Sean’s Olympic Stadium Season Ticket Experience

 Exclusive CandH Feature

On Thursday it was finally my turn to attend the West Ham Reservation Centre in Stratford Westfield Shopping centre close to the Olympic Stadium.

I grouped with ClaretandHugh historian, Nigel Kahn as well my fellow Moore Than Just A Podcast presenters John and George Bucci.

Our group numbered twelve in total and we were reserved the board room for our meeting but first we sat though the mandatory ‘ambition to be a top six club’ speech by an advisor called James followed by a short film by Ray Winstone to get us in the mood.

One of our group asked if a top six place was guaranteed in the future, James looked flustered and just laughed. He looked down at his script but the answer wasn’t there so he carried on with pre-rehearsed sales pitch.

We were then broken down into our groups and our sales advisor David ushered us into the board room where he early on confessed to being a Liverpool fan adding with a straight face that West Ham was his second team . Yeah right, I bet he tells all the punters that.

With Nigel and myself in the room, David was never going to have an easy ride and we bombarded him with questions about the family seating area, band 5, why Trevor Brooking upper season ticket holders couldn’t chose a lower seat and various questions we had been storing up for months.

David continuously insisted we couldn’t take pictures  in the meeting despite hundreds already being freely available on social media from previous appointments. He explained the club used to be more lax about it but we are now strict.

I had bought along a good West Ham supporting friend of mine as my ‘plus two’ who wanted to become a new season ticket holder. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to sit with us in the lower tier in the Olympic Stadium so instead choose four great band 2 seats in section 212 row 66.

As he and his wife are over 65 and his two grandchildren are under 16 he was able to purchase four tickets in band 2 for under £1,000 for next season this leaving the Centre a very happy camper.

Our smaller group of four, including myself currently based in Sir Trevor Brooking lower band 4 were offered seats in the new Chav corner in the OS lower stand comprising of sections of 114,113 and 112.

It was explained we were required to upgrade to band 3 to stay in the lower tier for £100 extra but it was pointed out that at £599 it is still £52 cheaper than a band 4 season ticket this season and £21 cheaper than previous seasons. We were fed a new marketing line of  ‘a comparable seat for a comparable price’

We decided against section 114  which is right next to the away supporters and instead went for section 113 with four seats in a row including an isle seat. We went for row 19 to get some elevation in view and keep out of the rain when the wind blows in sidewards to get the first 15 rows wet.

We were then directed out to meet another Liverpool fan sales advisor, Alex, to pay our 25 per cent deposit. We were informed we couldn’t use our Epurse credits from ticket trader sales to pay our deposit as the computer systems weren’t compatible but we could use our Epurse credits for the balance in June.

Finally it was Nigel’s turn to choose his seats for next season. He wanted to sit with us in the lower tier but was told that was not possible as the availability for limited previous lower stand band 4 season ticket holders. At that stage we were joined by the Head of Olympic Stadium Ticket Sales who is a Macclesfield fan from America.

Charles sat in with us while Nigel and his remaining group chose their seats in section 213 row 64 after a long debate. They payed £499 for each adult and £99 for each child. Nigel described the experience afterwards as ‘palatable’ after realising he was close to people who had spent £200 more for almost the same view.

All that was left was to have our founder pictures taken wearing Hammers scarves and silly jester hats and be given our Founder pins. I was given both a Blue founder pin and a Silver one.

The Blue ones have been given out to Olympic Stadium season ticket holders and I was told 30,000 have been given out already. The silver ones have been given out to those fans who have introduced a new season ticket holder. I was told 10,000 of those have been given out.

I have no doubt West Ham will sell out all 40,000 season tickets for next season and will have a waiting list of around 15,000. The real proof of the pudding is how many renew in the second season. A lot of this will be down to the match day experience, the stadium atmosphere and the on the pitch success next season.

Looking forward to next season now and taking my seat in section 113 in the new stadium next August.

P.S Sorry David against your strict instructions I sneaked a few pictures in. My seat view is above at the top 😉