Ground number 330
Date of First Visit: 23rd December 2017
London Stadium, Stratford, London
West Ham United 2
Newcastle United 3
(Saivet, Diame, Atsu)
Premier League
Attendance: 56,955 (3,000 very happy Toon fans!)
“IT’S LIKE AN OLYMPIC SPORT!”
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| VIEW FROM 'THE GODS'! |
The day started off az per usual at ‘The Central’ (station)
where we caught the 5 to 8 bells train to King’s Cross (London) and we arrived
at ’11:00am bells’
It woz then ‘onward’ to Hackney Wick on the number 30 bus az
we were told that this woz a good place to gan and that it wasn’t tooo far from
The Olympic Stadium where the 2012 Olympic games took place! (Now renamed ‘London
Stadium’ by those porn toy sellers who own the club!)
It took the bus 40 minutes to get to Hackney and then a 10 minute walk to the bar which woz in a semi
derelict state in an industrial estate with graffiti sprayed aall ower the
place! (see photos)
The bar we went to woz caalled ‘The Tank Bar’ which iz one
of them new ‘micro-brewery bars’ that are startin’ to spring up aall ower the
place. Built in a derelict warehoose it woz ‘rough and ready’ with paint peelin’
off the waalls and there woz even a fork lift truck parked in the alley on the
way to the ‘tool-shed’!
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| "SPOT THE FORKLIFT TRUCK!" |
It woz fairly empty when we went in, but started to fill up with
West Ham fans az kick off time got nearer!
We decided to stay there for ‘the duration’ az it woz faily
eezy to get sorved and 4 pint pitchers were preferred at £17 a shot—which worked oot at £4.25 a
pint, which iz cheep by London standards!
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"HONEST PET!---AA WOZ ANLY DRINKIN' HALFS!"
(Half GALLONS! that iz!)
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"LONDON (Stadium) CALLING!"
We left the boozer at '2:20 bells' az we didn’t naa just how far
the groond woz and were amazed to find that we could see it in the distance az
we left the bar, rounded a corner and waalked ower a bridge which spanned a canal! (the reason we
were amazed woz because the bar wasn’t 'heavin' az you’d expect for somewhere
near a 56,000 capacity stadium!)
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| PICTURE OF LONDON STADIUM FROM JUST OOTSIDE THE BAR! |
10 minutes aftaa leavin’ the bar and we were at the stadium
which looked smaller than we thought it would be for a 80,000 seater Olympic stadium (56,000
for futbaall when its convorted)
"AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!"
We were situated in the 2nd level and aftaa climbin’
some stairs we entered the away terrace to find that we were miles from the
pitch!---and indeed 'miles' from some of wor own fans!, who were at the front in level 1 (again
see photos of ‘the gap’ between fans and pitch!)
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| "MIND THE GAP!" |
Honestleeee! This iz a brilliant stadium!---for ATHLETICS
and hoyin JAVELINS!---but definatly NOT for FUTBAALL---and the owners decision to
sell their old Boleyn ground in Upton Park 4 miles away in their ‘heartland’
and move here iz scandalous!
At ‘The Boleyn’ fans were breathin doon the players necks
when they took corners and throw ins az the pitch woz within touchin distance
of the terraces--- and now yoo would need a jumbo jet engine to de the same thing
at London Stadium!—such iz the distance between the touchlines and the pitch!
The dugoots were SO far from the touchline that it would have been easier to jump on a golf buggy to get to the edge of the technical area!
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RAFA ON THE TOUCHLINE (in black) BELLOWS INSTRUCTIONS TO THE TEAM
AFTER WAALKIN (nearly!) HALF A MILE FROM THE AWAY DUGOOT
TO GET THERE!
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Of aall the 330 groonds I have watched NUFC teams (from the
forst team to the juniors), this iz the forthest distance from the pitch I have
ever been!---and that includes The Nou Camp in Barcelona, The Olympic Stadium
in Rome (v AS Roma) and The Stadio Delle Alpi in Turin! (v Juventus)
The late Paul 'Jethro' Tully, the former NUFC programme editor once said
that ‘collectin’ new groonds followin’ 'The Toon' woz like an “OLYMPIC
SPORT!”---very appropriate for an Olympic Stadium!—and Paul woz indeed an ‘NUFC
mad-sad groundhopper’ az well, havin visited well ower 100 groonds himself, following
the Toon in hiz duty’s az programme editor! (RIP PAUL)
“ZERO TO HERO!”
Anyway!--- the game kicked off and disaster struck within 6
minutes when Henri Saivet gave the baall away to Arnautovic <(hope av spelt
that reet?) who ran through wor defence az though it didn’t exist, to plant the
baall past Rob Elliot in the Toon goal!
1-0
to The Jellied Eels Mob!
But then Saivet redeemed himself when he took a free kick at
the far end from us in the 10th minute, which whistled past ‘The Jellied Eels’ goalie Adrian, just inside the near post!---and then there woz some confusion to who had scored, az we were that far away, we couldn’t hardly make the players
oot, az they looked like Subbuteo figures from row 58 of the back tier!
It woz like watchin' a match from ootside the groond from a block of high rise flats! (AND there were anothaa 20 rows behind 'us'!)
So it woz---“Zero
to hero’ in the space of 4 minutes for Saivet, when we eventually foond oot who
HAD scored!”
1-1
2 woodwork strikes then followed from Gayle and Richie which
should have put us forthaa aheed, but ‘lady luck’ deserted us once again (just
like against Everton)
Gayle then missed a great chance from 15 yards oot, but blazed hiz effort ower the bar and we went in on level torms at the break, cursin' wor bad luck! (and finishing!)
The 2nd half started off at blisterin’ pace and
within 8 minutes of the restart we went aheed when Diame sidefooted the baall in
from 8 yards oot in front of the 3,000 Toon fans behind that goal!
(az we were kickin’ ‘wor way’ we could now make the goalscorer
oot!)
2-1 to The Toon!
Then a penalty save by Elliot (from a foul which looked outside
the box to us at the far end) woz followed by a 3rd goal from ‘us’
when Atsu put the baall into the far
corner of the net to send the ‘faithful’ ballistic!
3-1 to The Toon
It woz at this point that many West Ham fans heeded for the exits---and there woz still half an hour to gan!?
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| THE TOON ATTACK THE TREVOR BROOKING STAND GOAL |
But we couldn’t hang on az Andy Carroll came on for 'The
Jellied Eels Mob' and hiz downward heeder in the box woz followed through by
Ayew to bring the score back to 3-2
We then had a nail bitin and hair pullin last 20 minutes az
they pressed for the equaliser, but we ‘hung on in there’ and won the 3
precious points, which ended wor 2 month winless streak and propelled us up to
15th in the table, just 3 points behind Brighton in 12th
place!
From ‘them’ downwards just 9 points separate the rest!
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| THE CRATE BAR |
We heeded back to the boozer we had started from and then 'The Crate' next door, before jumpin back on the number 30 bus back to King’s Cross to
catch the ‘8 bells’ train yem!
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| LONDON STADIUM LIT UP AFTER THE MATCH |
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THE LORD NELSON---COVERED IN SPRAY PAINT!
(It woz CLOSED!)
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Factfile: Oot of the current 92 Leegue teams, this woz NUFC’s
81st groond visited and The
Geordie Times haz been to aall 81 az well! (Big Al <(NOT the sheet metal workers son!) and Sarnie Steve have now done
them aall following othaa teams az well and have now joined 'The 92 Club'!)
For the record the 11 groonds that NUFC have nevaa played on
are aall in the bottom 2 divisions:
Bristol Rovers
(been to 2 of their old groonds), Northampton, Barnet (been to their old groond),
Fleetwood, Rochdale, Newport, Wimbledon (been to their old groond), MK Dons,
Forest Green, Shrewsbury (been to
their old groond) and Wycombe (although we HAVE been to WHICKHAM from The Northern Leegue to see a Toon junior game!)
Toon team: Elliot, Yedlin, Clark, Lascelles, Manquillo,
Ritchie, Saivet (Mbemba 84), Diame, Atsu (Murphy 91), Joselu, Gayle (Perez 76)
*For more Pub crawl pix from West Ham, scroll doon page
