Incoming sporting director Mark Noble has made Karren Brady look very silly indeed over the West Ham stadium move.
West Ham United fans will never forget it and the club’s divisive vice-chairman Brady surely regrets it.
It was the 25th of July 2016. The day Brady uttered the now immortal words.
Words that are still being shared on social media by disgruntled Hammers fans over six years on – and will undoubtedly still be shared in another 40: ‘The most successful stadium migration in history’.
“Together, we have built a magnificent new home,” Brady proudly trumpeted after West Ham left their beloved, famous old Upton Park for the London Stadium (whufc.com).
“A home that rightly stands alongside the very best in world football and a home that I know you will be every bit as proud of as I am.
“Be in no doubt, we are part of the most successful stadium migration in history.”
Honest Mark Noble has made Karren Brady look very silly indeed over West Ham stadium move
Quite some claim that. Especially considering what has happened since from protests to pitch invasions with discontent over the stadium move at the very heart of the ill-feeling among fans.
One such fan was infamously tackled to the ground by former West Ham captain and soon-to-be sporting director Noble.
The ex skipper, who returns to the London Stadium to take up his new role in January, talks about that incident in his new autobiography Boleyn Boy.
He lifts the lid on the true feeling at the club when West Ham embarked on their controversial switch from Upton Park to Stratford.
And honest Noble has made Brady look very silly indeed over the West Ham stadium move.
Because while Brady was declaring it ‘the most successful stadium migration in history’ Noble admits in Boleyn Boy it was anything but.
Noble reveals he was once denied entry to the stadium before a game because his numberplate was not on a list. And he recalls another senior star, Aaron Cresswell, being ludicrously denied entry to the tunnel before pointing out to security that there was a four metre picture of him on the wall.
Nobes was left seeing red when his wife was also denied entry on one occasion and describes it as ‘infuriating’.
And he says the move was beset by problems from the start, describing a trip to the new ground with then boss Slaven Bilic as an ‘eye-opener’ as they discovered a small dressing room not fit for purpose and that there was no players’ lounge.
“The transition was tougher than the board possibly could have imagined,” Noble says in Boleyn Boy.
“It (raised expectations and problems with the move) was the perfect storm…
“It didn’t take long for some fans to start grumbling. They found it hard to adjust to the change. They didn’t like going to a stadium that was still being used for athletics. They weren’t happy about the pitch being surrounded by a running track. They said it felt soulless compared with Upton Park, and the atmosphere suffered because people who liked to sing weren’t in the same part of the ground…
“The big dilemma for the board was that we didn’t own the ground. We didn’t have our own people working there. There was no familiarity with the staff.
“It made life unnecessarily challenging. When I turned up at Upton Park it was all, ‘Hello Marky boy, how are you, son?’ at the main entrance. But it was colder at the London Stadium…
“I’d been at the club since I was 11 and a geezer who didn’t support West Ham was stopping me at the gate because my name wasn’t on his clipboard. It was tough to take. The organisation should have been better.”
That doesn’t sound like the most successful football stadium migration in history to me.
Noble does state in Boleyn Boy that things have vastly improved at the stadium and relationships built.
But for every step forward, not owning the ground always leaves West Ham in danger of taking two steps back.
Take this season’s new addition at the London Stadium as an example, the infamous wall between the home and away fans.
It was difficult enough to get an atmosphere going in the ground as it was and now that has seriously dampened it further still.
A penny for Lady Brady’s thoughts when she opened that section of Boleyn Boy.
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