A new survey – the most comprehensive yet with 6,356 match going supporters filling it in – we are able to publish today a true reflection of West Ham fan’s perception of the London Stadium.
The survey was put together by several West Ham websites, blogs and social media channels led by ClaretandHugh and WestHamTilliDie.com.
There is no evidence to suggest that the survey was hijacked by rival fans or protest groups with hidden agendas. The board may not like these results but I think we all understand it is early days in our 99 year tenancy and the first year was always going to be a difficult one to get used to the massive change.
After seven months in the London Stadium do you still believe that the move was a good idea?
Yes 34%
No 38%
Not sure 28%
West Ham’s Official Poll before the move showed that 85% backed the move, 10% wanted more information and 5% were against the move to Stratford. These latest results show only a third still believe it was the right thing to do, less than a third are undecided with nearly 40% saying it was not a good idea in hindsight.
When will the London stadium feel like our proper home?
It does already 6%
Next season 13%
2-5 seasons 41%
6-10 seasons 6%
+10 seasons 4%
It never will 30%
Only 19% believe it will feel like our proper home next season but 41% believe it will feel like home within 5 more years. More tellingly 30% claim it will never be our home.
Let’s hope that 30% change their mind.
If you are a season ticket holder do you plan to renew for next season?
Yes 40%
No 12%
Not sure 17%
Not a season ticket holder 23%
On the waiting list 8%
This shows that around 69% of those filling out the survey claim they are season ticket holders which account for 4,392 supporters. 2,546 say they will renew their season which is just under 58% of season ticket holder polled, just 17% say they won’t renew their season tickets which could account for 8,840 seats if they really mean what they say. 1,082 season ticket holders were undecided whether they will renew which account for 25%; again history tells us many of them will bite the bullet and renew as the deadline gets closer so renewals could be as high as 83% by the deadline.
With a doubling of season ticket holders from 26,000 to 52,000 we were never going to get a 100% renewal rate and not all of it will be down to the London Stadium.
If you are a season ticket holder have you ever used ticket exchange functionality for matches you can’t make?
I never miss a game 28%
Yes sometimes 15%
Yes, every time I can’t go 8%
Not worth it financially 39%
I prefer to leave my seat empty 10%
Good to see that 28% never miss a game but disappointing that only 23% of the respondents saying they use the functionality when they can’t make a game. 49% seem to say they don’t want to help their fellow fans watching the match and possibly the main reason you can see so many empty white seats on match days. The club needs to do more to fix the perception of this service and get a greater take-up of this service.
If you are a season ticket holder were your expectations managed well before the move to the new Stadium?
Stadium as expected 32%
Stadium worse than expected 62%
Stadium better than expected 6%
Possibly the most disappointing result from the survey. It indicates that 62% of fans believe they were mis-sold in communications in the build up to the move and their Stratford reservation visit. Only 6% would admit to it being better than expected.
What is your view on the general matchday atmosphere at the London Stadium in terms of volume and support for the team?
Excellent 3%
Good 24%
Average 44%
Poor 29%
No surprise here, maybe the 3% only went to the Chelsea cup game or the Palace game which could be described as excellent, but we have had everything in between and the atmosphere and noise needs to improve with us fans leading the way.
What is your view on the quality of stewarding and security taking into account the last game you attended at the London Stadium?
Excellent 2%
Good 17%
Average 37%
Poor 44%
Personally, I believe stewarding has vastly improved over the last few weeks so surprised at such poor results. Are we are the level of the Boleyn Ground stewarding? No, and that will take some time, so I suppose the perception will improve over time.
What is your view on the quality, choice and price of food and drink within the London Stadium?
Excellent 3%
Good 17%
Average 40%
Poor 40%
Again surprised the 80% who said the catering average and poor. A vast improvement on the Boleyn Ground and similar to other Stadia such as Emirates and Embley whose catering is run by the same company but as they say perception is the reality so obviously room for improvement for the majority.
What is your experience of the London Stadium sight lines and views of the pitch from your seat?
Excellent 18%
Good 39%
Average 23%
Poor 20%
The key message for me here is that the majority like their view of the pitch and sightlines with 57% saying good or excellent rating. One in five think their view is poor, but you can’t help but wonder whether the majority of these season ticket holders are stuck at the back of the upper tier in the cheap seats which cost £289 per season.
What is your experience of travelling to and from the London Stadium taking into account walking, public transport or car?
Excellent 13%
Good 31%
Average 26%
Poor 30%
We were told it was the most connected stadium in the country, that might be technically true, but it still takes around 30 minutes to walk from Stratford Tube Station to my turnstile. The majority of respondents (56%) believe transport is poor or average. I am not sure what the club can do about this, but a better route from the station to the stadium would be a big step in the right direction.
How do you rate your general match day experience at the London Stadium?
Excellent 5%
Good 34%
Average 38%
Poor 23%
So the all important match day experience is average or poor for 61% of those surveyed. I think the results on the pitch have got as much to do with this sentiment as the stadium does and I do wonder what the result would have been to this question would have been if we won every game at home.
West Ham have been criticised by Taxpayers groups for not paying enough in the contribution to the transformation costs and running costs. Do you think West Ham should pay more?
Yes 20%
No 61%
Don’t know 19%
I surprised 20% said the club should pay more, but it certainly has turned out to be the deal of the century with predicted operating losses predicted to top £8.4m next year.
The club will come under more pressure to increase their contribution to reaching the 66,000 capacity.
Do you think West Ham will become a regular top six club within the next five years as a result of the move to the London Stadium?
Yes 15%
No 64%
Not sure 21%
Just goes to show not many of us bought into the top six dream sold to us before the move. The problem is as we earn more the current top six move to higher levels and it ends up a cat and mouse game.
Do you think West Ham will kick on to the next level and become a top four team within ten years as a result of the move to the London Stadium?
Yes 12%
No 64%
Not sure 24%
I love the optimism of the 12% of supporters who think we could become a top-four team within ten years. I suppose it happened briefly to Leicester for one season only so we can all dream
Do you think the West Ham board are doing a good job?
Excellent 5%
Good 27%
Average 40%
Poor 28%
Another surprising result was the view that 68% thought the West Ham board was doing an average or poor job. They will be disappointed with that view as work tirelessly to improve things and think they deserve more credit than they get.
How well does West Ham value you as a supporter and listen to fans concerns?
Excellent 3%
Good 21%
Average 39%
Poor 37%
Room for improvement here but things are starting to change with more customer support staff and forty match day SLO’s. Telling that 76% think the club don’t listen or value fans and possibly the biggest takeaway for them from this survey.
I suppose the negative results are to be expected, if we had a season with no problems and amazing results probably would have seen most thinking positively about the move, I think when anything is hyped up like the board hyped up the move, the transfer talk, the position in the table etc then you look at the situation and it seems like a disappointment especially because it is harder to generate the atmosphere in the stadium. The lesson the board needs to learn is not to set unrealistic expectations, personally and am sure its the same for many of us I wanted to believe we would be challenging top 6 even thought it was possible with the right transfers but I wasn’t expecting it and the pre-season and limp exit from Europe set my expectations a lot lower, Although not an st holder I go to more home games than I miss and look forward to every match at the LS, its early days if the players competed for every second ball and pressed I am pretty sure the crowd would be behind them every game its when we see them putting in minimal effort without the ball that the place feels flat.
i do not take notice of these online surveys because many of our fans are of the age and type of person that do not use the internet.
My friends and I formed 2 groups when getting our season tickets.The first (17 )got tickets then the second group(13 )got their seats as near as they could to the first group.
Of the first 17 only 6 are renewing.Of the second lot of 13 only 3 are renewing.We all hate the stadium.Perhaps it is an age thing as we have all been going 40 years or more.
Perhaps it is because we have been let down by the club so many times before.-Perhaps we are miserable old gits but whatever our renewal percentage is much lower than the survey.-we shall see.
Fair play Paul, none of us should do things if they are no longer enjoyable, although the wife does drag me out shopping all the time 😉 We all feel the pain of having been let down many times by the club, the stadium has a distance to go before it feels like home but personally I always enjoy going to the new stadium, since UP became all seater I never quite got the same buzz out of there which gives you an idea as to my age, I loved the terraces and the buzz of that so for me it was no great shakes changing, through not having an ST I have sat in pretty much all parts of the stadium and I may be wrong but the atmosphere has felt differently depending on which stand I have been in, perhaps get yourself a claret membership next year if you don’t renew and try it out, might be you get a better buzz in a different part ? Either way good luck matey COYI 😀
Sean I was a critic of the poll and I’m not going to now claim I support it. For you to suggest there is no sign that a poll that appears on the blogs and the likes of Newsnow was not hijacked is very naive with all due respect. The poll would have been hijacked by a) haters of the owners and b) rival supporters and what is more those same people could enter multiple submissions as a poster on Kumb pointed out.
15/20% of those taking part were people with an agenda, imo, rival fans or duplicates as demonstrated, again imo, by the 20% who reckon West Ham should pay more. Come on, have you met anyone who says we should pay more? Ok Nigel, but apart from Nigel 😂
So, taking the poll with a large pinch of salt, here are my thoughts;
I suppose the board will take heart in the 60/65% that do like the stadium, approve of the move and will renew their tickets, or say they are undecided. The “undecided” do tend to fall in line when push comes to shove I believe. Of those I suspect 90% of them are the UP faithful like you and I. Now, as I say above, I think the poll is fake news and I think if you took out the fake voters the satisfaction and “don’t know” percentage would be a higher percentage
I also think you understate the vale of “average” – average view of the pitch and average pies are fine, that means it’s as good as most of the others, which are perfectly fine and that should be acceptable.
In summary the naysayers are around 20/25% and I wouldn’t say they don’t exist because we know they do, and many do feel passionate about that which I accept, but I maintain at least half of those will be those who have it in for the club/owners or are rival supporters up for a bit of mischief. If you accept you can win over the “don’t knows” and you believe you can improve the perception of those that think things are “average” then I do not think the board will be too concerned by the results of this survey. Assuming they even bother to read it of course lmao.
I’m in the “generally happy” group – no point hiding that. My only beef is the walk and experience to and from the stadium. I thought that would be a pleasant stroll through a green park and it’s far from being that.
The poll was a bit of fun but the only poll that would matter is one that club could, and probably will, do soon of their 50,000 season ticket holders. I’d be interested to see those results.
No32 above makes a good point. Decent football on the pitch and top 8 would’ve made a huge difference to this poll.
We will agree to disagree John. You are entitled to your opinion as I am. I really don’t think rival fans even knew about the survey as they don’t read our blogs or could be bothered to answer 21 questions. It is isn’t that important to them.
Even if they did it would be in very small numbers and unlikely to affect the overall statisitics
Yeh happy to agree to disagree Sean but still say you will struggle to find 20% of our fans who think the club should increase the rent that they pay or offer to increase the £15M contribution to the build costs. You’d find plenty of Charlton and Spud fans mind. Tony Hannas point about numbers not adding up tend to support that too. Those people don’t think through the facts but just want to get their point across.
Don’t take the criticism personally that’s just my view and it can be argued either way and my perception of the club, stadium and owners is the same as yours.
I never take criticism personally John. The stats don’t add up as some people skipped questions
I said we should pay more John but added in the notes only when they increase the capacity to 66000.
Lmao thanks mate. There goes my argument shot down in flames! Right I’m off for day, shame, this topic will run and run.
At least it has given the grumpy farts a full day to point out every poor %.They will be in their element round their fold out table & dominoes 😂
Believe me Rad as the sand in your life egg timer slowly gets lower you soon realise there are better things to do in life than sit on blogs b?tching about Karren Brady or the owners of a football club lol
Yeah no worries 🙂 my gut instinct was to say no to it but it was a funny question it wasn’t so much that I think we should pay more but if they are holding us over a barrell for the extra capacity and because even if they were to double the cost it would still be the deal of the century, when you factor in how much money each week they will make from the additional 9000 ticket sales plus trade, if it fostered some good will then no harm done 😀
One question here and one alone.Why do you tend to put the average in with the poor to highlight a %.Average is what it is neither positive or negative,happy or unhappy,
Someone who has an average life expectancy doesnt go in with the poor life expectancy % for example Lol
.It could quite easily have been put with the good % as well.Surely you should have only highlighted the Poor rather than putting average in with them to highlight certain %s.
Thoroughly enjoyable read though other than that.
I guess it is the perception. Hopefully, we never strive to be average in our lives, have average partners, average children or led average lives.
For me personally the word average has negative connotations as I want everything to be good or excellent but that is my own personal point of view
So if someone said you were average looking Sean im sure you wouldnt take that to mean ugly.Im sure you would put that average in with the good or excellant hahaha
Haha
Sean obviously im only an illiterate rabid dog so would never question two educated men like you & Dale but do you not think we would have got a clearer picture with ‘Average’ ‘Below Average’ ‘Poor’.
Average is so flexible and can be taken either way.I mean my girlfriend says i have an average todger and i take it as a compliment because she said all her other boyfriends were hung like bull elephants 😂😂
In Hindsight you might have a point
Sorry Sean i wasnt trying to sound like a hindsight smartass,i just thought it might have given a clearer picture between average and poor thats all 😉
Im also fairly sure that of the 18% who said they wont renew their ST there will be more of them who do when it comes down to it.
It rather flys in the face of some comments you read where fans say every one of their friends they know wont be renewing and that we will be playing in a half empty stadium next season.They must be devastated to know it wont be empty.
Yeh good call Long Dog that was what I was driving at above. Average is fine. I’d accept living to an average age now (as opposed to dying a raging alcoholic diabetic 10 years short!)
I’ve been to most premiership grounds and all the pies are much the muchness these days, which is pretty good, so average pies is good.
It’s all very subjective isn’t it, various groups will have different opinions, there is the UP legacy season ticket holders, the UP ‘regular’ supporters, say 5 or 6 games a season who are now ST holders, the current ‘regular’ supporters and of course the keyboard warriors who never visit the ground some of whom don’t even live in the UK. I don’t believe not attending makes you any less of a fan but it does negate your right to comment on the stadium imoa. I’ve said all along you cannot blame the LS on the lack of atmosphere after a season like this, which has been very disappointing whichever way you look at it. I also don’t believe you can blame the fans at the stadium for struggling at times to get behind the team, our passion is driven by what we see on the pitch and I don’t mean results but application and passion from the team. It’s very difficult to get yourself up for it when you have looked forward to the match all week, travelled, in some cases a considerable way (my journey is 2 hours each way for example) endured the dull and uninspiring walk from Stratford, had a pint and a pastie, got excited, sung bubbles…..kick off, and you are a goal down after 2 minutes and then two down after 6 minutes… I think it says a lot about the support and what is possible inside the LS when you consider the noise in the 2nd half when everyone really got behind the team…because at last they were showing on the pitch what we want to see. I don’t subscribe to the weird view that some have that we don’t expect West Ham to win or we haven’t won anything for years so what’s wrong with giving away cheap goals just watch the game have a sing song and go to the pub because following the Irons is not about winning…..for me and I have supported the Irons for over 50 years I still live in hope that one day, one season we will do a Leicester or at least come close, that said that would be enough for me, I have my aspirations but I remain realistic and the stadium can play its part but it starts on the pitch.
Thanks Sean nice one.I have always said i would go to watch us in a cow field full of shyte,i cant stop going to watch us.Anyway for me it is about the day out with my mates away from the daily grind of life.
A few beers with them pre match,have the crack at the match and then a shed load of beers during the evening.I still look forward to my once a week or two week day out,so its now at the LS,so what i still have a cracking day 😁
Well from a purely selfish point of view (sorry fellas) i really couldnt care what other individuals make of it.I go with my son and grandson and still thoroughly enjoy my family time at matches.At my time of life it is valuable to me and a draught,popcorn or a 30 minute walk really doesnt detract from my day with them.
Great point Stan
It is juat what it is for me Sean,its an important enjoyable day out with my kin.
One thing i could have guaranteed today was that someone on a blog would send their own silly remark about moaning.I can read them like a book.Very sad lol
Nothing better to do than still stir it or make stupid statements from afar.
Thank you Sean it was interesting to browse through the results.Stan if this survey had be down on here alone it would have been considered b&llocks right lmao
Im not too sure how you can trust that a vast majority of the survey takers were fans who definately go to matches.Im sure their was a fair percentage of non attending fans who couldnt keep their paws away from it.That we will never know.
It has given some fans the chance to air their views though so it cant be a bad thing.
Empty stadium next year or the board panicking about st sales for next year,do me a favour.
We will always pull in a good crowd Dog & it will be the same next season im sure.You cant just speculate or make random statements about it.Well you can but it will be b*llocks.Dont forget 32 is getting a ST next year so thats one seat taken 😂
It ain’t great, it ain’t ****e but 100% I’ll be there next year just like the last 30+ years having a sing song a good laugh and wondering how the China doll is classed as good forward 😀
I loved Karen Brady’s response to London Assembly members criticising West Ham for not paying more for Policing the ground – after giving her a hard time about West Ham’s ‘super deal’ and getting browbeaten for quite a while she just shrugged and said ‘It is what it is!’
That’s my opinion of the ‘London Stadium’ – my seat and view are fine, the journey is easier but the Stadium itself is disapponting, the mass of scaffolding behind the stands was a shock, the whole economics of it are mad and the taxpayer will be baling it out for the foreseeable future!
It’s ok, it could be better but ‘it is what it is!’.
Fair assessment MM i believe.