Morning [almost ] folkks from Holland. question. why should any football team profit from taxpayers money, IE a free stadium. Spurs and West ham, are fighting for OUR TAXPAYERS venue, why not keep it as a center of excellence, to promote our amateur track and field, our aspiring footballers, rugby players, cricketers, an alternative venue for raising awareness, and revenue for our up and coming youth.Aussie/South africa has em, why not us, a legacy that will maintain the fact that we hosted ,what I hope will be a great olympics, of the track,,,,, and indoors, promotion of karate, boxing. aikedo, judo, gymnastics, fencing,etc etc, could one day make our small island proud again. could also be used as a music venue, to help make it self sustaining, a little help from national lottery [ my money again ]and a little bit of that shadowy group SPORT ENGLAND........................WTF ARE THEY. Got no answers myself. dont want to see another dome fiasco, where the taxpayer got stuffed, and private enterprise got richer.
From what limited info I have heard about the about the "bids" from both clubs West Ham's seems to be the best of the two. Fisrtly it won't see a club re-locating from one part of London to another and secondly they want to keep the running track. I'd rather see a football club ideally West Ham given the green light so the venue is used as a top class sports centre rather then becoming a whie elephant. Could the site be used to it's best without football being hosted their as it is the UK's number one sport.
Evening Bill I was listening to a debate about the Olympic Stadium on 5 Live radio the other day and it's not as straight forward as you may think. Yes, the stadium would come free, but hundreds of millions have to be spent on the surrounding infrastructure and alterations to the stadium to make it suitable for football. The overriding argument seems to be that no other sport, other than PL football, would generate enough income to make the stadium financially viable. There is talk about doing up Crystal Palace as an athletics venue. The refurbishment would form part of the overall stadium project I believe. From a personal point of view, I think it would be criminal to bulldoze it and build a new football stadium on it's footprint, which is the spuds proposal!
The most important thing to consider in this is that if either Spurs or WHU move to the Olympic Stadium it is probably going to kill Leyton Orient. Plus athletic stadiums converted into football grounds do not work well IMO. Look at Eastlands. Been a few times and theres something just not quite right about it.
You're right of course Spoony, but no other sport has the financial power to take on such a project, so sadly I think the stadium will go to one or the other. My guess would be West Ham, because they will keep the stadium and track as part of their proposal. RIP Leyton Orient!
I agree. Personally think WHU will get the nod as they want to keep it as multi use. Perhaps Leyton Orient should move into the Bolyen Ground and take support from the West Ham heartland. After all London clubs have a history of moving around!
I think they have to cough up some serious rent to use it Bill, so it's not a waste per se. But Spurs knocking it down and starting again will be. Agree with the general sentiment that the Hamsters should get it, as it is sticking to the promises we gave when we got the Olympics in the first place, i.e. a decent athletics stadium for the first time ever.
