal of the century already.
Too many people are hanging their hats on ifs and buts instead of looking at the reality.
Its the worst football stadium we play in
It cant be improved without hundreds of millions being spent, Again.
were stuck with it
G&S and the her ladyship dont care, Gold has admitted it wasn’t built to be converted for football and yet still took us there.
And before anyone says about spurs scuppered our bid to buy it,
The owners were going to take us to the OS with NO retractable seating at all with that bid.
Spurs should be thanked for scuppering it
I agree with some of your points for sure Nigel, certainly there is no way the club will rock the boat while they have the deal of the century, its a profit making machine with the deal Lady Brady negotiated. I am not sure under its current stewardship it will do much better than break even, the naming rights alone for that stadium should be paying for it but there are such incompetents in charge of it they can’t even negotiate that. The athletics has to go because of the retractable seating costs and they should rightly slam the people in charge of commissioning the stadium design and legacy, despite having 10 years or so they cocked it up royally. The stadium should be a genuine multi purpose venue, it should have been built with a retractable roof as well as retractable seating and a lot more corporate hospitality to help fund it for all of its other purposes, with the space in the stadium there is no reason why it couldn’t hold 100000 + spectators with a proper design which again would help to pay off the taxman. It is still a diamond in the rough but the cost of polishing it will prove unpalatable to the tax payer so they should consider selling it on at a loss as a leasehold site where they could start to earn their money back via rent without all the contractual obligation related to security, policing, stewarding etc and allowing the tennant to fund the redesign and assume all costs going forward, I am pretty sure the David’s wouldn’t want that because it is such a huge amount of work that would cost 100’s of millions and for the next 99 years there liability is only 250m plus inflation.
As I’ve been saying from day one. Within 3 years I say.
I recall saying more or less the same as , John Mc some time back . Although to be honest I actually said that it is more than probable someone or some group of buisness men will buy the Davids out . That would lead to some financial and Stadium changes . The British Athletics Committee has already said a change of venue is preferable to the LS with the City of Birmingham being the latest idea put before the organization . Age catches us all up eventually . And if Gold & Sullivan decide to cash in ! , who can Blame them ?.
They have saved West Ham United FC from obscurity and we should be forever grateful no matter how we might gripe about signings and so on and so forth . Remember that we still have our Pride more or less intact unlike some other clubs best not to mention for fear of offending any football fans . Obviously, we need a few big signings and a few shown the door if we are to get ahead but , the Stadium is a major issue . No amount of fan support can turn it into a noisy intimidating place without constructive design changes . Lowering the pitch as Barcelona did was done to increase capacity without expansion . The LS needs a different solution ; such as getting rid of the Athletics meetings and turning it into a Football Stadium . None of which will happen with the present owners because there is just not enough money to make it happen . Somebody will eventually want to buy us , that’s a cert .
Saved WHU from obscurity?
Do you have the evidence or proof that we would of disappeared with out them
We would never disappear but obscurity …definetly ..thanks to certain Icelandic owners …
Reconfiguration is a must in the long term. Rather than digging down though, can the pitch be raised rather than lowered so that the upper tier doesn’t suffer or become pointless? The lower tier could be pulled in and the gradient changed. I’m no architect evidently, but would anyone know if that’s feasible?
I read somewhere that there was a geological reason why it would be difficult to lower the pitch. Maybe water table or something. And I really wish Gold would stop with his twitter obsession.
The water table is no impediment to lowering the pitch level. The stadiums foundations go down at least another couple of metres so without any really significant work you can bring in the stands by (theoretically another 8 metres (assuming a 1/4 gradient of the lower tier) which brings you to a 12 metre gap at the widest point (at the centre circle) and a tiny gap at the corners (which will have to have ‘cut outs’ for people taking a corner kick). Doing it this way will also maintain all current sightlines. In terms of potential seating, that sould create 10 rows of 20 seats in 54 blocks, plus filling in all of the current gaps between lower tier stands, which on a conservative estimate is about 13,000. That would bring total potential capacity to around 84,000 (the 66k that has frequently been mentioned is an understatement as anyone who has been to the top of the upper tier and noticed the rows with seats taken out for no reason can tell you).
The roof would need extending. Is this possible? It,s already the largest of its kind in the world.
“Because the OS was designed and built on the absolute premise that it would never be converted to a football stadium. Government mistake. dg”……and we still went for it…!!
It’s done. We can’t go back. we must move on. It’s no good keep moaning about it. we must be positive from now on and make the best of it. Otherwise it will never become a home atmosphere. COYI X
I think it’s true to say that the OS is bound to be a massive loss maker for the foreseeable future, there’s no way of making a profit whilst they insist on switching modes from Football and Athletics and back. You only have to go and see the mass of scaffolding behind the lower tier and realise the enormous effort and cost involved in this exercise – it’s completely balmy!