I know every man and his dog has had something to say on the whole Olympic legacy and which football club is deserving of the keys to the Stratford stadium; so I figured I would continue to throw a few more column inches to the debate. What concerns me is not which club ends up moving into the new arena; but more the shameless way in which the respective club owners have gone about their business without any consultation with the very people that make their football club’s tick – the fans.
I know it is nothing new; hey club owners have been dictating to the fans for years, but surely when it comes to moving stadiums a little communication with the supporters who will be filling it should have been forthcoming, shouldn’t it? I mean how many Tottenham and West Ham fans really know the ins and outs of their club’s respective bids? It seems to me that it is Fleet Street that has dragged out the intentions of the two football clubs, rather than a direct and straight forward dialogue from the respective owners in the past few weeks. Daniel Levy did write an open letter to the club supporters after the application deadline had passed on Friday; however I couldn’t help but feel that it was too little, too late.
I was debating the whole Tottenham move to Stratford with supporters before yesterday’s game at St James’s and many agreed that they have been left in the dark. Unfortunately a lack of communication had meant supporters had to decipher what they could from the little bits of information within the media of the club’s intentions, without being presented with the full facts. Surely a little courtesy to the people who religiously pay out anything between £600-1200 on a season ticket every year, on top of endless pounds spent on away trips and merchandise, deserved to know the club’s intentions with their bid for the Olympic stadium, given they were so open with supporters with regards to the Northumberland Development Scheme. It is the supporters after all that are going to see their natural landscape being dragged from under their feet should a move to Stratford be successful.
As a Tottenham fan myself I would be desperately sad to see the club move away from N17. I am not naive to the fact that the club needs to move to a bigger stadium in order to compete financially with the big boys in Europe, and if a move to Stratford is the only genuine option we have to achieve this then so be it, but I stress again it would have been nice for supporters to be consulted about our club’s intentions, before filling our heads with grand plans for this NEW Northumberland Park development. We deserved that much, didn’t we?