This week, the deal fell through that would have seen West Ham buy the Olympic stadium after the 2012 Games.
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The assumption of many is that they’ll rent it instead, but that’s to reckon without Leyton Orient, the nearest club to the new stadium and the club whose legal efforts have done much to scupper West Ham’s purchase of the Olympic site.
It’s not whether West Ham own the new stadium or rent it that counts for the O’s. They just don’t want much bigger rivals to strike a Hammer blow on their future by pinching the next generation of local fans and they have the rules of the Football League to back them on that point. Expect more legal trouble ahead.
There’s also the thing that no one in real life has yet met a West Ham fan who wants to move to a bring-your-binoculars ground featuring a pitch somewhere over there surrounded by an athletics track. The only people who favour the switch appear to be West Ham owners David Gold and David Sullivan and London Mayor Boris Johnson. Those three wise monkeys seal it for me: it’s not going to happen.
