Crocodile tears to be shed tonight I reckon. West Ham fans should get honest and flick the rest of us some V signs whilst laughing in our faces. That would be East End Salt of the earth honesty at least.
Taxpayers Park is a genius name, respect to whoever thought that up, as is the nickname 'The Scroungers'.
Crocodile tears to be shed tonight I reckon. West Ham fans should get honest and flick the rest of us some V signs whilst laughing in our faces. That would be East End Salt of the earth honesty at least.
Taxpayers Park is a genius name, respect to whoever thought that up, as is the nickname 'The Scroungers'.
#I'm forever blowing raspberries#
What ever success that comes to them, and it will come, you don't get that sort of leg up and not get success with it, will always be tinged. We all paid for it. And their slimey owners are gonna walk away from this even richer. Leaves a nasty taste in the mouth that does.
Perhaps the stadium operator should stick in a few low bids for the goalposts & net and the dugout seats. Save paying for new ones at the Taxpayers Stadium!
I know where they can stick their bubble machine too!!
My elder son and I paid our final respects to the Boleyn on Monday last week. A crowd of 10,000 paid a fiver each to witness a U21 League Cup Final vs Hull. By co-incidence, before the game, like the guy in the article I watched the biggest Roller I've ever seen - reg nr D GOLD - sweep by.
I won't be going to Taxpayers Park unless Charlton are playing there. Good luck to those expecting to find some matchday comfort in that joyless concrete jungle. I won't be going to Westfield either - plenty of shops elsewhere. E20 has all the appeal of Chernobyl on a wet Tuesday in February.
So after the disclosure what next? Have they got away with our money and that's it?
We are working on it. Better to get it right than to rush things. We've waited long enough, after all. There is at least one potentially juicy nugget, but we need to be very careful to be sure of our facts (and the implications) before we fire that bullet because someone is going to be very very displeased :-)
Perhaps the stadium operator should stick in a few low bids for the goalposts & net and the dugout seats. Save paying for new ones at the Taxpayers Stadium!
I know where they can stick their bubble machine too!!
And there goes gavros again. He always comes charging in and then when he gets battered with serious questions he goes missing, only to resurface a few days later thinking that we have all forgot.
This is my view – but one I feel passionately about. When it was announced the stadium (pre-games) was not to be used for football, I was delighted. This wasn’t due to football tribalism but pride. I thought it was great that British Athletics could have a home that could inspire future athletes and as for the costs – it is in London with fantastic transport links – there would be massive demand for it to be used for other sporting and commercial events! Maybe not every day, but enough to be a lot cheaper than paying £272million on top of everything to allow West Ham to use it. In fact, what excited me was the prospect of youngsters getting to perform in this legendary stadium, with it’s fantastic facilities and for them to be inspired. A bit like building a velodrome helped to transform British cycling. Coe had the job of winning the games – my point and I think it is an important one, is that job would have been much more difficult if the Olympic committee thought the legacy would be that some premiership football club would have main use of it on the cheap! By designing a stadium unsuitable for football, that message could be delivered loud and clear. Now basic maths says that if the stadium was making a loss – and I contest that would have been the case – but the loss over many, many years (my lifetime I suspect) would be less at the very least than the money that has been subsequently pumped into it to make it into a football stadium. Politicians are rubbish at seeing the potential of things and the value of things outside corrupt monetary interests. I was annoyed by the criticism of the Dome. I thought at the time and said and argued as much, ‘what a fantastic thing to build’! The issue was the government didn’t know what to put in it, thinking it had to be something educational as it shouldn’t touch anything commercial. This is the short-sightedness and uselessness of politics. The O2 is a fantastic venue and it didn’t need that much additional vision for it to be so. It could be making income for the taxpayer – I know for some I have uttered sinful words here! And if the stadium could not be reasonably self-sustaining over the initial years, there would never be a shortage of private concerns coverting it! That is my personal view – but I commend the initial bid team. It is not their fault that everybody else missed the point and corruption and self-interest took over.
Those who decided to leave the country with a legacy and a flawed stadium to fulfil it are the people who should be being made accountable by the press at this time not the LLDC unless there is proof of corruption while they try to make the best of this situation.
Worth repeating:
The LLDC is a government body, answerable directly to the GLA. The head of the GLA is the London Mayor.
Since 2008 the Mayor has been Boris Johnson. The LLDC -WHU contract was signed in 2013.
Despite several rounds of negotiations with potential tenants, London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) elected to adhere to its bid commitment to provide a legacy for athletics at the stadium, with capacity reduced to a more financially viable 25,000. However, the newly elected Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, stated that all parties need to look carefully at the legacy plans for the stadium and did not rule out use by either a professional football or rugby team. With this in mind, the contract for building the stadium clearly stated that it must stay as a usable athletics track available for competition and training at any time.
As you all probably know, I'm not good with words....
Just like to repeat a question I asked last year.
Is it any coincidence that "Dame" Brady, "Lord" Coe, Boris, and the two Dave are, just by chance, all Conservatives ?
This is my view – but one I feel passionately about. When it was announced the stadium (pre-games) was not to be used for football, I was delighted. This wasn’t due to football tribalism but pride. I thought it was great that British Athletics could have a home that could inspire future athletes and as for the costs – it is in London with fantastic transport links – there would be massive demand for it to be used for other sporting and commercial events! Maybe not every day, but enough to be a lot cheaper than paying £272million on top of everything to allow West Ham to use it. In fact, what excited me was the prospect of youngsters getting to perform in this legendary stadium, with it’s fantastic facilities and for them to be inspired. A bit like building a velodrome helped to transform British cycling. Coe had the job of winning the games – my point and I think it is an important one, is that job would have been much more difficult if the Olympic committee thought the legacy would be that some premiership football club would have main use of it on the cheap! By designing a stadium unsuitable for football, that message could be delivered loud and clear. Now basic maths says that if the stadium was making a loss – and I contest that would have been the case – but the loss over many, many years (my lifetime I suspect) would be less at the very least than the money that has been subsequently pumped into it to make it into a football stadium. Politicians are rubbish at seeing the potential of things and the value of things outside corrupt monetary interests. I was annoyed by the criticism of the Dome. I thought at the time and said and argued as much, ‘what a fantastic thing to build’! The issue was the government didn’t know what to put in it, thinking it had to be something educational as it shouldn’t touch anything commercial. This is the short-sightedness and uselessness of politics. The O2 is a fantastic venue and it didn’t need that much additional vision for it to be so. It could be making income for the taxpayer – I know for some I have uttered sinful words here! And if the stadium could not be reasonably self-sustaining over the initial years, there would never be a shortage of private concerns coverting it! That is my personal view – but I commend the initial bid team. It is not their fault that everybody else missed the point and corruption and self-interest took over.
Those who decided to leave the country with a legacy and a flawed stadium to fulfil it are the people who should be being made accountable by the press at this time not the LLDC unless there is proof of corruption while they try to make the best of this situation.
Worth repeating:
The LLDC is a government body, answerable directly to the GLA. The head of the GLA is the London Mayor.
Since 2008 the Mayor has been Boris Johnson. The LLDC -WHU contract was signed in 2013.
Despite several rounds of negotiations with potential tenants, London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) elected to adhere to its bid commitment to provide a legacy for athletics at the stadium, with capacity reduced to a more financially viable 25,000. However, the newly elected Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, stated that all parties need to look carefully at the legacy plans for the stadium and did not rule out use by either a professional football or rugby team. With this in mind, the contract for building the stadium clearly stated that it must stay as a usable athletics track available for competition and training at any time.
As you all probably know, I'm not good with words....
Just like to repeat a question I asked last year.
Is it any coincidence that "Dame" Brady, "Lord" Coe, Boris, and the two Dave are, just by chance, all Conservatives ?
This is my view – but one I feel passionately about. When it was announced the stadium (pre-games) was not to be used for football, I was delighted. This wasn’t due to football tribalism but pride. I thought it was great that British Athletics could have a home that could inspire future athletes and as for the costs – it is in London with fantastic transport links – there would be massive demand for it to be used for other sporting and commercial events! Maybe not every day, but enough to be a lot cheaper than paying £272million on top of everything to allow West Ham to use it. In fact, what excited me was the prospect of youngsters getting to perform in this legendary stadium, with it’s fantastic facilities and for them to be inspired. A bit like building a velodrome helped to transform British cycling. Coe had the job of winning the games – my point and I think it is an important one, is that job would have been much more difficult if the Olympic committee thought the legacy would be that some premiership football club would have main use of it on the cheap! By designing a stadium unsuitable for football, that message could be delivered loud and clear. Now basic maths says that if the stadium was making a loss – and I contest that would have been the case – but the loss over many, many years (my lifetime I suspect) would be less at the very least than the money that has been subsequently pumped into it to make it into a football stadium. Politicians are rubbish at seeing the potential of things and the value of things outside corrupt monetary interests. I was annoyed by the criticism of the Dome. I thought at the time and said and argued as much, ‘what a fantastic thing to build’! The issue was the government didn’t know what to put in it, thinking it had to be something educational as it shouldn’t touch anything commercial. This is the short-sightedness and uselessness of politics. The O2 is a fantastic venue and it didn’t need that much additional vision for it to be so. It could be making income for the taxpayer – I know for some I have uttered sinful words here! And if the stadium could not be reasonably self-sustaining over the initial years, there would never be a shortage of private concerns coverting it! That is my personal view – but I commend the initial bid team. It is not their fault that everybody else missed the point and corruption and self-interest took over.
Those who decided to leave the country with a legacy and a flawed stadium to fulfil it are the people who should be being made accountable by the press at this time not the LLDC unless there is proof of corruption while they try to make the best of this situation.
Worth repeating:
The LLDC is a government body, answerable directly to the GLA. The head of the GLA is the London Mayor.
Since 2008 the Mayor has been Boris Johnson. The LLDC -WHU contract was signed in 2013.
Despite several rounds of negotiations with potential tenants, London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) elected to adhere to its bid commitment to provide a legacy for athletics at the stadium, with capacity reduced to a more financially viable 25,000. However, the newly elected Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, stated that all parties need to look carefully at the legacy plans for the stadium and did not rule out use by either a professional football or rugby team. With this in mind, the contract for building the stadium clearly stated that it must stay as a usable athletics track available for competition and training at any time.
As you all probably know, I'm not good with words....
Just like to repeat a question I asked last year.
Is it any coincidence that "Dame" Brady, "Lord" Coe, Boris, and the two Dave are, just by chance, all Conservatives ?
Again, just asking.
Are Tessa Howell or Ken Livingstone who both insisted an athletics track hadto remain Conservatives
This is my view – but one I feel passionately about. When it was announced the stadium (pre-games) was not to be used for football, I was delighted. This wasn’t due to football tribalism but pride. I thought it was great that British Athletics could have a home that could inspire future athletes and as for the costs – it is in London with fantastic transport links – there would be massive demand for it to be used for other sporting and commercial events! Maybe not every day, but enough to be a lot cheaper than paying £272million on top of everything to allow West Ham to use it. In fact, what excited me was the prospect of youngsters getting to perform in this legendary stadium, with it’s fantastic facilities and for them to be inspired. A bit like building a velodrome helped to transform British cycling. Coe had the job of winning the games – my point and I think it is an important one, is that job would have been much more difficult if the Olympic committee thought the legacy would be that some premiership football club would have main use of it on the cheap! By designing a stadium unsuitable for football, that message could be delivered loud and clear. Now basic maths says that if the stadium was making a loss – and I contest that would have been the case – but the loss over many, many years (my lifetime I suspect) would be less at the very least than the money that has been subsequently pumped into it to make it into a football stadium. Politicians are rubbish at seeing the potential of things and the value of things outside corrupt monetary interests. I was annoyed by the criticism of the Dome. I thought at the time and said and argued as much, ‘what a fantastic thing to build’! The issue was the government didn’t know what to put in it, thinking it had to be something educational as it shouldn’t touch anything commercial. This is the short-sightedness and uselessness of politics. The O2 is a fantastic venue and it didn’t need that much additional vision for it to be so. It could be making income for the taxpayer – I know for some I have uttered sinful words here! And if the stadium could not be reasonably self-sustaining over the initial years, there would never be a shortage of private concerns coverting it! That is my personal view – but I commend the initial bid team. It is not their fault that everybody else missed the point and corruption and self-interest took over.
Those who decided to leave the country with a legacy and a flawed stadium to fulfil it are the people who should be being made accountable by the press at this time not the LLDC unless there is proof of corruption while they try to make the best of this situation.
Worth repeating:
The LLDC is a government body, answerable directly to the GLA. The head of the GLA is the London Mayor.
Since 2008 the Mayor has been Boris Johnson. The LLDC -WHU contract was signed in 2013.
Despite several rounds of negotiations with potential tenants, London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) elected to adhere to its bid commitment to provide a legacy for athletics at the stadium, with capacity reduced to a more financially viable 25,000. However, the newly elected Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, stated that all parties need to look carefully at the legacy plans for the stadium and did not rule out use by either a professional football or rugby team. With this in mind, the contract for building the stadium clearly stated that it must stay as a usable athletics track available for competition and training at any time.
As you all probably know, I'm not good with words....
Just like to repeat a question I asked last year.
Is it any coincidence that "Dame" Brady, "Lord" Coe, Boris, and the two Dave are, just by chance, all Conservatives ?
Again, just asking.
Are Tessa Howell or Ken Livingstone who both insisted an athletics track hadto remain Conservatives
Honest "?"
I asked a question, I honestly do not know what Howell and Livingstone said, and, as far as I know, I don't think they are Conservatives. Apologies.
Politicians can't easily pocket tax payers' money but they can spend it on friends who ship them a few mill for their campaigns etc...So for example you can donate let's say £272m of our money and get one or two back! Political money laundering! That is how corruption works folks and the only evidence is often the final fact! We can see that here.
This is my view – but one I feel passionately about. When it was announced the stadium (pre-games) was not to be used for football, I was delighted. This wasn’t due to football tribalism but pride. I thought it was great that British Athletics could have a home that could inspire future athletes and as for the costs – it is in London with fantastic transport links – there would be massive demand for it to be used for other sporting and commercial events! Maybe not every day, but enough to be a lot cheaper than paying £272million on top of everything to allow West Ham to use it. In fact, what excited me was the prospect of youngsters getting to perform in this legendary stadium, with it’s fantastic facilities and for them to be inspired. A bit like building a velodrome helped to transform British cycling. Coe had the job of winning the games – my point and I think it is an important one, is that job would have been much more difficult if the Olympic committee thought the legacy would be that some premiership football club would have main use of it on the cheap! By designing a stadium unsuitable for football, that message could be delivered loud and clear. Now basic maths says that if the stadium was making a loss – and I contest that would have been the case – but the loss over many, many years (my lifetime I suspect) would be less at the very least than the money that has been subsequently pumped into it to make it into a football stadium. Politicians are rubbish at seeing the potential of things and the value of things outside corrupt monetary interests. I was annoyed by the criticism of the Dome. I thought at the time and said and argued as much, ‘what a fantastic thing to build’! The issue was the government didn’t know what to put in it, thinking it had to be something educational as it shouldn’t touch anything commercial. This is the short-sightedness and uselessness of politics. The O2 is a fantastic venue and it didn’t need that much additional vision for it to be so. It could be making income for the taxpayer – I know for some I have uttered sinful words here! And if the stadium could not be reasonably self-sustaining over the initial years, there would never be a shortage of private concerns coverting it! That is my personal view – but I commend the initial bid team. It is not their fault that everybody else missed the point and corruption and self-interest took over.
Those who decided to leave the country with a legacy and a flawed stadium to fulfil it are the people who should be being made accountable by the press at this time not the LLDC unless there is proof of corruption while they try to make the best of this situation.
Worth repeating:
The LLDC is a government body, answerable directly to the GLA. The head of the GLA is the London Mayor.
Since 2008 the Mayor has been Boris Johnson. The LLDC -WHU contract was signed in 2013.
Despite several rounds of negotiations with potential tenants, London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) elected to adhere to its bid commitment to provide a legacy for athletics at the stadium, with capacity reduced to a more financially viable 25,000. However, the newly elected Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, stated that all parties need to look carefully at the legacy plans for the stadium and did not rule out use by either a professional football or rugby team. With this in mind, the contract for building the stadium clearly stated that it must stay as a usable athletics track available for competition and training at any time.
As you all probably know, I'm not good with words....
Just like to repeat a question I asked last year.
Is it any coincidence that "Dame" Brady, "Lord" Coe, Boris, and the two Dave are, just by chance, all Conservatives ?
Again, just asking.
Are Tessa Howell or Ken Livingstone who both insisted an athletics track hadto remain Conservatives
Honest "?"
I asked a question, I honestly do not know what Howell and Livingstone said, and, as far as I know, I don't think they are Conservatives. Apologies.
While I think the examples @JohnnyH2 gave are pretty spurious, because most ordinary people seemed to want an athletics legacy, it is true that you cannot say the key connection between them is simply that they are Tories. The evidence for this is that the most consistent and trenchant critic of the deal on the GLA Assembly is Andrew Boff, the leader of the Tory group there - and notable critic of Goldsmith's campaign too.
No I think the simpler explanation as to what they have in common is that they are all ****s.
This is my view – but one I feel passionately about. When it was announced the stadium (pre-games) was not to be used for football, I was delighted. This wasn’t due to football tribalism but pride. I thought it was great that British Athletics could have a home that could inspire future athletes and as for the costs – it is in London with fantastic transport links – there would be massive demand for it to be used for other sporting and commercial events! Maybe not every day, but enough to be a lot cheaper than paying £272million on top of everything to allow West Ham to use it. In fact, what excited me was the prospect of youngsters getting to perform in this legendary stadium, with it’s fantastic facilities and for them to be inspired. A bit like building a velodrome helped to transform British cycling. Coe had the job of winning the games – my point and I think it is an important one, is that job would have been much more difficult if the Olympic committee thought the legacy would be that some premiership football club would have main use of it on the cheap! By designing a stadium unsuitable for football, that message could be delivered loud and clear. Now basic maths says that if the stadium was making a loss – and I contest that would have been the case – but the loss over many, many years (my lifetime I suspect) would be less at the very least than the money that has been subsequently pumped into it to make it into a football stadium. Politicians are rubbish at seeing the potential of things and the value of things outside corrupt monetary interests. I was annoyed by the criticism of the Dome. I thought at the time and said and argued as much, ‘what a fantastic thing to build’! The issue was the government didn’t know what to put in it, thinking it had to be something educational as it shouldn’t touch anything commercial. This is the short-sightedness and uselessness of politics. The O2 is a fantastic venue and it didn’t need that much additional vision for it to be so. It could be making income for the taxpayer – I know for some I have uttered sinful words here! And if the stadium could not be reasonably self-sustaining over the initial years, there would never be a shortage of private concerns coverting it! That is my personal view – but I commend the initial bid team. It is not their fault that everybody else missed the point and corruption and self-interest took over.
Those who decided to leave the country with a legacy and a flawed stadium to fulfil it are the people who should be being made accountable by the press at this time not the LLDC unless there is proof of corruption while they try to make the best of this situation.
Worth repeating:
The LLDC is a government body, answerable directly to the GLA. The head of the GLA is the London Mayor.
Since 2008 the Mayor has been Boris Johnson. The LLDC -WHU contract was signed in 2013.
Despite several rounds of negotiations with potential tenants, London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) elected to adhere to its bid commitment to provide a legacy for athletics at the stadium, with capacity reduced to a more financially viable 25,000. However, the newly elected Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, stated that all parties need to look carefully at the legacy plans for the stadium and did not rule out use by either a professional football or rugby team. With this in mind, the contract for building the stadium clearly stated that it must stay as a usable athletics track available for competition and training at any time.
As you all probably know, I'm not good with words....
Just like to repeat a question I asked last year.
Is it any coincidence that "Dame" Brady, "Lord" Coe, Boris, and the two Dave are, just by chance, all Conservatives ?
Again, just asking.
Are Tessa Howell or Ken Livingstone who both insisted an athletics track hadto remain Conservatives
Honest "?"
I asked a question, I honestly do not know what Howell and Livingstone said, and, as far as I know, I don't think they are Conservatives. Apologies.
Labour politicians stuffed up the original purpose for the stadium after the Olympics, Conservative politicians stuffed up the deal with West Ham. BOTH parties are at fault for the mess that was created
This is my view – but one I feel passionately about. When it was announced the stadium (pre-games) was not to be used for football, I was delighted. This wasn’t due to football tribalism but pride. I thought it was great that British Athletics could have a home that could inspire future athletes and as for the costs – it is in London with fantastic transport links – there would be massive demand for it to be used for other sporting and commercial events! Maybe not every day, but enough to be a lot cheaper than paying £272million on top of everything to allow West Ham to use it. In fact, what excited me was the prospect of youngsters getting to perform in this legendary stadium, with it’s fantastic facilities and for them to be inspired. A bit like building a velodrome helped to transform British cycling. Coe had the job of winning the games – my point and I think it is an important one, is that job would have been much more difficult if the Olympic committee thought the legacy would be that some premiership football club would have main use of it on the cheap! By designing a stadium unsuitable for football, that message could be delivered loud and clear. Now basic maths says that if the stadium was making a loss – and I contest that would have been the case – but the loss over many, many years (my lifetime I suspect) would be less at the very least than the money that has been subsequently pumped into it to make it into a football stadium. Politicians are rubbish at seeing the potential of things and the value of things outside corrupt monetary interests. I was annoyed by the criticism of the Dome. I thought at the time and said and argued as much, ‘what a fantastic thing to build’! The issue was the government didn’t know what to put in it, thinking it had to be something educational as it shouldn’t touch anything commercial. This is the short-sightedness and uselessness of politics. The O2 is a fantastic venue and it didn’t need that much additional vision for it to be so. It could be making income for the taxpayer – I know for some I have uttered sinful words here! And if the stadium could not be reasonably self-sustaining over the initial years, there would never be a shortage of private concerns coverting it! That is my personal view – but I commend the initial bid team. It is not their fault that everybody else missed the point and corruption and self-interest took over.
Those who decided to leave the country with a legacy and a flawed stadium to fulfil it are the people who should be being made accountable by the press at this time not the LLDC unless there is proof of corruption while they try to make the best of this situation.
Worth repeating:
The LLDC is a government body, answerable directly to the GLA. The head of the GLA is the London Mayor.
Since 2008 the Mayor has been Boris Johnson. The LLDC -WHU contract was signed in 2013.
Despite several rounds of negotiations with potential tenants, London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) elected to adhere to its bid commitment to provide a legacy for athletics at the stadium, with capacity reduced to a more financially viable 25,000. However, the newly elected Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, stated that all parties need to look carefully at the legacy plans for the stadium and did not rule out use by either a professional football or rugby team. With this in mind, the contract for building the stadium clearly stated that it must stay as a usable athletics track available for competition and training at any time.
As you all probably know, I'm not good with words....
Just like to repeat a question I asked last year.
Is it any coincidence that "Dame" Brady, "Lord" Coe, Boris, and the two Dave are, just by chance, all Conservatives ?
Again, just asking.
Are Tessa Howell or Ken Livingstone who both insisted an athletics track hadto remain Conservatives
Honest "?"
I asked a question, I honestly do not know what Howell and Livingstone said, and, as far as I know, I don't think they are Conservatives. Apologies.
Labour politicians stuffed up the original purpose for the stadium after the Olympics, Conservative politicians stuffed up the deal with West Ham. BOTH parties are at fault for the mess that was created
Thank you. As I say, being a "leftie", obviously I do connect the Dame, Lord, Boris, 2 Daves (Black Tie Ball ?)......etc.
Apologies if I annoyed you.
{Edit} Please, also, trust me, I have not been "Labour" since I was lied to in 1997.
Baroness Tannie Gray Thompson is on the board of the LLDC I believe, but she is a cross-bencher, yet also a Baroness like Brady. I don't know if she voted in the tax credits issue, but Brady did, and she voted with Cameron to put the boot into the poor. The vote was defeated.
Seb Coe was a Tory and he won us the games. To win us the games, we had to have a believable legacy plan - evidence that the stadium was not suitable for football was an important part of that at the time! Do people not remember the arguments at the time of the bid? I think having the Olympics was glorious for the city and country and if people want to slag off the people responsible for it because they had a viable plan for an athletics stadium that did not include football is incredibly lazy IMO. But of course, that is why politicians get away with what they do! It was later decided that the stadium needed football, when it didn't - how did it ever - we don't have a proper national athletics stadium and after holding an Olympics we should do. A club who already had a perfectly good ground with a history to be proud of never needed to move into the stadium. Take the stupid arguments back a few notches, don't just swallow the crap! £272m was never a good deal - the prior costs of the stadium was to hold the bloody Olympics FFS!
This is my view – but one I feel passionately about. When it was announced the stadium (pre-games) was not to be used for football, I was delighted. This wasn’t due to football tribalism but pride. I thought it was great that British Athletics could have a home that could inspire future athletes and as for the costs – it is in London with fantastic transport links – there would be massive demand for it to be used for other sporting and commercial events! Maybe not every day, but enough to be a lot cheaper than paying £272million on top of everything to allow West Ham to use it. In fact, what excited me was the prospect of youngsters getting to perform in this legendary stadium, with it’s fantastic facilities and for them to be inspired. A bit like building a velodrome helped to transform British cycling. Coe had the job of winning the games – my point and I think it is an important one, is that job would have been much more difficult if the Olympic committee thought the legacy would be that some premiership football club would have main use of it on the cheap! By designing a stadium unsuitable for football, that message could be delivered loud and clear. Now basic maths says that if the stadium was making a loss – and I contest that would have been the case – but the loss over many, many years (my lifetime I suspect) would be less at the very least than the money that has been subsequently pumped into it to make it into a football stadium. Politicians are rubbish at seeing the potential of things and the value of things outside corrupt monetary interests. I was annoyed by the criticism of the Dome. I thought at the time and said and argued as much, ‘what a fantastic thing to build’! The issue was the government didn’t know what to put in it, thinking it had to be something educational as it shouldn’t touch anything commercial. This is the short-sightedness and uselessness of politics. The O2 is a fantastic venue and it didn’t need that much additional vision for it to be so. It could be making income for the taxpayer – I know for some I have uttered sinful words here! And if the stadium could not be reasonably self-sustaining over the initial years, there would never be a shortage of private concerns coverting it! That is my personal view – but I commend the initial bid team. It is not their fault that everybody else missed the point and corruption and self-interest took over.
Those who decided to leave the country with a legacy and a flawed stadium to fulfil it are the people who should be being made accountable by the press at this time not the LLDC unless there is proof of corruption while they try to make the best of this situation.
Worth repeating:
The LLDC is a government body, answerable directly to the GLA. The head of the GLA is the London Mayor.
Since 2008 the Mayor has been Boris Johnson. The LLDC -WHU contract was signed in 2013.
Despite several rounds of negotiations with potential tenants, London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) elected to adhere to its bid commitment to provide a legacy for athletics at the stadium, with capacity reduced to a more financially viable 25,000. However, the newly elected Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, stated that all parties need to look carefully at the legacy plans for the stadium and did not rule out use by either a professional football or rugby team. With this in mind, the contract for building the stadium clearly stated that it must stay as a usable athletics track available for competition and training at any time.
As you all probably know, I'm not good with words....
Just like to repeat a question I asked last year.
Is it any coincidence that "Dame" Brady, "Lord" Coe, Boris, and the two Dave are, just by chance, all Conservatives ?
Again, just asking.
Are Tessa Howell or Ken Livingstone who both insisted an athletics track hadto remain Conservatives
Honest "?"
I asked a question, I honestly do not know what Howell and Livingstone said, and, as far as I know, I don't think they are Conservatives. Apologies.
Labour politicians stuffed up the original purpose for the stadium after the Olympics, Conservative politicians stuffed up the deal with West Ham. BOTH parties are at fault for the mess that was created
There is however a figure whose influence runs across both administrations: Seb Coe. He is a committed Tory but he was not acting as an elected politician. He has many questions to answer, including some mentioned to me by one of the people who appeared in the BBC film, which are pretty explosive. Whether they are substantive enough to be asked in public, I have no idea. But what he shares with Johnson is the ability to put on this charming non-politician regular guy act.If you read the tweets of experienced journos around the athletics scandals it would appear some of them think the mask is starting to slip.
Are we to forget that we won the games against a competetive field? I am not Coe's greatest fan politically, but we owe him respect for his achievement as well as Livingstone and others that supported the bid. The bid that we WON - that seems to have been forgotten in all of this.
This is my view – but one I feel passionately about. When it was announced the stadium (pre-games) was not to be used for football, I was delighted. This wasn’t due to football tribalism but pride. I thought it was great that British Athletics could have a home that could inspire future athletes and as for the costs – it is in London with fantastic transport links – there would be massive demand for it to be used for other sporting and commercial events! Maybe not every day, but enough to be a lot cheaper than paying £272million on top of everything to allow West Ham to use it. In fact, what excited me was the prospect of youngsters getting to perform in this legendary stadium, with it’s fantastic facilities and for them to be inspired. A bit like building a velodrome helped to transform British cycling. Coe had the job of winning the games – my point and I think it is an important one, is that job would have been much more difficult if the Olympic committee thought the legacy would be that some premiership football club would have main use of it on the cheap! By designing a stadium unsuitable for football, that message could be delivered loud and clear. Now basic maths says that if the stadium was making a loss – and I contest that would have been the case – but the loss over many, many years (my lifetime I suspect) would be less at the very least than the money that has been subsequently pumped into it to make it into a football stadium. Politicians are rubbish at seeing the potential of things and the value of things outside corrupt monetary interests. I was annoyed by the criticism of the Dome. I thought at the time and said and argued as much, ‘what a fantastic thing to build’! The issue was the government didn’t know what to put in it, thinking it had to be something educational as it shouldn’t touch anything commercial. This is the short-sightedness and uselessness of politics. The O2 is a fantastic venue and it didn’t need that much additional vision for it to be so. It could be making income for the taxpayer – I know for some I have uttered sinful words here! And if the stadium could not be reasonably self-sustaining over the initial years, there would never be a shortage of private concerns coverting it! That is my personal view – but I commend the initial bid team. It is not their fault that everybody else missed the point and corruption and self-interest took over.
Those who decided to leave the country with a legacy and a flawed stadium to fulfil it are the people who should be being made accountable by the press at this time not the LLDC unless there is proof of corruption while they try to make the best of this situation.
Worth repeating:
The LLDC is a government body, answerable directly to the GLA. The head of the GLA is the London Mayor.
Since 2008 the Mayor has been Boris Johnson. The LLDC -WHU contract was signed in 2013.
Despite several rounds of negotiations with potential tenants, London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) elected to adhere to its bid commitment to provide a legacy for athletics at the stadium, with capacity reduced to a more financially viable 25,000. However, the newly elected Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, stated that all parties need to look carefully at the legacy plans for the stadium and did not rule out use by either a professional football or rugby team. With this in mind, the contract for building the stadium clearly stated that it must stay as a usable athletics track available for competition and training at any time.
As you all probably know, I'm not good with words....
Just like to repeat a question I asked last year.
Is it any coincidence that "Dame" Brady, "Lord" Coe, Boris, and the two Dave are, just by chance, all Conservatives ?
Again, just asking.
Are Tessa Howell or Ken Livingstone who both insisted an athletics track hadto remain Conservatives
Honest "?"
I asked a question, I honestly do not know what Howell and Livingstone said, and, as far as I know, I don't think they are Conservatives. Apologies.
Labour politicians stuffed up the original purpose for the stadium after the Olympics, Conservative politicians stuffed up the deal with West Ham. BOTH parties are at fault for the mess that was created
There is however a figure whose influence runs across both administrations: Seb Coe. He is a committed Tory but he was not acting as an elected politician. He has many questions to answer, including some mentioned to me by one of the people who appeared in the BBC film, which are pretty explosive. Whether they are substantive enough to be asked in public, I have no idea. But what he shares with Johnson is the ability to put on this charming non-politician regular guy act.If you read the tweets of experienced journos around the athletics scandals it would appear some of them think the mask is starting to slip.
Agreed he has been there all the way, and it appeared he led the ridiculous demands that the stadium be used for Athletics after the Olympics. Now on one hand I can understand why someone who loves his sport as much as he does would want that. But common sense should have come into play and Athletics so does not need a stadium of that size, and Coe should have been told to clear off
Seb Coe was a Tory and he won us the games. To win us the games, we had to have a believable legacy plan - evidence that the stadium was not suitable for football was an important part of that at the time! Do people not remember the arguments at the time of the bid? I think having the Olympics was glorious for the city and country and if people want to slag off the people responsible for it because they had a viable plan for an athletics stadium that did not include football is incredibly lazy IMO. But of course, that is why politicians get away with what they do! It was later decided that the stadium needed football, when it didn't - how did it ever - we don't have a proper national athletics stadium and after holding an Olympics we should do. A club who already had a perfectly good ground with a history to be proud of never needed to move into the stadium. Take the stupid arguments back a few notches, don't just swallow the crap! £272m was never a good deal - the prior costs of the stadium was to hold the bloody Olympics FFS!
If I remember correctly, and I probably don't, this was one of the reasons why London pipped Paris - the French already had stadia in place (though I think they were suggesting tennis on the Champs Elysees), but they were primarily for football/rugby, so less specific "Olympic" legacy.
People tend to forget the details when they are not that interested at the time. Deciding football needed to be at the site was the big error (if it was an error) - it became a get a football team there at any price agenda, putting West Ham in a great position. I believe that was as dodgy as it comes! When a spanner was thrown in by Spurs providing an option that gave the country a national athletics stadium for less tax payers money, it seemed to me to be rejected for the reasons why it should have been accepted. If 1 + X = 3, you can work out what X is. The outcome here does the same. If I was an investigative journalist I would be delving into this corruption.
I would look into political donations Gold and Sullivan have made and who has benefitted most from them for starters and future donations too. Amazing Cameron's corruption remarks in the news this morning when the blond haired hero of his party stinks of it!
Comments
West Ham fans should get honest and flick the rest of us some V signs whilst laughing in our faces. That would be East End Salt of the earth honesty at least.
Taxpayers Park is a genius name, respect to whoever thought that up, as is the nickname 'The Scroungers'.
#I'm forever blowing raspberries#
I know where they can stick their bubble machine too!!
http://www.cityam.com/240717/fixtures-and-fittings-of-upton-park-set-to-go-under-hammer
Items and starting bids
John Lyall Gates: £5,000
Matchday goalposts with net: £500
Manager’s dugout seat: £100
Manager’s three-drawer desk: £50
‘Please keep off the grass’ sign: £50
Bubble machine: £20
‘Sorry position closed’ sign: £2
'Who paid for this ground?
Who paid for this ground
You effing tea leaves
We paid for this ground.'
Moving straight to chants around the lack of quality of the support.
Just like to repeat a question I asked last year.
Is it any coincidence that "Dame" Brady, "Lord" Coe, Boris, and the two Dave are, just by chance, all Conservatives ?
Again, just asking.
Last home game.
To which Mayo replied before you move into your free stadium, which we've all paid for.
I had to laugh, he gets it, how come others don't?
I asked a question, I honestly do not know what Howell and Livingstone said, and, as far as I know, I don't think they are Conservatives.
Apologies.
No I think the simpler explanation as to what they have in common is that they are all ****s.
As I say, being a "leftie", obviously I do connect the Dame, Lord, Boris, 2 Daves (Black Tie Ball ?)......etc.
Apologies if I annoyed you.
{Edit} Please, also, trust me, I have not been "Labour" since I was lied to in 1997.
I don't know if she voted in the tax credits issue, but Brady did, and she voted with Cameron to put the boot into the poor. The vote was defeated.
I would look into political donations Gold and Sullivan have made and who has benefitted most from them for starters and future donations too. Amazing Cameron's corruption remarks in the news this morning when the blond haired hero of his party stinks of it!