If one effect of the coronavirus crisis has been to create a yearning to get back to football stadiums and enjoy the celebration of life that a game is, that isn’t the case for a core of West Ham United fans.
They have yearning to go somewhere else that they feel has all the life – and football culture vibrancy – that the London Stadium lacks.
That is Plaistow Community Centre, where a supporters’ group called Hammers United have started to congregate to watch games, because they say it just feels much more like what West Ham is supposed to be.
Set up by long-time fan Paul Colborne, and affiliated to the Football Supporters’ Association, the aim is to recapture the spirit of the club – which makes the setting en route to Upton Park all the more pointed – and also strengthen the movement against the current owners, David Gold and David Sullivan.
“West Ham as we know it has almost been destroyed,” Colborne says.
Those words were captured in a mini-documentary shot by filmmaker and long-time West Ham supporter Louis Berry, which is shown here. The piece also shows the recent 12,500-strong march against the owners, which was also organised by Hammers United.
For as much as the documentary covers a controversial issue in the modern game, it also illustrates the sense of community that football is really supposed to be about, and that is so lacking at this time.
“The aim of the piece was to highlight what was going on, but also to capture the atmosphere of the protest,” Berry explains. “West Ham has been really lacking in atmosphere and spirit, and it was actually a really, really positive environment.
“It was great to feel West Ham was back for that little moment of that march.
“That’s why that community centre was so amazing. The proper old-school fans don’t even go to the game, they just sit in their community centre, because that’s more West Ham than what this club is now. It’s more about the people there, they can just go and watch it and be themselves there, rather than going to this soulless bowl. That’s what it’s about.”
That’s also the fundamental problem. Even before you get to the running of West Ham, the supporters who attend the Plaistow Community Centre for games don’t just feel the club have moved stadium. They feel that stadium has altered the club’s very identity, possibly more than any other ground move.
What Upton Park was remains central to what West Ham are, as Berry argues.
“It wasn’t about a normal conventional football club, it was part of the spirit behind it. Obviously, with modernisation comes change, and when everyone was sold this move to the Olympic Stadium, I think most fans saw it for what it was. So, you know, no one really wanted the move.
“But I think the way people could sleep at night with the move was that if we became a Man City, then fair enough. But I’ve tried to go this season more than ever, and it’s just horrible. You just go there, people are chatting, not watching the football. You try and chant, but you do feel a bit embarrassed when you do sing, because it’s so quiet, you feel like everyone’s looking at you.
“When that’s the opposite of what West Ham’s about. Growing up West Ham, it wasn’t too much about the results. It was a generational thing. I’d go with my dad, my grandad… It’s just that kind of atmosphere you’d go [for]. It’d be a bit intimidating. It was that atmosphere that was the identity of West Ham, that’s what the club was about.
“Why do you support a club, what’s the point? And the reason [for] the old-school West Ham fans, they don’t identify with what West Ham is now. They’re just holding onto the name.
“What we’re seeing, it’s just not the club we once knew.”
A bit of it has been recaptured in Plaistow, though, and has been captured by Berry’s film.
Their aim now is to help reclaim the club.
