Olympic Stadium bid: West Ham victory will leave sour taste for football

Olympic Stadium bid: West Ham victory will leave sour taste for football

Anybody who believes football and athletics can mix is naive, a long-jumper or a binoculars salesman. At the risk of going round in circles, it cannot be stated enough that running tracks are anathema to football grounds.

Grand Designs: an artist's impression of the Olympic Stadium occupied by West Ham Photo: AP

By Henry Winter, Football Correspondent 9:43PM GMT 11 Feb 2011

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One look at the Olympic Park Legacy Company board that agreed to let football and athletics cohabit shows that only two of the 14 have had any significant involvement with football. Keith Edelman is ex-Arsenal while Nick Bitel is formerly of Wigan Athletic.

The board needed more individuals with an understanding of the unique dynamic of footballing park-life. West Ham United are about to lose their long association as being home to a good atmosphere. Sad.

As a schoolboy I was once smuggled into the Chicken Run at Upton Park to watch Trevor Brooking in his pomp. The atmosphere was electric. All-seater stadiums have lost a lot of their edge and a running track will further deaden the noise.

Of course, West Ham have every right to move to Stratford. In the tribal world of football, the Olympic Stadium lies in their territory (with a respectful nod to Leyton Orient). Yet a more sensible solution could have been achieved than yesterday’s flawed, foolish compromise that certainly guarantees a legacy: problems for years to come.

West Ham should have been awarded the stadium, allowed to remove the largely redundant running track, and ordered to build a 25,000-seat athletics arena close by. Architects have already pointed out they could simply have expanded the Olympic warm-up track.

Stratford could have been home to a southern version of Manchester’s successful SportCity at Eastlands. To make the athletics arena more financially viable, West Ham’s reserves and academy sides could have played there. The Chadwell Heath training complex could have been relocated to Stratford, just as Manchester City are planning to move their Carrington operation to Eastlands – a wonderful multi-sport hub with spreading commercial and residential developments.

It would have been possible to satisfy football’s needs, honour the Olympic legacy and emolliate the athletics lobby in a highly-politicised situation. Not now. Instead of football and athletics contentedly living next door to each other, they will now share a house with all the volatility of The Young Ones.

This is another reminder that the Olympics and the world’s No1 sport go together like nitro and glycerine. Football should not even be at the Olympics, which should be the pinnacle for a sport.

The selection process for the Great Britain football team for London 2012 has become inevitably vexed. Tensions abound between Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England. This is country-versus-country, let alone the club-versus-country rows over star youngsters, that will erupt next summer.

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