One of the biggest requests from West Ham season ticket holders is to move the London Stadium retractable seats closer to the pitch. Just before Christmas the joint stadium owners London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) confirmed an extra £21m was spent on the doomed retractable system last year and estimated costs could reach as high as £8m per year to move the seats backwards and forward unless a better solution can be found in the very near future.
LLDC CEO David Goldstone admitted there is an ongoing tendering process at the moment for a new long term operator to move the retractable seats in a more cost effective and timely manner. However, those fans wishing for the seats to move further forward in any potential retractable seating redesign could be bitterly disappointed.
The drip line of the new £190m London Stadium roof is set to the current seating configuration and the likelihood of spending more tax payers money to extend the roof further is a political no go area and extremely unlikely in the foreseeable future.
The major limitation in moving the seats further forward is the stadium is an oval so the seating need to be curved accordingly to correspond to the Stadium shape. At the half way line the front row is around 20 metres away from the pitch. Behind each goal the distance reduces to 18 metres from the front row to the goal line. At the closest point the front row is 12 metres from the pitch from the corner flags . As the diagram above shows it is case of simple geometry. An oval fitted around a rectangle will leave some empty spaces. While it might be technically possible to construct new non curved seating to fill these gaps, again the appetite to spend yet more tax payer money for little financial benefit seems a non starter for the stadium owners.
Digging down to lower the pitch as Manchester Council did for City may also cause problems unearthing tonnes of radioactive waste dumped at the former landfill site decades ago. A total of 7,300 tonnes of toxic soil was reburied just outside the stadium in a bunker. The massive bunker is the size of half a football pitch.
Firstly I think there’s enough ‘core’ fans that won’t care about getting wet (or sunburnt) if they’re closer to the action and allowed to stand/generate atmosphere.
Secondly, the whole lower section doesn’t need to be uniformly brought in closer. It could just be the longer sides squared off, rather than following the curvature. It would create 2 long concourse party decks just like we have already under the screens.
Ultimately though the only solution to it all is to have bought the stadium and to dig down to lower the pitch and sort out the rake.
Which will take investment, time and patience.
Other point not noted is system is not actually retractable, it’s lift in and lift out. To be retractable it needs wheels to allow it to be moved back and forwards. What WHU have to play with is basically sections of scaffolding with seats attached that bolt together. Have a good look next home game.
Digging down like Citeh did is the only solution, to do that we need to own the stadium. Shame as it’s my only real issue with Stratford now that they seem to have sorted the segregation.
I should imagine in time as the dust settles on the move something will be done.
Mind you if you believe some West Ham sites no one will be going anymore Ha.
It makes me chuckle the times i read the comment ‘EVERYONE i know wont be renewing their ST Ticket next year’…
I dont know who this EVERYONE is because i know some who wont renew but the majority of my buddies are certainly not going to throw in watching the club they support..new stadium or no new stadium…
I’ll be renewing. Things will sort themselves out. We’ve only been there six months. A lot of fans say that they won’t be renewing every year and they do when June/July comes around. Its in the blood….. along with the suffering!
Agreed Chas. I only heard 1 or 2 say they won’t renew.After all these years of being a Hammer this is just a minor annoyance. After all the major set backs and disappointments we have suffered over the years this is just a flea bite. COYI X
here here!
Most of my mates are going to carry on going Chaz,which im pleased about because we always have a good laugh matchdays.
Im done with LS arguements,its becoming monotonous & boring to read about all the time.
If some fans dont want to renew good luck to them.I dont know them from Adam inside the ground so it makes no difference to me 😁
A couple of wins, no matter how lucky or undeserved, really change your perspective on things.
As far as the Stadium is concerned, I think the solution can be provided by a strategic nuclear explosion and to start again with a blank page. The stadium as it is will be a drain on the Taxpayer for the conceivable future!
True the only ‘foolproof’ option is to dig down and thus lower the pitch area. There have been claims that this would present water table and polluted soil,problems but if the money is there such matters can likely be addressed.
However in the meantime the core argument of this article is not strictly correct. Check out other oval stadiums and you will find examples where the.curve of the lower terracing is shallower than the terracing above thus reducing the curve at ground level. It would also be possible to construct the lower terracing with each bank of seating slightly deeper at the centre line than at the corner flag which could additionally shallow the ellipse of the front rows by a couple metres though it would make the movable sections more complex admittedly. By the way most of the terracing is in fact on wheels just dome fill in sections are scaffolding. Sadly these are the main problem areas.
I honestly don’t care about the distance from the seats to the pitch as long as I can watch the match
I honestly don’t care cause I don’t live there anymore and can’t go to matches lol, but most supporters are real enough to know things aint so bad that they will stop going.
Like Michael Miller says a couple more wins and everything changes enough to stop people harpin on about the stadium and concentrate on the football side.