Premier League: Stadium owners failing West Ham fans with shambolic security

Moving home is one of the most stressful things you can do in life. Moving a football club and its fan base into a sparkly new arena originally built for athletics was never going to be an overnight success.

West Ham’s first few months at the London Stadium – that’s right, it’s not the Olympic Stadium any more – have been problematic. Social media has been lit up with clips of skirmishes with away fans inside the arena and some West Ham supporters have even turned on their own kind. Why and how is this happening?

A lot of it comes down to the same thing. The football club and the police are NOT running the show.

The Met Police made seven arrests during West Ham’s EFL Cup clash with Chelsea last night. It was the first time the Met had been on duty inside the London Stadium since West Ham arrived. Why? Because the radio system that emergency services need to communicate inside the arena will not have been fully installed until next year.

That sounds laughable to the neutral fan, unable to fathom why West Ham supporters are seemingly ungrateful at being given a free luxury pad with all mod cons to live in. But it’s a key element at the core of the problems that have frustrated West Ham’s rehoused faithful.

The club is not responsible for the stewarding and security inside the London Stadium. That’s the job of owners E20 who employed French firm Vinci to run things for them. Vinci in turn appointed LS185 to handle the stewarding.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Anybody who says the Boleyn Ground was a trouble free zone has perhaps forgotten the welcome Man United’s team coach received at the final home game of last season. But the police in conjunction with the club stewards could handle most things on a match day by drawing on years of experience.

Season ticket holders would see the same friendly faces on duty among the matchday stewards week in week out. Many were local people who took the job as they were West Ham fans themselves.

That set up doesn’t exist at the London Stadium and added to the absence of the police inside the new stadium it has helped produced the powder keg situation we are in now.

Among the many complaints regarding the move to Stratford has been the poor organisation outside the ground, as fans attempt to get to and from the local train stations. Of more concern has been the lack of segregation at the final whistle with away fans spilling out onto the vast concourse at the same time as home supporters.

Inside the beautiful open plan stadium the two sets of supporters are kept apart by a thin line of stewards who have no power of arrest and seemingly little experience in handling rival factions of football fans. Or how to cope with a home fan who insists on standing rather than taking to his seat.

Although he club has demanded meetings and expressed concerns with the owners since some scuffles at the Watford game in September, it is still E20 who are ultimately responsible for what goes on in and around the stadium.

The Met’s deputy assistant commissioner Peter Terry confirmed: “The stadium operators are responsible for the safety and comfort of their customers and staff.

“This issue was highlighted to the stadium operators in October 2014 and the Metropolitan Police Service has been in negotiation with stadium operators regarding the provision of Airwave radio inside the stadium.”

I visited Stratford for the first time for the London 2012 Olympics. I was blown away by the facilities, the relaxed atmosphere and surprised by the noise that athletics fans contained within the bowl could generate.

Returning for the pre-season friendly with Juventus I was treated to an unplanned tour of Westfield shopping centre with many thousands of other West Ham fans as we negotiated shoppers and temporary barriers to get to the stadium. It was a new adventure and a bit of a laugh on a sunny afternoon.

The Watford game in September was different. I was sat with my nine-year-old son in the block next to the away fans. I’ve never tried to cover his ears to the many, many expletive-filled chants. To be honest I think he knows more of the words to the songs than I do. But he’s not used to seeing fans kicking each other in their seats or having stewards shove him out of the way. Or for that matter being turfed out into the middle of celebrating away fans after the game.

These things are happening now, are totally unacceptable and need to stop. But I truly believe that things will get better. They have to.