London Stadium claret carpet is laid

London Stadium will be turned into a sea of Claret and Blue for Saturday’s Premier League visit of Leicester City the club have announced.

With the brand-new claret pitch surround set to be unveiled at the weekend, the club will also launch a West Ham crowd-surfing banner and a pyrotechnic display for the team’s tunnel walk as they come out to 60,000 fans.

The new club-branded pitch surround will be the centrepiece, replacing the green track cover that has been in place since the stadium opened in the summer of 2016.

The previous Green pitch cover was described as a health and safety risk and not fir for purposes by an expert determination last year in a long legal battle with stadium owners E20.

Former Hammers manager Slaven Bilic also previously claimed the green borders were a disadvantage to the West Ham players as it was hard to define the edges of the pitch in prereferral vision.