London Mayor Sadiq Khan has added his voice to those of West Ham great Sir Trevor Brooking and captain Mark Noble in urging fans to behave themselves during Saturday’s crucial home game against Southampton.
West Ham’s last game at the London Stadium against Burnley on March 10 was marred by pitch invasions and angry protests against club owners David Gold and David Sullivan, with the latter being struck by a coin.
Writing in the Evening Standard, Brooking described his emotions that day as “shock, sadness and frustration” and called on fans to “park their strong feelings” about how the club is being run until the summer, hopefully after West Ham’s Premier League status has been preserved.
Noble, who grappled with a pitch invader during the 3-0 defeat to Burnley, made a similar plea on the club website. He said he never wants to see scenes like that again and pleaded with fans “to channel your passion to get behind the team”.
In a statement, Khan has backed these calls and explained why there will be a significantly increased security presence on Saturday.
“Nobody wants to witness scenes like those during the last home game, which were caused by a small minority,” said Khan.
“Members of the safety advisory group, which includes West Ham, that meet before every home game have collectively agreed on a strong security plan for this weekend’s game. The safety of all supporters and visitors to the London Stadium is of paramount importance.”
This means there will be more stewards pitchside and in the stewards, police units inside and outside the ground and measures in place to restrict the movement of fans around the stadium.
Most importantly for Khan, though, is the fact that these measures will be paid for by London taxpayers, not West Ham.
The blame for this, in his view, lies with his predecessor Boris Johnson, now the foreign secretary, and is the background to his increasingly fraught relationship with the publicly-owned stadium’s main tenants.
As has been widely reported, West Ham pay just £2.5million a year to rent the centrepiece of the London Olympics, despite it costing £323million to convert and reporting annual losses of £20million.
The Premier League club’s rent covers nearly all of the venue’s running costs – a state of affairs that has forced Khan to effectively wind up the stadium’s operating company and bring it back under his control.
On the other hand, West Ham are not happy with the deal either, as they feel they have not been allowed to put their own stamp on the ground, an issue they believe has exacerbated their fans’ homesickness for Upton Park, which was sold to property developers.
Khan met West Ham vice-chair Karren Brady for the first time on Monday and they spent a reported 45 minutes talking about crowd safety and the stadium’s finances.
Much like the club, they will be hoping to get to the end of the season without any further disturbances so they can spend the summer solving their more long-term disagreements.
Having lost three straight games, West Ham are two points above Southampton in 17th place, while their visitors have not won a league game since February 3 but did greet new manager Mark Hughes with an FA Cup quarter-final win over Wigan in their last fixture.