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Bom Stickle 6:16 Sun Mar 12
Stadium survey
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West Ham co-chairman David Gold said last Wednesday “I think the
majority of fans are happy with the Stadium given the alternatives and
if all goes to plan it will be the biggest in London. dg”
On the back on Mr Gold’s statement, Claret and Hugh ran a poll to ask
West Ham supporters the very simple question. Are you happy with the
London Stadium? With 1,500 voting to make it statistically
significant, 56% agreed with the chairman to confirm they were happy
with the London Stadium leaving 44% to register their unhappiness.
This prompted Iain Dale from WestHamTillIDie.com to discuss
the creation of a wide ranging questionnaire on the London Stadium
from a supporter's perspective after 221 days or 31 weeks after we
officially played our first game at the former Olympic Stadium last
summer.
This is not designed to an anti-board or even a pro-stadium survey,
there is no hidden agenda. It is merely a survey to highlight West Ham
fans perception of the new stadium and what areas might still need
improvement. The full results will be shared with the West Ham board
for their consideration.
Please only fill out the survey if you have visited the London Stadium
in person to sample one or more of the 19 competitive games and/or the
one friendly which have been played at our new home since the 4th
August last year. Please base your answers on your most recent visit
to the stadium to recognise areas which may have been a problem at the
beginning but have since improved.
The aims of this questionnaire is also supported by the West Ham
United Independent Supporters' Association (WHUISA) and they have
kindly agreed to send it out to their six hundred plus paid up
members. You can find out more about WHUISA and how to join
http://www.whuisa.org
We would like to encourage as many season ticket holders, claret
members and general admission ticket supporters to answer this
questionnaire as possible so please spread the word far and wide on
forums and social media.
Take the survey at
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/7QC93Q2
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Replies - In Chronological Order ( Show Newest Messages First)
Hermit Road
6:20 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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Cheeky cunts. We are one of the biggest West Ham sites yet don't get an option in the last question.
Other than that, a decent questionnaire.
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Mad Dog
6:25 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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I was just about to post this. beat me to it.
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Bom Stickle
6:26 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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The fella that done it didn't have access to WHO. Not good enough really.
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Mad Dog
6:29 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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didn't have access?
is he banned?
is it zoltaneering?
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Mad Dog
6:30 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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*zoltan
fucking autocorrect (yes apparently zoltaneering is a word in my phones dictionary)
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Bom Stickle
7:48 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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God knows Mad Dog, although I suppose the more fans that fill it in the better it'll be.
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ornchurch ammer
8:03 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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I think that there should have been an option between Average and Poor. Still, if more people answer Poor then someone, somewhere, may take some notice.
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Sven Roeder
8:09 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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Some of the questions cant really be answered with those alternatives.
How can you have a list of half a dozen sites and NOT have WHO as an option?
Laughable cunts
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On The Ball
8:12 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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Done. Good idea, too.
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J.Riddle
8:20 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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I told them that profits are up at the LS so they need to spend 100m in the summer to aim for Europe. I'll eat my hat if ....
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MikeHammer
9:32 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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Some of the questions are crying out for more options ... will it be like home in x years clearly depends on whether we still are sharing with Athletics.
On that front I heard today that ALL references to West Ham including the hanging shirts have to be removed for the World Athletics Championship .... ridiculous!
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DoubleDouble
9:38 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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WHO is irrelevant you clique cunts!
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Bom Stickle
9:43 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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Surely the cant be true MikeHammer. Just pissing money away for no reason. Everyone knows it's where we play now.
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jim@chickenrun
9:45 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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Chelsea fans singing "your not west ham anymore" last Monday,summed it up for me...were not the west ham we all new and loved...we need to be 6foot from the pitch intimidating opposition the way we allways did..if you look at all the grounds of ..spuds,arsenal,Liverpool etc the fans are right in the faces of the players....that's what we need,otherwise this club will fade and die,and turn into a corporate cash cow for our owners...
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MikeHammer
9:49 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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Bom ... I believe the West Ham sign outside has to be either removed or covered up - stupid expensive exercise which some people will expect us to pay for !
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Bom Stickle
10:00 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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That is just pointless, there is a never ending string of bullshit attached to this stadium.
Jim: I think we sung that to them years ago, just winding us up. Didn't hear them singing that during the cup match. Unfortunately the club seems to not want the vocal support. But if we are going to be there for 100 years we really need to find a way of reducing the gaps at the front and behind the lower tiers. Even though we don't own the stadium, it is in the clubs ling term best interest to find a way of getting it to happen.
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tnb
10:57 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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Agree it's probably pointless as the idea of listening to fans concerns earlier in the season only to end up pretending those concerns only amounted to idiots like Whetstone demanding that drinks were poured into glasses and that TVs on the concourse were turned off showed.
Nevertheless for what it's worth I filled it out.
Not that any fucker will read it but I had a bit of a rant (yes I'm bored) in the comments box and I've Eddie B'd it below for anyone who may be interested:
Atmosphere, belonging, etc are esoteric and unpredictable notions and of course any move takes time to be accepted. To an extent, these - very important - elements were out of the club's control. Of course, having a better season this time out may have helped the feel around the new stadium but no club 'deserves' a successful season and if we were in the Champions League places then that may have papered over some cracks but the test of any football fan is how you feel about your club when things aren't going well. Similarly a stadium - does it still feel like home, do you still enjoy going, are you still proud to identify with it when times are hard? That was never an issue at the Boleyn and this move was always going to be risky. I still believe that it was the right decision, however, if only because the thought of 50,000 Tottenham fans walking around Stratford every other weekend would have been horrific.
All that said, various elements of the transition have been badly managed and the board have not helped themselves in terms of giving themselves the best chance of creating a good feeling amongst the fans. As I said, the reaction was always unpredictable but I personally know many people who were largely 'pro' the move prior to this season who have become less generous in their appraisal over the last 7 months, and also many others who were largely 'anti' the move who unfortunately now feel vindicated and who are becoming the significant voice, both at and around the stadium and online.
That is true whether the issues are announcing a rise in capacity as a cause for celebration before the relevant permissions had been obtained and then attempting to place the blame on fans standing with at best twisted interpretations of the appropriate rules, or the employment of sub-standard and inexperienced stewards, or the practice of allowing away fans to stand all game despite these apparent dire safety concerns and therefore subjecting our own heavily policed fans to ridicule at pur own ground. There are more examples.
That is much more important than investment in the playing staff or managerial decisions and results in terms of whether this move is judged a success.
In terms of bricks and mortar, there is no reason why the new stadium cannot be a good football ground. I have been going to home and away games since 1994 where possible and there seems to be a lot of amnesia about how the Boleyn shaped up in terms of atmosphere over that period. At every top flight ground for the past decade or so the atmosphere has deteriorated and the away fans are often the most vocal over a full 90 minutes. At times - Chelsea in the cup, the first half hour or so against Chelsea recently, the first half an hour or so against Watford - the new stadium has had as good an atmosphere as anywhere in recent years. But taking that last example, the atmosphere was promptly deflated by the sight - from where I sit - of stewards fighting fans, fans fighting stewards, and then fans turning on fellow fans. The board will of course blame the fans concerned for that and probably congratulate themselves on any resulting bans, but they have to accept their share of responsibility as that situation was allowed to develop due to a toxic feeling amongst the support at that point. The end result? A collapse and a loss. How much events in the stands influenced that we will never know (although I clearly saw some players becoming aware of them). This is not about right and wrong, but for a club with a board who seem to place a lot of value in the PR credit of 'being like a family', West Ham United doesn't feel much like a family right now.
Our support has splintered and when the new stadium falls silent that is a major part of the reason why. And while it could potentially be a good ground when the crowd are enthused, when it's quiet then the silence quickly becomes profound.
Given the media bias against the move, we have perhaps a season more to fix that before we become a laughing stock. I well remember going to Arsenal away a couple of seasons ago and being amazed at how their crowd were sitting silent whilst our fans just yards away were singing all game. I thought 'thank God we're not like them'. I certainly never wanted to be like them. You can't force people to get engaged, and as I say this has been an issue at many grounds for some time, but if transitioning to that 'model' is really the ambition of certain members of our board are aspiring, then i would respectfully suggest that it would be best for all concerned if they collected their plaudits for organising the new tenancy and moved on.
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On The Ball
11:11 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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Excellent comments, tnb.
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tnb
11:20 Sun Mar 12
Re: Stadium survey
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Thanks, OTB.
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