Watch Mo Farah winning his golden track double in the 5,000m at London 2012, or Jessica Ennis landing the heptathlon title by winning the 800m, and you will notice that every single person in camera shot at the Olympic Stadium is on their feet. Tens of thousands of them roaring their heroes to glory.
The London Stadium, as it will be known until the naming rights are sold, is now the Stratford home of West Ham United FC. But only a few thousand people have been on their feet during the four home games this season, most of them near the area where Farah made his decisive break on the last lap.
This time, it has led to bitter infighting, physical as well as verbal. Crowd trouble at football was back in the headlines after last week’s Premier League game against Watford. There was fighting with away fans, who were poorly segregated, and in the lower tiers West Ham supporters fought each other. On Friday 20 fans were banned and had their season tickets revoked.
“I was disgusted, ashamed to be a West Ham fan,” said lifetime follower Ciro Castaldo, who stood near one of the troublespots. So why are so many fans losing their temper and self-control? Why are parents saying they feel so unsafe they cannot take their children to games? Why are West Ham beset by spectator problems after signing the best stadium deal in living memory, whereby they pay only £2.5m a year to lease a stadium built with taxpayers’ money?
There are no simple answers, but poor planning, poor stewarding, pig-headedness among some supporters, and even popcorn have all played a part. While practical issues are largely to blame, some fans cite a wider problem of the creeping gentrification of football.
For former Manchester United captain Roy Keane in 2000 it was fans eating prawn sandwiches. For West Ham’s more robust supporters in 2016 it is popcorn, which is on sale around the stadium. “Popcorn? What have they done to West Ham’s soul?” was one fan’s reaction on social media.
Standing up at football matches in England’s top two divisions is illegal. The Premier League has no intention of making any changes, and a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said: “The government currently has no plans to change its position and introduce standing accommodation at grounds covered by the all-seater requirement.”
The problem is that tens of thousands do stand up every weekend, and have done for years. Stewards, and the clubs that employ them, turn a blind eye. At West Ham’s former home, the Boleyn Ground, usually known as Upton Park, an entire section stood up at every game for more than 10 years.
They were in the lower section of the Bobby Moore Stand, named after the club’s most famous player. Now they stand up in the Bobby Moore Stand in the new stadium, but West Ham sold seats in that section to people who did not know about the tradition. There are arguments. Children often cannot see.
Children are all over the stadium. The club’s family section has 1,400 seats, but there are 25,000 family members. After offering junior season tickets for £99, West Ham has more under-16s, around 10,000, than any other club. That would explain the presence of popcorn. “We are very proud to have so many families and children attending our games,” said a club spokesman.
“In some ways the old regulars, the authentic fans, feel threatened,” said Pete May, author of a forthcoming book Goodbye to Boleyn. “Standing up and singing is the only link they’ve got with the old West Ham, and they’re worried it’s going to disappear in the creeping commercialisation and the 60,000 crowds. They don’t want to change.
Iain Dale, the political blogger, former Conservative candidate, radio presenter and West Ham fan, said: “Those who do stand now, they’re just being selfish. We all stand up at times, when we have a corner, for example. It’s part of the football experience. But standing throughout the game, they ruin it for others. If you have kids behind you, why would you do that?”
Peter Caton, 55, is among those who stand up at every game. He is one of the many fans who blame Karren Brady, the club’s vice-chairman, for “riding roughshod over supporters’ wishes” by moving the club to the new home.
West Ham are among the 20 richest clubs in the world. Their move has added 22,000 seats to matchday income and their supporters, too, are wealthy – “right at the top in terms of highest average income”, according to Dale. The potential for growth is clear, but West Ham are an East End club, not a Chelsea or an Arsenal.
“People are standing their ground quite literally,” said Caton. “West Ham has a core of working-class support and Brady wants to turn us into Arsenal. But we’re not Arsenal. There was no proper consultation of fans before we moved. They’ll have to carry me out if they want me to sit down, and I won’t come back.”
There are more complaints about the lack of pubs near the stadium – “it’s a half-hour walk” said May – and the pre-match eateries at Westfield are way upmarket from old Upton Park favourites. “The food outlets are all very different and the whole experience of the Olympic Stadium will appeal more to a middle-class audience than working-class,” said Dale.
“But if you ignore the trouble for a moment, it is the most amazing stadium, every seat has a good view. The negative stories need to be balanced out by the fact that most people like the place. When we start playing well again a lot of problems will ebb away.”
Others from around England will see the bitterness as another example of the distancing of elite football from “real” fans. It was an affordable sport watched by largely working-class fans before the Hillsborough disaster brought an end to terraces, before Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, the Premier League (25 years old next year), the Sky Sports stranglehold, and Keane’s “prawn sandwich” outburst.
By the end of the 1980s, wrote Andrew Hussey in an essay on Hillsborough for the New Statesman, football fans “had become the object of scorn and derision. To be working class, to be a football fan … was to be scum”. Many working-class fans have felt marginalised ever since.
But while Premier League stadiums are nearly 97% full every week you will not find many in the boardrooms harking back to 30 years ago when the Sunday Times said football was “a slum sport played in slum stadiums and increasingly watched by slum people”.
And there can be no complaints about ticket prices at West Ham. While Chelsea fans must pay £56, plus a membership fee, even for the cheapest match seat, and Liverpool fans felt obliged to stage a walkout protest over price hikes in February, West Ham sold season tickets for £289 – around £15 a game. “The club have done a really good job of keeping the prices down,” said Dale. “A lot of fans who were priced out at Upton Park can now afford to come, and I see a lot more black and Asian faces in the crowd.”
There was, he said, a divide between the old-style fans and some of those 22,000 newcomers. “Old” fans believe the “new” fans leave games early, return to seats late after half-time popcorn forays, and never stand up and sing. Some diehards have responded with vicious abuse, leading West Ham to move fans to other parts of the stadium if they are unhappy.
Jon Darch, the leading advocate of standing at league games, said: “Some West Ham fans have been asked to give up their football lifestyle. There are supporters all mixed up together who have different views about what constitutes a good matchday experience.”
Darch said that some fans believe the club wants only middle-class fans: “They think their way of supporting the club for 30 to 40 years is being excised, their style of support is being obliterated. I don’t agree with them, but that’s their underlying anxiety.”
TRADING PLACES
Arsenal 2006, moved from Highbury (38,419 capacity) to the Emirates Stadium (60,360).
Cost: £390m.
In its opening season, the Emirates was sold out for every first-team game.
Swansea City 2005, from Vetch Field (11,475) to Liberty Stadium (20,909).
Cost: £27m.
In August, the club’s American owners revealed they are in talks with Swansea council to expand the stadium.
Manchester City 2003, from Maine Road (35,150) to Etihad Stadium (55,097).
Cost: £20m for repurposing, £2m per year.
City hold a 250-year lease on the ground, owned by Manchester city council.
Leicester City 2002, from Filbert Street (22,000) to King Power Stadium (32,312).
Cost: £17m.
The club is considering expanding the stadium’s East Stand or building an entirely new stadium.
Southampton 2001, from Dell Stadium (15,200) to St Mary’s Stadium (32,205).
Cost: £32m.
The stadium has taken on the club’s original name, Southampton St Marys.
