Grounds For Change – The 2012 Olympic Stadium

With the 2012 Olympic Games coming ever closer, the need for some clarity on what is happening then and thereafter is ever pressing.

Tottenham’s interest in moving into the Olympic Stadium is to cut costs on the new ground they want.  The one at Northumberland Park has risen in cost and there are a lot of add-ons, which might make it less favourable to the board.  Haringey Council spin the story that they have turned the planning application around in record time, but for years they have been less than welcoming to Tottenham’s proposals for the ground.  Not to say that Newham might be any more amenable, but if it is a question of having a football ground in N17 or letting that already deprived area sink even further, you would have thought that one of the major employers and major revenue generators would have been offered a little encouragement to stay.  With no grant funding to assist Tottenham, they might see Stratford as a viable option in terms of saving some money for bolstering the team for future success … or maybe it is just a ploy to move the ground to a location closer to the City and nearer to lots of good transport connections, to make it more saleable.  I would hope that Daniel Levy wouldn’t be doing it for that reason, but I have been following football too long to view it with nothing more than a hint of cynicism.

The club has been built up over the last ten years to move forward and be one of the major players in English football … and hopefully European football come to that.  To then sell up and leave it in the hands of opportunist investors, would be selling the club and the fans down the River Lea.  Don’t do it Daniel … or you might have to face some hungry lions. 

A tool to force Haringey’s hand was how it was first seen, but as time has gone on, the Olympic flame has been burning brighter in the thoughts of those in the board room at THFC.  In the heat of the move, 112 years of history could be extinguished and where will that leave ‘XXXX’ (no not Fosters) Hotspur if even the name has to change ?  Perhaps the money that can be raised from the stadium naming rights could be doubled by selling the name of the team to the highest corporate bidder ?

So, with the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) sitting in judgement on the bids submitted by West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur, which will be the lucky party who get to turn one white elephant into a shiny new venue ?

The sheer fact that this discussion is taking place a week before their decision speaks volumes of the lack of planning in the preparation for the Olympics.  Let’s chuck up a stadium to host the event and then think about what we will do with it afterwards.  Well, whoopie-doo.  now we are there and suddenly, everyone is turning holier than thou in saying “we must keep a running track”, “we must keep it for the legacy for the people of Newham” or “we must make sure the Olympic organisation don’t think badly about us.”

Go back six years to the home of the Olympics … Athens.  Would it be ready in time was one of the main questions on people’s lips before the Games.  Not what will happen afterwards.  As it turns out, the lack of interest seems to have been echoed by the home authorities, who found that within four years, the majority of the structures built for the Games had fallen into disrepair.  There were some good things that came out of those game, but they were in infrastructure and not as a sporting legacy.

Go back further to Barcelona in 1992.  Huge amounts of money pumped into schemes to build new roads, structures, housing and parks, but what happened after the circus moved out of town ?  The wonderful promise of jobs was only there as long as the Games were on and the infrastructure was well-needed, but to bring in the hordes of tourists they do now, has involved years of investment into the city to make it a place that is one of Europe’s premier destinations.

Sydney 2000 … a fantastic Games, but within a year the main stadium had fallen into receivership, as there were few events held in the 110,000 capacity venue.

Closer to home and closer in time, the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Manchester left what sporting legacy ?  A new shiny Velodrome, which has helped the country win gold at the Olympics, but other than that ?  An indoor tennis centre and Eastlands Stadium, which has been taken over by Manchester City and … surprise, surprise, … no running track, as it is for exclusive use as a football stadium.  Now City have to pay 50% of all profits on attendances above 32,000 and 60% above 40,000, which has helped sport in the area and perhaps this is the way to go with Stratford.  Any revenue raised can help in the vicinity.

Tottenham’s latest pitch (for the stadium, not a piece of grass) is to use funds to build a sporting centre elsewhere … in this instance Crystal Palace.  Not a bad idea, as there was a National Sports Centre there once (to mis-quote Keith Burkinshaw), but the need for a sports venue to hold World Championships in is high on the United Kingdom Athletic Association’s list of priorities.  But his is the organisation that could not come up with the planning and money to build one back in 2005.  And where was the location of the stadium they had in mind ?  Picketts Lock … just a stone’s throw (by Tessa Sanderson, who has had to step down from the OPLC as she is funded by the London Borough of Newham, the partner of West Ham United in their bid) from White Hart Lane.  There was still a planning application for a stadium on the site when I was last working that way.  They have built the Elite training facility there, called the London High Performance Centre, so wouldn’t it make sense to build a stadium for these elite athletes to run in ?  Back then, Crystal Palace was viewed as a back up plan to Picketts Lock.  So, if Spurs were to leave the area, then they could leave a legacy by leaving an athletics stadium of an appropriate size.

Let us not forget that following the Olympics, what is left will become the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which will be redeveloped to contain a mix of leisure use and social housing.  Any football ground usage will have to be good neighbours with the residents and the community use of the park and the remaining buildings form the Games, which could be put to a variety of diverse uses.  Work in the perfect combination would probably not be football and AEG organised music concerts, but the need to repay the tax payer might be one thread which takes some sort of precedence, with income being a major persuader in the decision, as community use is all well and good, but it hardly over-fills any coffers.

But cashing in on the Games is not the sole provenance of the Olympic movement.

Hotels have sprung up in and around Stratford, some of which are nothing more than converted houses calling themselves Olympic Hotel and offering “en-suits” which will quickly be sold on after the Games, when people have made a quick buck.  Everything is “Olympic” in Stratford and the environs at the moment and the lawyers who operate trademark rights enforcement will no doubt be clearing the area of every hint of the name that hasn’t been licensed at great cost. 

And that is the flip side to the Olympic movement.

It is not about amateurism and sport anymore.  Like the World Cup and most things in life, it is about money.  Why else would there be an OPLC ?  A company ?  To make money after the Games for years to come.

I would wager that corporate sponsors will make sure your food and drink is mostly deprived of you before you go in, so that you are trapped (Disneyland like) inside with only the sponsors food and drink to buy.  You will be bedazzled by adverts for everything from banks to travel agents as they brainwash you with sponsors names and logos.  Security will probably be keeping a sharp eye out for “ambush marketing” as the World Cup has seen people ejected for wearing the wrong sponsors clothing or in one case in South Africa, for wearing the wrong colour clothing that was associated with a rival’s beer !!  So, above everything else, make sure you watch what you pull out of your wardrobe before heading down to Stratford.

At least that is one thing that won’t be an issue whoever wins occupation.  It will be polyester replica shirts all the way, as that will be de rigueur wear for any self-respecting fan.  And you might need it if you are sitting in the front row of the stand and you have the wide open spaces of the pitch and a running track in front of you for the elements to sweep across.

It may work elsewhere, although I am yet to see an example where it replicates the intimacy of an English football ground, but the idea of football in an athletics stadium is one which does not appeals in the least.  So, Tottenham’s bid may slap the original idea of the legacy of the stadium in the face, but it is honest, as it is the only way to go.  It probably also means that the stadium will go to West Ham, but not many of their fans want to go there either.  And if they do, will they have to change their name, as they originated in Canning Town and then moved to East Ham, so have never really been a West Ham club.

Whatever happens, the move of one club or the other will make headlines for many more years than the Olympics has been in the planning.

For Spurs, it could take them to stellar status and regular Champions League football, filling the stadium and riches for the owners and for the Olympic Park Legacy Company or the government.

For West Ham, it cold see them playing in a concrete and metal bowl that is half-filled if they get relegated and the owners fail to maintain a legacy in investing in the team. 

But then, that could happen to Spurs too, if they fortunes of the team start hiding like West Ham’s.

Like the stadium not being used for what it was hoped to be used for after the Games … there are no guarantees in life.