Why I Love Upton Park

The supporters may not rave about Upton Park as the best stadium in the Premier League but I love the Boleyn Ground as well as the surrounding areas.

Ever since my first game sitting at the very top of the Bobby Moore stand in a 2002-03 game in which we lost 1-0 against Everton, as a six year old, I have loved West Ham United and their home ground. After that day I have had a love affair with the Hammers which has lasted eleven years and I know that this love won’t leave me soon, as whatever West Ham do I always come back for more.

To most people Upton Park is just a market, a couple of shops and a statue, but I think of it as so much more than that, it is the hub where the West Ham family gather to support their team, I still get goose bumps when I get met by the West Ham supporters as I get into Upton Park. As I walk along I just ignore that person selling the dodgy clothes, but I take in all of the shouting, and coming from West London hearing all of the cockney voices shouting just confirms to me that I am at my second home.

I have my habits like most football supporters do, I get an OLAS and an official match day programme, but I won’t look at either until the game is over, if we have won I sit there in elation while if we have lost I just look at them in self-pity on my train journey home and no matter what the score is after the game I will take the trip to Canning Town to have some pie and mash and occasionally take the further re-route to the Army and Navy pub. I can’t help it, I absolutely love the people in the area and I find that most people in the pub know so much about the club and its older days; it’s like being a kid again listening to their stories.

Now back to the Boleyn Ground, after 11 years of watching West Ham and 9 seasons of having a season ticket in both the Sir Trevor Brooking Stand Upper (or Centenary Stand as it was called when I sat there) and the Bobby Moore Upper, my love for the team, the stadium and the atmosphere have not faded at all. I may have turned from a little kid joining in with each song and saying hardly anything to a teenager who shouts at players in rage, still joining in with the occasional song, but the stadium hasn’t changed in my eyes and I still love it more than ever.

Every time that I walk out and see the opposite stands’ seats, the pitch and the away supporters I get goose bumps, I can’t take my eyes away from the pitch as I know that in under an hour thousands of people will be fixed to that pitch maybe along with millions watching on the television. I go through the normal routine, saying hello to all the people that I know, shaking a few hands and take my seat. I look to the banners of Sir Bobby Moore and Sir Trevor Brooking and for a moment I wish that I could have had the privilege of seeing the two greats of the English game play. Being surrounded by claret and blue, from the seats to the shirts I can’t think of anywhere better to be, I see beauty in the details, from the West Ham badge on the stadium, the banners of the legends and the Claret and Blue that covers the inside of the ground.

However much I love the stadium, when the players walk out and the whistle is blown, the people and stadium are irrelevant and the only people who matter are the eleven hammers and their opposition, the match officials and the managers until the game is finished. I may say the occasional word to my dad and the surrounding people but for 90 minutes the only people who matter are standing on the pitch or next to it.

Admittedly the beauty of Upton Park and the Boleyn Ground are mostly in the head of this devoted West Ham supporter but if we were to move to the Olympic Stadium, despite its large attractions such as the way that it looks and its size, I would rather stay at the Boleyn Ground because it is our true home and if we lose the stadium I think that we may lose a part of West Ham United, of course I would still go and support West Ham but it wouldn’t be the same in my opinion.