Harry issues Hammers warning

Redknapp, unsurprisingly, wants Spurs to get new stadium

By Graeme Bailey - Follow me on Twitter @graemebailey    Last updated: 21st January 2011   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Harry issues Hammers warning

Olympic Stadium: Battle

Try to mix football and athletics and you end up with a great big bowl of nothing. The wind-blown no-man's land between a pitch and the stands can kill football.

Harry Redknapp.
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Tottenham Hotspur boss Harry Redknapp has insisted that his former club West Ham United would be wrong to move to the Olympic Stadium.

Spurs and the Hammers are both fighting to take control of the Stratford site, once it has hosted the Olympic Games in 2012.

The Olympic Park Legacy Company will receive final submissions from both bidding parties on Friday ahead of a decision next week.

The bids from the two Premier League clubs differ greatly, coming at the stadium from completely different angles.

West Ham have confirmed they intend to keep the running track, which was a pledge made as part of London's legacy for the Olympics, while Tottenham have proposed a complete rebuild of the site, with a new 60,000 stadium not including an athletics option.

To offset their lack of a running track, Spurs have pledged to help finance the refurbishment of the National Sports Centre, but to complicate matters Crystal Palace announced their intention to move there only this week.

But Redknapp is adamant that West Ham should not move into the stadium with a running track.

"We keep hearing about the Olympic legacy and the need to have a world-class athletics stadium after the 2012 Games in London," he said in his Sun column.

"But my big fear is that if West Ham move into the stadium in Stratford with a whacking great running track around the pitch, the only legacy for them will be a nightmare.

"It's incredible that the club is even considering taking over the Olympic Stadium and keeping the 400m track intact, putting up an invisible yet insurmountable barrier between the fans and the football.

"Tottenham, my club, also have ambitions to move there because if Spurs want to progress they need a bigger ground - but they have a vastly different outlook on the project.

"I grew up as a player with West Ham United. I played for them and I managed them. I'm not that popular with their supporters these days because I manage Tottenham but I really have a genuine feel for them over this.

"Try to mix football and athletics and you end up with a great big bowl of nothing. Look around the world - most foreign clubs with any sense are abandoning the combination stadium idea.

"Lots of German clubs experimented with it in the past and now they are being dug up and relaid with turf. Stuttgart is one example where the club is moving to a whole new stadium to get back to the traditional layout of a football ground.

"The wind-blown no-man's land between a pitch and the stands can kill football.

Warning

"And that's exactly what will happen if West Ham - or indeed whoever - get the keys to the Olympic Stadium in its present state and maintain a red tarmac road right in front of the stands.

"Upton Park was and still is one of the great grounds for atmosphere. These days it doesn't happen so often but on the big nights, especially for cup games, the place can rock.

"In the old days, you would actually see the fans swaying as they sang 'Bubbles' in the old Chicken Run. The only other place in football that could compare to it was Liverpool, when the fans sang 'You'll Never Walk Alone' on the Kop.

"It made an occasion out of a match and was also a formidable weapon against the opposition. Some players used to claim they could feel the fans' breath on their necks as they ran down the wing and it can be very off-putting.

"In contrast, Chelsea used to have a dog track around their pitch at Stamford Bridge and the place really struggled for atmosphere. It was so wide open and any atmosphere evaporated quickly.

"Chelsea now have a tight, compact, steep-sided ground and the atmosphere is much better. White Hart Lane too is now totally closed in and the noise is terrific - among the best in the country.

"West Ham are in danger of throwing away one of their most potent weapons and it would have to be a long throw to reach the fans from the pitch.

"I'm speaking merely as a passionate football person. The decision over who goes to the Olympic Stadium - indeed, if anyone does - is not mine.

"I'm not just banging the company drum for Tottenham here. Even if Spurs do win the race against West Ham to make it their new home, by the time all the development is finished I might not be at the club anyway.

"It's just that in my heart I dread to think what could eventually happen to West Ham if they moved to the main Olympic Stadium and do not heed the warnings.

"I hate going to grounds where there is a running track to get past before you see Subbuteo-sized footballers through your opera-style binoculars.

"And what if West Ham are relegated this season and then find themselves in a 60,000-capacity stadium in a Championship match. Can you imagine? Half the seats would be empty and it would become a desolate graveyard for a once-great club.

"I know a number of Tottenham fans are opposed to a move to Stratford. I can understand that and it's not for me to tell them what's best. It's been their club for years, I've been there for five minutes.

"There aren't too many Tottenham fans in Tottenham, let alone Stratford. But one thing's for certain, the club needs a bigger ground.

"We have 35,000 people on the waiting list for season tickets and a stadium capacity of around 36,000, so we could fill the place twice. To compete with Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and so on, we need a bigger ground. That's undeniable.

"The people working on behalf of Tottenham are doing an honest job trying to grow the club back to where it once was - and where it belongs - among the elite of English football.

"Mine is a simple belief that running tracks and football grounds sit together about as well as putting a swimming pool on Centre Court. Fans from Tottenham should have their voices heard and will do so.

"I hope the same goes for West Ham supporters too. I just worry that if no one sees sense, we'll be too far away from Hammers supporters to hear them ever again."

Diack blast

However, there are those who completely disagree with Redknapp, including the head of world athletics, Lamine Diack - who insists London must keep the Olympic running track.

"To now demolish the Olympic stadium, throwing away the original £500million investment of public money, seems to me an outrageous proposition, especially in the present world economic climate," said Diack.

"Instead, let us keep London's promise alive and leave an athletics legacy at the venue with a top football club as a valued partner.

"I think as far as this, I think they will be finished [if they remove it]. There will be no credibility ... of a great country like Britain and I like very much your country.

"They will have made a big lie to us during their presentation [in Singapore]. A big lie. And after that it is a betrayal, it is a betrayal, yes, absolutely, it is clear."

But Tottenham director Sir Keith Mills, who is also deputy chairman of LOCOG - London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games - insists Tottenham's plans could work.

"Lamine Diack quite rightly wants to see the Olympic legacy left in London and both of the bids on the table provide an athletics legacy," he said.

"The issue here, and the one the OPLC will be looking at in the next 10 days, is what's going to provide the best long-term legacy for London and for the country.

"And that's all about which of the two bids is going to be economically viable in the long term.

"It's a difficult decision and we looked at during the bid whether an 80,000 seater stadium would work for a Premier League football club and determined that wouldn't work.

"I could roll off a list of a dozen stadiums that have athletics tracks and that historically have had a list of football teams, but the football teams have all moved away because they don't work in multi-purpose built stadiums.

"At the end of the day this is an economic argument. Someone has to pay for the next several decades for the stadium, and if West ham have found a way to work that economically, the OPLC will look on that favourably. But I find that difficult to see."

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Comments (3)

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Jim West ham (West Ham United fan) says...

i find it unbelievable that "spurs" would even consider moving to east London ( home of the irons). Even more disgraceful is putting the best support in the world behind a running track. If I could afford it I would get rid of the daves and bring good football back to the world. I can not believe we are thinking about leaving the Boleyn simply to make doe for Sullivan gold and Brady. Long live the chicken run.

Posted 21:33 21st January 2011

Mark Line (West Ham United fan) says...

Can't understand why spurs would want to east London and go from the 2nd best in north London to become the 3rd best in east London behind west ham and the orient,So stick to your own part of London and keep out of ours.You have changed HARRY.

Posted 09:59 21st January 2011

Geraint Morgan (Tottenham Hotspur fan) says...

Harry is spot on with this. I'm not a West Ham fan but the race track needs to go guys. In a fair and easy world it would be great if White Hart Lane was rebuilt and Upton Park too. Everyone is happy then, but this is the real world and that wont happen.

Posted 09:23 21st January 2011
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