Nine years on from West Ham’s move to the London Stadium, many fans still argue it’s ill-suited for football. But few remember that the club nearly built its own purpose-built ground just a stone’s throw away.
Back in 2007, then-chairman Eggert Magnusson revealed that West Ham were in talks with the London Development Agency to construct a new stadium in time for the 2011–2012 season. The proposed site? A brownfield plot opposite West Ham Underground Station, formerly used by Parcel Force.
This ambitious plan came after Magnusson offered £100 million to buy the Olympic Stadium outright. His bid was rejected, as the government intended to downsize the venue to 25,000 seats for athletics use only. As history shows, those plans were scrapped, and West Ham eventually became long-term tenants in 2016, with the stadium used for both football and athletics.
Magnusson stepped down in September 2007, and the Icelandic ownership collapsed following the 2008 financial crisis. Executive Chairman Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, lasted just two years before David Gold and David Sullivan acquired the club from CB Holdings, a consortium led by the Icelandic bank Straumur-Burdaras.
Opportunity Lost for West Ham
As for the land that could have hosted West Ham’s future, it’s now part of the TwelveTrees Park regeneration project. The site is being transformed through a public-private partnership to deliver 4,700 new homes, with some already completed alongside a new community centre.
Some supporters can’t help but imagine how different things might have been had West Ham chosen a different path — building a bespoke stadium, owned outright by the club, and firmly planted in the heart of East London. A football first venue, instead of being tenants in a repurposed Olympic venue. One thing’s certain, the conversation around what might have been isn’t going away anytime soon.
History is history what we need to do is learn . Brady & Sullivan out l& Build a stadium, I Laughed when the glazier family took over at man united, they stripped the club Dry ….And Man utd won the league 3 years on the bounce,
Where getting stripped dry And winning nothing. You can change the managers as much as. You like. But it’s the owners that Need to go to make a change ,we will have nothing and win sweety fanny ann if we don’t get them out
I remember watching West Ham beat Huddersfield here around 4 years ago,was in the Trevor Brooking stand,but as both goals in the 2-0 win came at the other end was hard to see,maybe with binoculars yes. For me it ticked another stadium off,am now up to 157,but feel sorry for the fans as it’s not a football stadium so that’s sad!
West Ham were granted planning rights & the road behind the Chicken Run stand was going to be built on. When the Dr Martens stand was built, the pitch was moved over to accommodate that stand being moved closer to the pitch.
Gold & Sullivan stated that in the end it was going to cost too much to redevelop Upton Park station to accommodate the rise in support.
They were good owners, was the world wide banking crisis just another part of the West Ham curse? 😊⚒️⚒️
West Ham 9 years of moaning about getting a new stadium for next to nothing. As I understand there is a firm commitment that if West Ham build a dedicated athletic stadium for London they would be able to gain ownership of the current stadium. Sadly they seem to have zero intentions of doing that and so another 80 years of them moaning about getting a new stadium for free is probably in store.
Might have been that we had a new stadium and the Olympic Stadium was levelled to provide 4700 new homes.
Olympic Legacy at its best, Matt.
I always thought the parcel force site was turned down on safety grounds because of the gasometers near by or something like that, but that falls down because of the famous ones at the oval cricket ground. There was another option after the bus garage closed in Priory road they cound have knocked down the new Chicken run stand and mirror the west stand by closing the road.
Gas reservoirs are owned by Berkeley Homes now, the developers on Twelve Tree Park and becoming resi buildings.
If I’m correct and tell me if I ain’t, but they built West Ham Bus Garage on the land that was going to be where the stadium was planned. And if my memory serves me well wasn’t the cost of decontaminating the land an issue too.
Everton had to do fhe same for their stadium it wasn’t much of a problem. Any large pieces of land in London will decontamination work do to it.
Forget all this as it’s history now. Like saying West Ham could have built a custom stadium on the old West Ham Speedway track. Concentrate on the future.
Send us a blog in James.
Matt is welcome to write what he wants about West Ham but if you fancy sending in a guest post about the future then you’re more than welcome.
Well said!
True.. ,Sullivan And Brady OUT