West Ham have been given the entire Vic Road end for the home game in mid August. Anyone who has season tickets in there is urged to ring the club up to re-arrange their seats. What a screw up!! Now that Baz has taken over day to day operations at the club should we expect more of this chaos? Simple solution to this problem is to spend the small amount of money required to re-open A&B section of the East Stand. When it was closed the sum required was £20,000 I think. Allowing for a couple of years decay, let's call it £50,000. What price the Family Area being safe from abuse and missiles? As usual the on-field activity at the club is making forward strides (often in difficult circumstances), but the off-field chaos will again test the patience of us loyal fans.
Giving West Ham the entire end is a no brainer financially and from a safety perspective. The screw up was putting season ticket holders in the VR end this season.
Approx 1200 Season Tickets have been sold to Watford supporters in the Vic Rd end. The arrangements for moving these unfortunate people are chaotic. I have a friend who has seats in there, they have yet to reply to my message. Look out for the complaints in the Watford Observer.
Guys........let me tell you whats going to happen. All West Ham away tickets will be sold, approx 5000 (or however much the Vicarage Rd stand holds). That leaves at least another 5000 West Ham fans desparate to get ticket(s) so..........they will now be registering as Watford fans to buy a cheap ticket for the Watford/Derby match. That done they will then be able to puchase a ticket for the Watford/West Ham game and will no doubt be sat mainly in the Lower Rous near the Vicarage Rd end. Obviously this is a dangerous situation for the Watford fans in the Rous particularly when we start kicking East London butt on the pitch! This is how QPR, Portsmouth, Leeds and Palace supporters got in to the Lower Rous.....its not rocket science. It will be interesting to see if the Watford/Derby match gets a bigger then average crowd
At least giving them the whole end minimises the amount of West Ham fans in other areas... It was the most logical solution! Obtaining tickets in other ends will now be much harder after the lessons learned from the QPR game!
Elixir , what would you have the club do? you know you will get 5000 west ham fans easy , do you put them in one end,or lock them out , and have them in the town centre (taking into account the additional policing bill we will get for that fixture anyway!) Watford fans selling or giving tickets to away fans should be dealt with more severely (in fairness the club has said that they will) policing should be more vigilant about away fans in home sections of the ground ,plus overhaul the stewarding system as at present they are totally ineffectual and are a waste of money and space! I fail to see any other workable scheme that could be implemented in such short notice!
Fortunately this is at the beginning of the season, so West Ham fans shouldn't be able to get a purchasing history. I think most fans will be happy to move rather than having to sit that close to their fans.... if it was a regular occurence, then fair enough, but how many games will they do this?? West Ham, maybe Millwall.... We just now have to rely on Watford 'fans' not buying a ticket for their West Ham mates!
It's all about ensuring that no away fans end up in the Lower Rous. If the game passes without the Lower Rous having a substantial contingent of West Ham fans, then the policy will be demonstrated to have worked. I bet it won't. Despite there no longer being a "tolerance" policy, I remain unconvinced that the club has the safety of its supporters as its top priority on a matchday. I wrote to the club after the QPR fiasco and, to his credit, Glyn Evans replied. The problem was that his response contained bland assurances, essentially, that "something" would be done. After reading the club's response I remain unsure of what this "something" is.
Appologies for my french, but i am ****ing fuming about this!! This will be the 4th season in that stand and now i am being told i will have to move to a new seat and may even have to pay the difference!! We have a group of 10 of us that go each week and we are unlikely to find half decent seats as a group!! If we move to the VR end of the lower Rous its worse seats cos we dont see the whole pitch like from the VR end!
The East stand is unsafe I thought..well is the reason given as to why people like me got kicked out of a fairly good seat to the average view in the LR. TBH The club cannot win..least they've given some good notice but the trouble is will that stop our fans buying tickets in the home end for Hammers? Probably not as the ticket office wouldn't know.. I doubt there will be as many complaints as there were after the QPR game when people were saying we should've given R's the whole of the Viccy Road end but maybe that was easy to say after the event?
It's a tricky subject, I can see why the club want to allow West Ham the seats, especially after the QPR and Millwall games last season. I'm in the unlucky situation of sitting in the VR end, so yeah, I'm annoyed. Not angry, because I suspected that the club would allow this after QPR/Millwall, but it's an inconvenience that I'd rather not have. Hopefully we can get a ticket somewhere else...
Fair play Max Unfortunately, what are the alternatives? Leave it as it is and risk not only the abuse from their fans, but thousands of their fans trying to get tickets all over the ground causing the same troubles as the QPR game. Until we have the East Stand is built, this is a problem we will have against the more local teams who want the tickets. When the East Stand is built, the VR supporters and old East Stand fans (many the same) MUST have priority on tickets in the new stand! At least they have given a good amount of notice, and these fans should get priority to move their seats before tickets go on general sale...
I am a season ticket holder with my 2 kids aged 5 & 7 and was sat there when the QPR fans were intimidating and threatening our fans! Hence I left early and missed the end of season celebrations. This solution come up with by the Club for me is spot on! From what I understand the vicarage road end wont be fully sold out to West Ham so if there are any stragglers in the rouse then they can be moved back into the stand with their fans. I phoned the club today and was moved very easily into the upper Rouse at no cost (we got 5 seats together with no problems) and was dealt with very proffesionally. If you were in the family enclosure with your kids at the QPR game then I am positive you would be congratulating the club on not making the same mistakes twice!
I understand why they have to do it, but if they policed it properly then there would not be a problem. Instead they stick volunteer stewards between the two sets of fans and they are inclined to do nothing. Why not put police down the middle and leave a gap between the two sets of fans?? I understand the need to do it, i just think its wrong that we are being told we have to pay. If its not true then fair enough.
there's always loads of spare seats near me in the Rookery hon..i don't take it personally however lol
Policing costs money, i suspect that's why they don't do it. We're fairly peaceful usually and it's rare to need policing...the presence of our stewards is usually enough, though they proved pretty hopeless at the QPR game. I think, hard as this is for fans in the VR end, it's the only sensible option for the club to take..
I am not saying do it every week. But when QPR came we all knew there would be trouble yet they had no police in that end!! They were no where to be seen. When i asked a steward what he was going to do about the man putting his son on the pitch and the fans harrassing me, he said "nothing, its not my job" I was flabergasted!!! If its not his job to keep the peace and prevent people getting on the pitch who's is it??? It is easy to identify the game which need policing- Milwall, QPR, WH. Its not hard, but still we fail to prevent the damage and harm. I have to say (im sorry if i offend when i say this) that if you go to a football game and cant hack the verbal you get from a few prats then maybe you should not be there! I have been sworn at, threatened and even called out to fight but i just ignore it and laugh at the drunk idiot hurling the abuse. I was at the Milwall game and was down the front of the VR stand for the last 20mins and there was no hasstle there, but at the end of the match there was a prat who shouted at me, swore at me and tried to climb over the barrier but was too drunk to do it (or to thick) and then continued to tell me he would bash my head in and put his fist down my throat. I just laughed and waved at him saying leave it out. The guy in our group who has 4yr old twins had no problem with it.
Norway, I'm surprised you have had a go at me here. OK at the top of this article I have re-stated my position on the Family Area. IMO the club should have paid the few thousand pounds required and re-opened the A+B sections of the East Stand (the 1969 extension) a good while ago. This area was closed a few years ago when the club were asked to pay a maintenance bill of £20k or £50k. I cannot think of a worse place to put the Family Area than the West half of the Vic Rd end, I have heard the horror stories and sympathise with the people who have suffered. Now Baz may have told us that the new East Stand will be completed next summer (2012), I am quite sceptical, but I believe he has promised this, so I await progress. My reason for posting this article was to inform the fans who will be inconvenienced by this move, not just for the West Ham game, but for others too. The whole reason why people buy a season ticket is for the certainty that they know where they will be for the whole season. I have been guilty of turning up on a matchday and asking "who are we playing today", sometimes life can be quite chaotic.
