So West Ham have been given the nod that their bid to take over the Olympic Stadium once the 2012 festivities are over is successful. Complaints, particularly from Lord Sugar, that it would prove to be a white elephant and that the athletics track would spoil the atmosphere were dismissed for the petty whinings of someone who has interests with the other bid having been chairman of Tottenham Hotspur.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12424549
Football has become so obsessed with itself that it struggles to countenance the possibility of sharing its stadia with not only another sport but with another club. On the continent the fiercest of rivals are perfectly capable of ground sharing yet such a suggestion is anathema in this country where two teams in the same town would rather have two smaller stadia than pool resources for a larger communal venue for all the community.
   The notion that the addition of an athletics track will move supporters further away from the action and thus somehow lessen the atmosphere is false as a ground's atmosphere is generated by the people inside not their relative position to the pitch otherwise supposedly the fans at the back of the stands would be quieter. If the stadium is full and the match is of enough interest then the fans will generate the atmosphere accordingly. To blame an inanimate object for supporters not cheering loudly enough is one of the worst excuses for a team's performance. It is not as if an athletics track is moving the stands so far away from the action to make visibility a problem as it will be no further away than e.g. watching a cricket match or even a field event at an athletics meet.
   Certainly the West Ham bid has more going for it than the proposal from Spurs who want to take over the new ground, knock it down and build a new, new stadium without a track. Given that the stadium is in Stratford and therefore out of the Tottenham borough the whole bid seems a bit ill conceived especially as they have apparently got planning permission to rebuild at White Hart Lane. The point that giving the stadium to West Ham would leave a white elephant with nothing to remind people of the legacy is perverse as surely leaving the same stadium with the athletics track in tact is more of an Olympic legacy than walking past an even shinier football ground with a slightly improved athletics stadium at Crystal Palace.