Saturday, June 2

Hearn on the wrong track

Nice response from the club to Barry Hearn, who, having thrown every legal obstacle he could at  WHU's Olympic Stadium bid, then announced that Leyton Orient would consider groundsharing at the stadium with West Ham. The club's not very diplomatic statement reads: "West Ham United has not held talks with Leyton Orient in respect of ground sharing and nor is it our intention to do so. We do not wish to comment on recent statements made by Barry Hearn not least because we can't keep up with his ever-changing position. They continue, however, to provide us with a constant source of amusement."  What's also interesting about this story is that Hearn expressed interest after it emerged that West Ham did have a scheme for retractable seats over the athletics track. If this is the case then the stadium bid becomes much more viable. Having sampled a little bit of Wembley a lot of fans might be won over by playing in a similar stadium every fortnight.

2 comments:

spyinthesky said...

Having been one of those who has actually watched an event at the stadium and high and towards the back I have to say that I was impressed with the view. If similar height can be retained while seating can move over the track then the view will likely be far better than Upton Park, certainly the sight lines were great as far as I was concerned, for once I could watch without stretching and craning my neck to get a view. That said not clear to me how they would achieve the transformation except perhaps by actually building over the base having remove the existing seats and in so doing improve the rake of the lower seats while setting them on some form of tracking system. Feasible but costly suspect but no doubt cheaper than a white elephant as even Hearn agrees.

Pete May said...

Yes, I did a tour and even at the back it didn't feel like you were that far away from the action, though the track did look massive. However many millions it costs, retractable seats have to be the answer, so hope the technical answers will be made public on.