Farewell Boleyn sleepover: No bacon…no bangers but floor shaking music and a Gospel service!

As part of my own personal farewell to Boleyn, I treated myself to a night at the West Ham hotel last Saturday night to have my first and last sleep over at the Boleyn Ground before it is demolished in August this year.

£114 bought me a room (box 259) for Saturday night which is  not far away from the half way line with fantastic views over the pitch.

Upon arriving for the check in time of 2pm I bumped into the team who had just finished training on the pitch. Payet, Adrian, Carroll, Randolph all passed me in reception as I checked in much to my amazement.

Going up to my room on the second floor with big grin on my face I peeked through an open door to see the first team camped out the 100 club before they departed for their coach journey to Leicester.

Like a star-struck school kid I raced down to lobby to watch them leave in their coach on their trip to Leicester, walking down the stairs I bumped in Reece Oxford  with whom I had a little chat. What a nice bloke with great manners.

There was a small group of Hammers supporters outside the players car park and Dimitri Payet, Mark Noble, Andy Carroll, Sam Byram, James Tomkins and Slaven Bilic all came over to chat with the fans, sign stuff and have pictures taken for anyone who asked.

Slav has got a great rapport with the West Ham fans which you can see in the video I took below.

What a great start to my sleep over at the Boleyn ground, OK you shouldn’t expect too much, after all it is a three star hotel and it is looking very tried and weathered.

The hotel rooms double as corporate boxes on match days and the carpets smell of stale beer but there is still something special going to sleep with views of a darkened Boleyn ground and waking up to that same magical view the next morning.

I say sleep but there was a big boxing event directly under our room in the Legends lounge which didn’t end until 1am so the room shook with the music until the early hours. At 9am on Sunday morning it was the turn of the local church to blast out gospel music right under our room.

Breakfast is included for two people at £114 and you get to eat it in one of the corporate lounges complete with West Ham crossed hammers on the carpet. In typical West Ham fashion they ran out of bacon and sausages but the rest of it was very nice to be fair.

The hotel receptionist told me the hotel shuts down forever on 4th June so you will need to be quick if you want to have a sleep over at the Boleyn ground. West Ham leave many of the rooms open over the weekend so you can have an unofficial mini tour if you want. just don’t get caught!

Website for the hotel is here http://www.westhamhotel.co.uk/