Premier League: 8 reasons I will miss Upton Park

West Ham’s move to the Olympic Stadium feels more like an eviction notice. The place friends and family have been calling home every other Saturday since we could toddle through the turnstiles is shutting up shop and we’re heading for the bright Olympic lights of Stratford.

Don’t get me wrong, I won’t be lying in front of the diggers as they weave across what’s left of the Upton Park pitch this summer. Progress is progress and the move is a necessary evil if the club wants to be competitive at the top level. But as we’ve ticked off the few remaining home games at the Boleyn Ground, every visit has taken that little bit longer – is this our last pint in The Boleyn pub, our farewell visit to Nathan’s for pie and mash, the final chance for a quick snap by the gates in the East Stand with their crossed hammers?

Here, in no particular order, are some of the things I’ll miss most when we’ve finally said goodbye to Upton Park:

Know your history

When we’re in the East Stand, I always look for the front row seat that I leapt from the day Paolo Di Canio scored his scissor-kick volley against Wimbledon. I nod towards the penalty spot where Ray Stewart fired in a last-minute winner in an FA Cup quarter-final against Aston Villa, to the six-yard box where Tony Cottee landed after scoring with an overhead kick against Nottingham Forest. I smile as I remember Liam Brady running towards us on the Chicken Run having scored in the final minute of his last game, only to be stopped in his tracks as about a hundred of us jumped over the wall to meet him.

If I’m at the North Bank end (that’s Sir Trevor Brooking Stand in new money) I chuckle as I remember Julian Dicks slamming Alan Shearer’s face into the mud as both men slid into a corner flag. I look up to where the North Bank Bar used to be heaving in the days before we worried about alcohol or overcrowding on the terraces. In short, I drink in the history of the place, recall the great match days and it makes me feel warm and good and optimistic that there’ll be more to come. There are decades invested in those memories, iconic moments which can’t be packed up and shipped over to Stratford.

Green Street

The long stretch of Green Street between Upton Park station and the stadium has a Jekyll And Hyde existence: fantastic when you have time to amble, a nightmare to negotiate when you’re after your train. As a kid I’d love to trawl through the programme stalls, each one acting like a mini West Ham library of past matches, manned by proper fans. The Queens Tavern stands guard at Queen’s Market where Queen’s Fish Bar is tucked away. You can look into Ken’s Café to see if there’s a rare, free table. Fanzine sellers such as Gary Firmager, editor of Over Land and Sea are regular fixtures too. What can we expect at the new stadium, McDonald’s? Subway?

Night games

Under the floodlights Upton Park transforms from being a cosy Saturday afternoon venue to a bubbling cauldron of noise, where big-team reputations count for little in the intimidating arena. Avram Grant’s one season at West Ham supplied some of the worst football we’ve witnessed, yet on a snowy December evening under the lights in 2010, his relegation favourites thrashed Manchester United 4-0 in a League Cup tie. Twelve years earlier, a Paul Ince double helped another Hammers team destined for relegation to clobber Liverpool 4-1 in the League Cup. Perhaps the greatest night of all was when John Lyall’s West Ham overcame Eintracht Frankfurt in the second leg of a Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final in 1976. As the tightly packed crowd sang and swayed, Trevor Brooking danced over the mud to help himself to a brace in a 3-1 victory. It will be impossible to recreate the noise and passion of that night in the vast open air spaces of the Olympic Stadium.   

Food glorious food

Most football fans have some kind of match day superstition or ritual. While some pander to theirs with OCD-like dedication, others simply enjoy a pint in the same pub each week, or grab a bite to eat from a regular venue. I can’t imagine there’s an Upton Park regular who hasn’t at some stage paid a visit to Nathan’s Pies And Eels on Barking Road, supped at the Boleyn pub or stuffed their face at Ken’s Café, Queen’s Fish Bar or West Ham’s Favourite Burger Bar behind the East Stand. Despite some encouraging noises from the club when the move was first mooted, these businesses are being left behind to survive in the bleak football free landscape of the future.

The Boleyn Ground v Upton Park debate

The name of the stadium is the Boleyn Ground while Upton Park is the area. But football fans have their own way of doing things. For years home was called Upton Park, probably because that’s the nearest Tube station on the District Line. Get off at West Ham and you’d have a bit of a walk. But around the same time that the Nou Camp became Camp Nou and Bayern Munich evolved into Bayern Munchen, Upton Park was changed in match reports nationwide to the Boleyn Ground. It could get worse after the move. Are we heading to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park or to Stratford, to the Olympic Stadium or the West Ham United Stadium? Yep, good luck with that one.  

The Chicken Run

I’ll hold my hands up here, I’m harking back to the days when the Chicken Run was the thin strip of terracing along the front of the East Stand. Here you could pat the back of a home player about to take a throw in, or whisper sweet nothings in the ear of somebody from the away team. As you were free to move around there would always be a mad rush a couple of minutes before kick off as everybody headed for the end where West Ham would be attacking. At times you were caught in a heaving sea of bodies and could end up some distance from your pals. But the experience and the banter was second to none. As a teenager this was where I had my first season ticket. It was also where we first sat when the Taylor Report’s recommendations had been implemented for the 1994-95 season. It’s the part of the ground I shall miss the most.

Away fans

I genuinely used to feel for the away fans in the 1980s. They would be herded out of Upton Park Tube to run the gauntlet down Green Street and marched past the main entrance on the way to the South Bank (now the Bobby Moore Stand). There they would be hurried into the stadium through three small doors, usually under a barrage of abuse. It’s very different today with the luxury of their own corner in the North Bank (Sir Trev’s Stand) and it’s a good spot for making some noise and building up the atmosphere of the game if the fans have the heart for it. In the new stadium they will probably have to send their chants by text message so we can pick up on what they’re saying.

Absent friends

There are people I’ve travelled to football with over the years who are no longer with us. Today their spirit and their memory are a very part of the streets that we walk round the ground. There are physical reminders of their time: A favourite burger van, regular watering hole, their old seat. Some even had their ashes scattered over the pitch. I’m all for welcoming the future but it’s damn hard to say goodbye to the past.