Daily WHUFC News - 25th March 2013

Cole impressed by Stadium plans
WHUFC.com
West Ham United striker Carlton Cole is looking forward to the club's move
to the Olympic Stadium
24.03.2013

West Ham United striker Carlton Cole says the club's move to the Olympic
Stadium will help its presence in the community grow even bigger. Mayor of
London Boris Johnson announced on Friday that the Hammers had been given the
right to make the Olympic Stadium their home from 2016. Cole, who scored one
of West Ham's goals in their play-off final victory at Wembley last May, is
looking forward to seeing the club develop with a new 54,000-capacity home.
"I'm very impressed by the plans," he said, "I knew it was going to be
impressive when it was unveiled and now the club can plan to make it a home
for West Ham United. "It's very exciting times. You look to the future to
make things brighter and this is a great plan. The owners have got the fans'
interests at heart - the Olympic Stadium will be more accessible to get to
than the Boleyn, and tickets will be more accessible too. "That's the main
thing at the end of the day - the community matters to West Ham and that's
what's spurring this project on. "Moving there gives the club a massive
platform to help the community. Everyone is excited in and around West Ham,
all the players too. "It's a great opportunity to help the club move on to
the next level."

The stadium will now undergo a transformation to turn it into a football
ground with retractable seats covering the athletics track, following its
success in hosting last summer's Olympic Games. Cole cannot wait to see the
Hammers build upon the legendary stories already told inside the venue
during that unforgettable summer. He added: "Usain Bolt came here, lit up
the stage, Mo Farah my friend came here and got his golds. There have been
some great athletes in there already, and hopefully there'll be more great
athletes coming through our youth system to play there. "I came here during
the Olympics and it was a brilliant atmosphere. The noise level was unreal
and our fans are going to raise the roof, so it's going to be good."

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James Tomkins hoping to turn out for West Ham at Olympic Stadium
Last Updated: March 24, 2013 6:01pm
SSN

James Tomkins is determined to earn himself a new contract at West Ham
United and represent the club at the Olympic Stadium. The Hammers are set to
move out of their Upton Park home and take up residence at the base of
London 2012 in time for the 2016/17 campaign. Tomkins is aware of how
special the atmosphere at the Olympic Stadium promises to be, having formed
part of Team GB last summer. He is desperate to experience the thrill of
competing on such a stage for his boyhood club, but acknowledges that he
will first have to convince West Ham that he is deserving of fresh terms.
"My contract expires just before it happens but hopefully I will still be
around because, just like all the fans, I am looking forward to that
occasion."

Tomkins told the Sunday Express: "It seems so far away right now but it will
come soon. It should be a brilliant moment. "My contract expires just before
it happens but hopefully I will still be around because, just like all the
fans, I am looking forward to that occasion. "This has been my club since I
was eight. It's hard to see me ever being anywhere else because I have been
here so long, and my family are as excited as I am. "To see their son
potentially playing there makes them very proud. And being a local boy, I
will be doubly proud to be there."

Allardyce

It remains to be seen who will make up the West Ham playing and coaching
staff when they move into their new home, but Tomkins feels current coach
Sam Allardyce should be given every chance to guide the club into an
exciting new era. He added: "He is doing a great job here. "He got us
promoted at the first time of asking and you can't ask for much more,
really."

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Younes Belhanda and Henri Bedimo can leave Montpellier in the summer
By Giscard Gourizro. Last Updated: March 24, 2013 8:29pm
SSN

Montpellier president Louis Nicollin has confirmed reported Premier League
targets Younes Belhanda and Henri Bedimo can leave the club in the summer.
Belhanda has been linked with Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur in the past and
saw a January move to Fenerbahce fall through after the two clubs failed to
agree a fee. The Moroccan playmaker is now expected to leave the reigning
champions at the end of the season and is set to be joined by left-back
Bedimo.
West Ham United have previously been mooted as admirers of the Cameroon
international, while former Portsmouth striker John Utaka could also leave
Montpellier. Nicollin told the French media: "Bedimo and Belhanda can leave.
I am waiting for different offers. "Apart from those two, we can keep the
rest of the squad. Utaka can also leave, but he is expensive."

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Tony Cottee Interview Part 1: 'I Wish I Had Stayed at West Ham For My Whole
Career'
West Ham Till I Die

Last Friday I met Tony Cottee in my office in Westminster for an interview
that was scheduled to last an hour. In the end it lasted an hour and three
quarters. As usual I will publish it in several parts. This section was the
first twelve minutes and concentrates on Tony's views on the move to the
Olympic Stadium.

We are talking on the morning of the announcement that West Ham have got the
lease on the Olympic Stadium. Do you think that's a good thing?

I actually do believe it's a good thing. I don't want to leave Upton Park. I
don't think any sane West Ham fan can honestly say they want to leave Upton
Park. All the memories are there for me, not just as a player but as a
supporter too. Growing up in the 1970s, all the fantastic games I went to
see, all the memories that are there as a supporter, and secondly as a
player – what I achieved as a player, the goals I scored. All my history,
all my family's history, which goes back to the very start, it's all at
Upton Park. Do I want to leave the ground? No of course I don't, but I've to
be honest. I am fed up with West Ham being and also-ran club, settling for
mid-table mediocrity in the Premier League, if we're lucky, occasionally
dropping down into the Championship, something we have already done twice in
the 21sst century. I want the club to progress and hand on heart I don't
believe the club can progress at Upton Park. In terms of going to the
ground, although it's a great experience when you're actually there you
can't park, the Tube is a nightmare. Most West Ham fans don't live around
the ground any more. Nearly everyone is traveling or commuting into the
ground and purely from that point of view, Stratford is a good thing. It's
the best connected train station in Europe. It's got to be a plus to get
there. There are many, many reasons. I want to see the club get to the next
level.

Why is that West Have have always seemed to lack ambition?

You go back to the mid 1960s with all that success before the World Cup, the
1986 side. Everyone thought we ought to kick on then but the Board appeared
not to have the ambition to do so. Now seems to be the first time they've
said, yes, we want to be one of the biggest teams in the country. Yes
you're right. A lot of the problems come down to money. My Dad always tells
the story of Harry Hooper back in the 1950s. He was one of our best players
and West Ham sold him to cash in. In the 1960s we had wonderful players,
World Cup winners and we still didn't really achieve anything. In the 1970s
we began to try things – we signed Phil Parkes for a world record fee for a
goalkeeper, let's not forget that. We built up a really good team in 1986
and like with any good team when you've had a good season you need to get
two or three really good players and we didn't do that. We never bought
those players and the club then got relegated.

Presumably that was why you decided you had to leave, in the end.

I got frustrated. Exactly. Ultimately you could say it wasn't the right
decision because I didn't win anything at Everton and I then came back to
the club. Sitting here talking to you today I wish I had stayed at West Ham
my whole career because West Ham is my club and you look back and You think
'I wish I had done what Trevor Brooking did and played for West Ham my whole
career'. Steve Potts is another one. Alvin Martin, although he played for
Orient, didn't he, at the end? I wish I had stayed at West Ham my whole
career. There's going to be a lot of talk over the next few years about how
West Ham get to the next level. Talking is all well and good but there's got
to be a strategy in place to take the club to the next level. We've got to
clear the debt, first and foremost. You can't have a successful football
club when there are £70-£80 million worth of debt so one of the key things
for me has got to be that if we sell Upton Park that money must be used to
clear the debt and restore the club to a sound financial footing.

Do you think that can be achieved under the current ownership or do you
think they will have to bring in a third party investor?

I think ultimately we might have to look at another investor. I think things
are still a bit of a mess in terms of the last bit of the shareholding. I
think the Icelandic bank still own 35% of the shares so that needs to be
cleared up. Perhaps we could get in a big hitting investor, but whether they
would be allowed to invest who knows. After all, we have got the financial
fair play coming into operation. Moving to the Olympic Stadium is the right
thing. It's the right thing for us as a football club, but talk is cheap. We
have got to act and make sure that the club moves in the right direction.

Do you think football fans in general can be quite short-sighted and that
they tend to think with their hearts rather than their heads?

I actually feel sorry for the fans in a way, but it's not the club's fault.
They have been involved in a very lengthy legal battle which meant that they
had to abide by NDAs (Non Disclosure Agreements). They couldn't talk about
so they have been very limited in what information it can put out to the
fans. So that fans make a judgement and think why on earth do we want to go
to Stratford, we play at Upton Park. And of course there are concerns that
go beyond that, and they were my concerns when I actually sat down and
talked to the club. I told them I would not support a project which means we
would go a stadium with an athletics track round a football field. It
doesn't work. It has never worked anywhere round the world. It was important
for me to see the plans, and I have been very privileged to see the plans
before the bulk of the fans. I have been very impressed with what I have
seen. With the retractable seating and the roof, which will mean a great
atmosphere, it will be the right thing for the fans. I do feel sorry for the
fans because they haven't see the plans. They are making a judgement on
what's been fed to them. There's been a lot of scaremongering about the
running track and how far you are away from the pitch, but I think if you
talk to anyone who went to the Olympics, they all said what a great view it
was.

I went and I walked right up to the back of the top tier and thought 'would
I want to sit here'? And I thought, yes, absolutely.

Yes, I have done it myself. Absolutely right. The top tier is not a problem.
The problem is the lower tier, where they have got to bring the fans nearer
to the pitch. There is also a problem with the toilets, the corporate
hospitality. It is just ridiculous that we built a stadium for the Olympics
without the foresight of thinking it would have to be used for football
afterwards.

Blame Ken Livingstone for that.

Exactly, Yes. There are a lot of people who should hang their heads in shame
through what happened seven or eight years ago, as great as the Olympics
were.

If you talk to fans from other London clubs they all say 'well you'll never
fill it'. Will we?

I understand people thinking that way. I think the opposite. I don't think
60,000 is enough for a successful West Ham team. I really don't. I think we
are that big a club. You have only got to look at the Play-Off Final. OK, it
was a Play-Off Final and it was at Wembley, I understand that but we could
easily have sold 120,000 tickets for that. That would have been all West Ham
fans, forget the Blackpool fans. There has always been a demand for tickets
from a successful West Ham United Football Club. OK, when we play Wigan at
home, are we going to fill it? I think the answer to that is 'no' if we are
not successful, so then the club would have to look at what they have
already spoken about – reducing admission prices and making it viable for
families and doing the Kids for a Quid, which has been a fantastic
invention.

Yes, it has been a success, but for some games at Upton Park this season
it's been a struggle to fill the ground to capacity. OK, it was on TV, but
there were tickets on the day for Spurs at home.

Is that not down to the cost? If you've got two kids it costs you at least
£200 for the day out if you include travel, programme and a bite to eat.
Think about the Man U game next month, there won't be any concessions if
you're not a season ticket holder. I think the season ticket is a great
deal. Bobby Moore Lower, £600 or whatever it might be, is fantastic value
for money but if you want to go to a one off game as a Dad with two boys,
there's no change out of £200. You can't afford that.

Presumably in the Olympic Stadium they will allow more away fans, which I
think could be great for the atmosphere.

I don't know whether there's a limit in terms of per centages but I think
there will be more scope for away fans but they will be up in the Gods
rather than in the prime seats.

If they do really cheap deals for home games that rather plays into what
Barry Hearn has been arguing doesn't it? He thinks it could lead to the end
of Leyton Orient. Does that concern you at all?

It does concern me because I am a believer in the pyramid system in England.
We have 92 fantastic football clubs. I don't want to see any football team
go out of business, like Portsmouth. It's a disgrace what has happened at
Portsmouth. Coventry are in trouble, so many other teams too. For Orient it
will be very difficult. The only thing I would say is that if West Ham were
moving into another London Borough the I would have real reservations about
it. It didn't stack up for Tottenham because they would have been moving
from Haringey into Newham. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair but West Ham
are moving within the same borough. Indeed, you could argue they are moving
nearer to their spiritual home, which is the Memorial Ground, where they
played. People don't realise West Ham played at another ground before Upton
Park. But at the same time, you've got to feel sorry for Orient. Barry, as I
expected, has fought a fantastic fight. He has done what is right for his
football club, and I do fear for Orient. They might have to move grounds,
maybe make a little profit on Brisbane Road and move to Harlow or Romford or
wherever it might be and create a new football club. It is a shame but it is
just the modern way of life and West Ham have got to what is right for West
Ham.

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West Ham are the ONLY option for the Olympic Stadium this side of a
bulldozer
By MARTIN SAMUEL
PUBLISHED: 23:36, 24 March 2013 | UPDATED: 23:36, 24 March 2013
Daily Mail

Buildings are like people. Without care, they get sick. You wouldn't
recognise London's Olympic Stadium now. It is brand new but, in its own way,
derelict. After September 9, when the Paralympics ended, the folk from LOCOG
moved through like a retreating Soviet army. Everything of use or worth that
wasn't nailed down, and some things that were, disappeared. Carpet tiles,
wallpaper, lights. A recent visitor said one of the offices still had a
plant in the corner, but it was dead. Yet the electric remains on, security
men still patrol, and the rates and overheads need to be met, as always. The
seats, which are filthy and have a nasty film developing on them, will need
to be thoroughly cleaned before the IAAF Diamond League visit in July.

Unused stadiums are expensive. The new Wembley Stadium was not constructed
using any of the material from its predecessor, because that was reduced to
rubble in 2003. By then, it had lain empty for three years, at a cost of
£2million per month in staff, lost revenue, plus the steady drain of keeping
teams of lawyers and architects on retainers for re-launch day. To refurbish
the old stadium after just three years empty would have cost £200m. So there
is the alternative. We can keep the Olympic Stadium as it is, rotting from
the inside with costs rising exponentially, or we can move on. All the
bleating about the tenancy of West Ham United ignores one simple fact. In
the last year, any man with a plan could have bid for the Olympic Stadium.
You, me, UK Athletics, Leyton Orient, Simon Cowell — the entire country
could have had a crack at getting it working again. And at the end of that
process, a Premier League football club was still the only viable game in
town.

Now ignore the carping and think what would have happened had West Ham
walked away. What would be the future? A Formula One track for a race that
doesn't exist? The location of a university that nobody has heard of? Home
to a football club that fills, on average, 3,867 seats? West Ham were the
only option this side of a bulldozer.

It was considered better value to knock down the Don Valley Stadium in
Sheffield than let it continue as a declining sports facility. The Olympic
Stadium could have eventually gone the same way. Who owns it now? You do.
For another 99 years at least. It doesn't belong to West Ham, any more than
a council tenant owns his flat. The stadium is public property and the
football club will rent. Others will join. Individual concert promoters, the
organisers of the Rugby World Cup. West Ham are only anchor tenants. So you
haven't been stiffed, ripped off or deprived of legacy. Those left to sweep
up after a very expensive mistake made the best of it.

Lord Coe, Ken Livingstone and Tessa Jowell were the architects of this
80,000-capacity cock-up, and are lucky the rebound is not greater. Their
refusal to even entertain a post-Olympic football option was so pig-headed
that David Bernstein, who as the chairman of Manchester City and later of
Wembley Stadium Limited, had overseen two huge and recent arena projects,
did not receive a single call to seek his advice or experience. Football was
to play no part in the Olympic legacy. Realism had no chance against
well-honed prejudices.

Remove West Ham this morning and what would the nation actually own? An
unlovely concrete bowl, minus a roof, in a part of London that
gentrification forgot. A non-starter as a winter venue, unappealing even in
the English summer, it would now sit empty at vast maintenance cost,
becoming more obsolete with each passing year. So whatever deal West Ham
are getting, it is better than plan B. That is why Karren Brady, who
masterminded the project for the club, could afford to drive a hard bargain.
The only option was to find new life and West Ham stood for life. Four
thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire, sang The Beatles — and one giant
financial black chasm wherever an Olympic stadium rises without a post-Games
anchor tenant. The Bird's Nest in Beijing is now a Segway race track.

So forget this falsehood that the people owned a thriving stadium. The
Olympics ended six months ago. The country was left with an empty, unused,
relic off an A12 flyover, which would in time have served only as a reminder
of another opportunity lost by our sporting and political leaders.
They are the guilty parties here. West Ham merely cleaned up their mess.

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Bonus Andy Dunn: West Ham move hard to stomach, Greg Dyke needs to ruffle
feathers and Oxlade-Chamberlain shines
By Andy Dunn
The Mirror
24 Mar 2013 07:29


Hammers Olympic Stadium move makes a mockery of legacy, but it was the only
option writes Andy Dunn

Agreed, it is a national ­disgrace.

Agreed, when you get a shiny new £600million ­stadium for £15m, you've had a
result, big time.

Agreed, when you will only have to pay £2m a year rent and you will be given
an annual £70m by your sports league, you are ­laughing yourself silly.

Agreed, it is fundamentally immoral that a Premier League football club is
­becoming the beneficiary of such considerable public largesse while
hospitals are being closed and defence budgets cut.

Agreed, the transfer of the Olympic Stadium to West Ham makes a mockery of
all the noble talk of legacy.

Agreed, the organisers now have a hell of a lot to answer for.

But the fact remains no one presented a better ­solution. There was not a
more palatable option on the ­table.

The stadium's long-term ­future was an expensive cock-up from the start.

And there have been too many post-Olympic white elephants, too many
facilities left to rot for the West Ham bid to be ignored.

It leaves a sour taste – but we are going to have to ­swallow it.

Dyke needs to shake up the Premier League

No nonsense: Dyke must tell it how it is
GETTY

At first glance, it is hard to fathom why anyone was ­surprised when Greg
Dyke was announced as the ­Football Association's ­chairman-elect.

White, very well-off, male in his sixties succeeds white, very well-off,
male in his ­sixties, who himself ­succeeded white, very well-off, male in
his sixties.

And becomes chairman of an organisation that has long been dominated by
white, very well-off, males in their sixties.

But at least Dyke seems to have a confrontational streak. Because while
David ­Bernstein has been a ­steadying influence – rocking few boats – the
FA now needs to establish that it is fit for purpose. In fact, it first
needs to ­establish what its purpose is. It needs to reclaim its right to
govern.

It needs Dyke to stand up to the Premier League.

While on a PR tour to ­rightly highlight the fine charitable and community
work done by the Premier League, its chief, ­Richard Scudamore, was asked
about the Callum ­McManaman challenge.

He said the FA should have taken action. It was a shamefully ­populist
response. If he believes that, then maybe he can advise his Premier League
chairmen to tell the FA they should still be able to take retrospective
­action even if an official has seen the incident.

In case you did not know, the Premier League is against the idea. But
Scudamore says this case was 'exceptional'.

It wasn't really. It just ­happened to be headline news as Scudamore was
doing the media rounds. And there is nothing 'exceptional' about the Premier
League giving the FA a sly dig when it is already on the ropes.

Which is why we can only hope that – under Dyke – the FA insists on its
right to ­govern. We all know that the refusal to re-referee is a ­nonsense.
The FA should tell the leagues, tell the so-called stakeholders, to sling
their hooks.

Don't even consult them.

A couple of months ago, Dyke lamented the attitude of the FA back when the
­notion of a Premier League was first mooted. Dyke ­explained: "I remember
the five clubs decided they would only break away if they could get the FA
onside.

"They went to see Bert ­Millichip [chairman] and Graham Kelly [chief
­executive], who didn't ask for anything. They so hated the Football League
they were just happy to shaft them.

"It was ridiculous; they could have had anything – a league of 16 clubs,
players released for England, a quota of English players... I'm ­surprised
the FA hasn't tried to assert itself since..."

Aren't we all?

Well, now is your chance Greg. Over to you.

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