It’s International Break, and that means West Ham news can be a bit thin on the ground. However this week we held the first Supporters Feedback Forum at the New Stadium. Because the minutes they produced were pretty long, here are the main points discussed.
Stewarding
Many of the fans have complained about the new stewarding at the London Stadium. Compared to the stewards at Upton Park, who had a lot of experience of dealing with the fans going to football matches, the London stadium stewards are more used to concert goers.
This has lead to heavy handedness towards fans considered rowdy, for a concert. At a football match there has to be some leeway towards fans who are getting into the game. It certainly shouldn’t be expected that we’re all going to sit down and applaud politely.
The board and the chief of stewards confirmed they wanted to improve the standard. There would be continued training for the stewards, and the stewards would be reminded regularly that they were to work with the fans rather than against them. No-one wants a fight. It doesn’t help anyone.
There was an issue raised with the bag searches as well. There have been inconsistencies in the policy, with some being searched and others not. The last thing fans want is to feel unsafe whilst they’re off to see a match. Again the board agreed a true policy needed to be implemented to ensure the fans safety going forward.
Away Fans
There has also been a big concern for the away fans in the London stadium. Given the fact we have not been in the stadium too long, or had any really big matches there, it is bad to see that we have had incidents of fans being in the same area during the match and clashing at the end of the match as well.
The board confirmed that this was a priority, especially given the Chelsea match ahead. There would be segregation put properly into place with rehearsals as well ahead of this match. The fans also suggested having better diversions in place for the fans after the matches to make sure no clashes the could be avoided weren’t.
Policing
Related to the last points is the policing. It is a well known issue that policing inside of the stadium was a bit of a mess up, given the fact the air wave system that the emergency services use to communicate inside stadiums was not installed, and will not be until November.
Policing outside the stadium has been criticised for some, but was defended at the forum. The Met Police’s Football Officer was adamant there had been police in place for the matches in key areas. Their job is to be present in bottle neck zones where they might have been needed.
The board were quick to point out that last season there were police inside the stadium on only four occasions, with West Ham working hard to try and achieve a police free stadium area when possible. Given the increase in numbers however, that might no longer be possible.
West Ham’s Elephant In The Room
The big topic that wasn’t discussed was the standing. I’m sure that the board are keen to ignore the problem and hope it sorts itself, but I’m not sure. It won’t be long before they need to accept they need to come up with a solution. These forums are the best place to do that with fan ideas.
The full minutes are available at the top of the link, with topics such as shuttle busses and accessibility coaches also discussed at the forum, but I hope this has been a good overview for you all.