West Ham, the Olympic Stadium, Don Valley and Legacy

Much has been made of the "Olympic Legacy" in recent weeks. First there was the announcement of the closure of the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield - training home of Jessica Ennis and one time temporary home of Rotherham United - and then the announcement that the Olympic Stadium was to be leased to West Ham United and the cost of the stadium conversion was to be more extravagantly funded from the public purse than initially expected. Both decisions, however upsetting, highlight the difficulty in creating any sort of lasting legacy from major sporting events.

When Sheffield announced it was bidding for the 1991 World Student Games, the council saw it as a means of regenerating the run-down East End, which formerly housed the city's steelworks and factories. What was claimed to be the largest multi-sports event outside of the Olympics was meant to bring investment, growth and world class sports events and facilities to the city.

When Edinburgh dropped out of the race and Sheffield forged ahead as the UK candidate, it found there was little competition for this apparently prestigious event. Not one city wanted to follow in the footsteps of Duisburg, Zagreb and Kobe. Well, apart from Sheffield. Unfortunately, the city's civic leaders cocked a deaf 'un to the alarm bells everyone else was hearing.

With little of the anticipated government support, a result of Tory antipathy towards the red flag waving Labour firebrands running the council, a lack of corporate sponsorship and little media interest; Sheffield was faced with a hefty bill for hosting the games. There were originally three financial projections for staging the event; ranging from £17m to £27m, with each costing being matched to an equivalent income from sponsorship, ticket sales and grants to produce a 'nil cost'. By July 1991, when the games were held, it was obvious there would be a massive shortfall.

The original facilities, including a swimming pool, sports centres and Don Valley cost £147m. Following four attempts at re-profiling the overall debt totals £658m. Sheffield Council will continue to repay £25m a year until the debt is paid off in 2024. An amount included to the council tax bill of every Sheffield household.

Athletics events were held at the stadium in the following years, with several high profile meets attracting large crowds - although these tailed off from capacity over time. With major athletics meets a once a year events and other local/regional events sporadic, other sports and uses were considered to bring in much needed income; amongst them Rugby, Cricket, Concerts and Football.

They then hit the major issue, who wants to watch a sport where the action is taking place some 15-20 metres in the distance across an athletics track? Sheffield Eagles moved there, but struggled to attract the crowds, high profile concerts were arranged but were sporadic and you had other one-off events such as Darren Gough's Benefit Match with astroturf placed over the track as part of the outfield. Sheffield FC played there briefly and then it became the temporary home of Rotherham United in their hiatus between Millmoor and New York. Ask any Rotherham fan if they enjoyed their experience.

Over time the facilities become decrepit and worn. A visit to any of the arenas and buildings developed for the Universiade 22 years ago, highlights a degree of wear and tear and faded paintwork that is quite saddening. What was once new and exciting is now faded and aged. As funding falls, event numbers reduce and so does the maintenance. One sports hall has already been demolished as part of the refurbishment of the adjoining school.

At Don Valley the maintenance levels have slipped to the extent that there is considerable money needed to be spent bringing facilities up to standard, in order to then bid further money to win events. If you are going to attract an athletics meet, you need a working scoreboard. It has become a vicious circle of self-fulfilling failure. No funds, no maintenance, no bids, no events, no money……

There have been times when the possibility of both senior Sheffield football clubs moving there has been mooted. It was suggested that the stadium capacity could be built up to 45,000, with additional tiers of seating and a roof added to the three open sides. A municipal version of the San Siro for red and blue to share. Neither set of fans would want it. Bramall Lane is the right size, fit for purpose and the oldest professional football ground still in use and whilst a Blade is in ownership, the prime land adjacent to the city centre ought to be safe for football. Across the city a majority of Wednesday fans would not entertain leaving Hillsborough.

So Sheffield finds itself paying the price for winning the prize in a one horse race that no-one wanted to win and putting so much focus on delivering the event, they forgot about what happens to them after. Roll forward to the London Olympic bid, plenty of talk about Legacy, but little in the plans for the Olympic Stadium that would ensure it would be financially viable after the event.

What becomes of former Olympic sites and venues has caused much consternation. Many continue to find sporting use, although the extent to which they are utilised varies greatly. Some are retrofitted and used in ways benefiting the wider community in ways far removed from their original use; turned into prisons, housing, shopping malls, gyms, churches. Others sit unused and unwanted, decaying reminders of heroic achievement and sporting excitement. Others, like the fate awaiting Don Valley, are simply demolished. Prime examples of misguided planning and broken promises of the benefits that the Games would bring.

Take Beijing's iconic Birds Nest Stadium; it lays idle, too big and cavernous for any sensible sporting use for much of the year. The same could legitimately be said of World Cup stadia. Many of the Korean World Cup stadia sit half/quarter empty week after week. Some of the South African World Cup stadia sit alongside existing multi-sport stadia in the same city or suburb. The Peter Mokaba Stadium, with a capacity of 40,000, sits in Polokwane, a rural city without a professional football team. On that basis, should we be that upset about the fate of Don Valley?

In other major cities, sporting clubs are taken away from their traditional homes so that multi-team cities such as Sydney see multiple cricket, rugby and AFL teams housed at the former Olympic Stadium. In Melbourne the Etihad Stadium hosts multiple AFL sides, that previously had their own identity and ovals, alongside T20 cricket, Rugby Union and some A League football. Yet you cannot see that happening here. There is a preference for a clear differential of identities between clubs and homes. Yes some Rugby Union clubs have and do share with football, but that only lasts for a spell before rules Premier Rugby rules on primary tenancy take hold and difficult decisions/negotiations take place.

We have known for some time that a hefty wedge of public money would be needed to pay for the costs of retro-fitting an Olympic Stadium that really should have been made for football from the start. What is unexpected, is that all but £15m of the money is coming from the taxpayer - directly or indirectly - prompting criticism that West Ham have got their new home on the cheap with prime development land in east Ham to sell. Those defending the terms of the deal claim that there is further protection for the public purse from a one-off windfall back to LLDC in the event the club is sold in the next 10 years, but this is surely small fry compared with the long term boost this move will give the football club.

The total bill for the stadium has now risen to £600million, although that figure is irrelevant as there will always be an element of sunk cost in major projects such as this i.e. the cost which you have to incur to ensure a stadium is built and fit to serve its primary purpose. It is the cost of extending the roof and adding retractable seats (which could be as much as £190m) that is the real problem.

You then have the issue of what this move does to other clubs in the area. Why should one club move in on the doorstep of another, destroying any chance of further growth and forcing an owner to consider a move to a new location outside of their municipal boundaries? I have seen Hammers fans deriding Leyton Orient as a "Small club with 3,500 fans" like they are irrelevant in the World of multi-million pound tv deals and Scudamore's golden cash cow. Others choose online forums and comments sections to goad the London and wider British public about how we are funding their new stadium.

It isn't the municipal subsidisation of football clubs that rankles, I have nothing against clubs who choose to do that and plenty of clubs play in municipal stadiums, no doubt at subsidised rents, in Serie A and Ligue 1 in particular. Manchester City benefited from Manchester Councils' decision to offer them the City of Manchester stadium, with a retro-fit design built in to original plans. Many clubs in Spain are loaned monies by local authorities, although the backlash may now start with EU focus on a region that is facing great economic hardship, but is happy to subsidise football clubs. For me that is the decision for the local authorities and in a one club town I am sure it is easier to justify. What cannot be justified is central government taxes funding a Premier League club's move to a Municipal Stadium, in a last, desperate attempt to deliver on a  misguided promise.

The failure to recognise when massive mistakes are being made is symptomatic across central and local government, local development agencies, sporting organisations and civic leaders. Their inability to put it right, without great financial expense and with a vulnerability that can easily be exploited should be a matter of great shame.

The people of Sheffield will be paying for a non-existent asset, an empty space where the largest modern day athletics stadium in the UK once stood. The annual running costs for which are less than 0.3% of the conversion costs of the Olympic Stadium.

Along with the rest of the UK taxpayers, they will also be funding the move of a football club with owners worth £800m into a stadium the annual rental charge for which will be recovered in the gate receipts of a single Premier League game.

Meanwhile the football club on the edge of the Olympic site will potentially lose out on the next generation of fans to a club who will no doubt pump out ticket offers, get into the local schools and offer the added attraction of Premier League football.

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. The South gets taxpayer investment, the North is largely forgotten about. The big club receives a subsidy towards future potential growth and success, the little club is left in the cold. A good quality sports facility faces the bulldozers, another is gifted to a club in the richest league in the World. Welcome to modern Britain, where words are promised and not delivered on. Where the legacy benefits the rich, at the expense of the many whose facilities deteriorate before their eyes, then vanish forever. What a legacy that is.

Good Will Hoskins

The Blades' deadline day signing of Will Hoskins is an interesting one. A player familiar to local fans after he burst on the scene at a tender age at Rotherham. He then drifted from view at Watford, before a sparkling spell at Bristol Rovers last season led to a move to Brighton in the Summer. As with Watford he has struggled to make an impact on the South Coast and his name came up as a Blades target quite out of the blue, late this morning.

With a striking quartet of Ched Evans, Richard Cresswell, James Beattie and Chris Porter available, it isn't the obvious area to target in the transfer market. To the extent that his arrival immediately leads to rumours of departures. In teh absence of these you assume that Hoskins must be able to offer us something that our other strikers cannot. I asked Millers fan David Rawson (@DavidRawson) for his memories of Hoskins and what made him stand out at Millmoor.

"I think we were probably all vaguely aware of the name long before it was anywhere near a first team line-up. In the Advertiser summaries of youth team games and the reserve matches came fleeting mentions of a wonderful finish here or a super goal there. And then, at the JJB Stadium, on Boxing Day 2003, the name, with its hint of promise became a tangible thing.

Having played one minute of professional football in his career to that date, he was brought on with half an hour to go in a tight, competitive game, Will Hoskins scored two goals in two minutes and won us the match. Both were similar, both were typical of him. Quick feet and quicker brain, an incisive first touch gained him a yard on the suddenly toiling Breckin, a neat second took him clear into the area with an angle on goal for a precise, placed finish beyond the keeper's dive.

Following which, he effectively vanished, bar a few lacklustre substitute performances. And nothing much better the season after, although the appearances were more regular. Ronnie Moore mused about players who thought they'd made it, and the word on the Tivoli was that he was a bit big for his flash new boots, that, rather like the very fast car he'd bought and supposedly crashed soon after, his talent was too powerful for him to handle.

Other voices suggested that Hoskins was one of a new breed of footballer, who knew just how good they were and just how much they were worth and weren't prepared to pay their dues to the likes of Ronnie Moore. Maybe there was something in that, because he did little under curmudgeonly authoritarian Mick Harford, either.

Then, under Alan Knill, his youth and reserve team coach, a man with personalised DVD's for each player to watch and a less regimented approach to how to behave, he blossomed. After missing the first few games of 2005-6 with a back injury, he became the focal point of a team capable of moving the ball swiftly, inventively to his feet.

Williamson's energy created the gaps in midfield for threaded balls into the spaces Hoskins instinctively ran into. The accuracy of his finishing, married to an ambition of approach that bordered on the unfeasibly cocksure, saw him notch 16 goals in half a season of all kinds: mixed in with the poacher's tap ins were the instant turn and volley that left the Forest defence helpless spectators, and the delicate, placed chip, from an impossibly acute angle, that stunned the home fans at Vale Park into rueful, appreciative applause. You can find them all on YouTube.

Then a move to Watford (Boothroyd secretly prized Williamson more highly) and a meandering of a career. A year of Boothroyd forcing him to run the channels and asking to do a job out wide punctured his confidence and form. He's now a more straightforward striker, if still unerringly accurate with his shots. If someone can rekindle the exuberance of that glorious half season, without stoking the fires of the arrogance that nearly derailed his career before it really began, truly they will have a player."

Reading David's words generated a flicker of hope at a re-kindled link-up with Lee Williamson of the kind witnessed by Millers fans. However, that would require a more consistent run of performances (and an injury free spell) from Williamson. We should also remember that Stephen Quinn also had a spell alongside the pair of them on loan from the Blades. Maybe there will be further benefit in reuniting the three of them?

What also strikes a chord is the reference to "fires of arrogance". When, this afternoon, I asked fellow writers and Brighton fans Danny Last and David Hartrick why Hoskins hadn't succeeded at the Amex they were surprised at the then potential for the move back North. Hoskins had scored one goal (on debut) in just nine appearances (both starting and from the bench) for the Seagulls and Danny described the lack of success as "as a very strange one, he's not really been given a chance. Gus gives a lot of weight to the way they train, so it could be attitude?"

Having said that, David pointed out that his limited opportunities were not necessarily down to form; "He has had some bad luck with injuries as well. I'd like to keep him to be honest, I still think he has a lot to prove and to give us."

He may well do. At present it is a pure loan deal, no mention of a permanent deal at the end of the season. Till then all we can hope is that he adds some firepower to the Blades' now five strong frontline. I only hope that the loan market provides an increased quality of supply from wide and defensive back up. That is unless Danny Wilson is taking the Vindaloo approach for the rest of the season;

"We're gonna score one more than you......"


Thanks to the two Davids and Danny for their input.

Charting the week in football I

Inspired by the work of  http://footballvenndiagrams.tumblr.com/ , this post on http://www.theseventywo.com/ and my daily use of Excel at work this is where you will find my take on the stories of the week in football represented in charts and graphs. All suggestions welcome......

Thursday 24th March to Wednesday 30th March 2011



Boxing Day Hero

In April last year, I spoke with former professional footballer Mike Pickering. He had an accomplished and varied career, both playing for and captaining several clubs in England and also experienced the razzamatazz of the North American Soccer League. What you read below was intended as a feature piece for the South Yorkshire football magazine First E11even, unfortunately the magazine folded before this could be published.  Having put the work into writing it and putting myself through it discussing one of Wednesday's biggest victories over United with a former Owls captain, I thought it was worth a wider audience.

“It was a fantastic experience, playing against some great players like Cruyff and Best. When I walked out on to the pitch, the stadium announcer introduced me as “the man-for-man marker, all the way from Sheffield Wednesday”.

I am sat in a staff cafe, in an office in Sheffield city centre. The quietly spoken man sitting opposite is telling me about his football career, in particular a brief spell in the States playing in the NASL, both with and against some all time greats. Yet he will be a familiar name and face for many football fans in South Yorkshire, having started his career at Barnsley, played for Rotherham and captained Wednesday.  

Woven into his story are many great memories from playing in all four divisions, playing in the US, and playing both with and for World Cup winners. However, what he will be most fondly remembered for by one half of Sheffield is one match. On 26^th December 1979, he captained Wednesday to a 4-0 defeat of United at Hillsborough. A match that, having just passed its 30^th anniversary, is still discussed and argued about today. As a huge Blades fan, I struggle to raise the subject of the “Boxing Day Massacre” with him. It can wait; there are other tales to be told first.

Mike Pickering was first spotted playing for Spen Valley Schools in an English Schools cup match at Oakwell. “We were not a great side; there were only 3 schools to choose from. The approach from Barnsley came after a 7-0 defeat. I was of big build for my age and I can only assume my energetic, all-action style in midfield made me stand out.” Mike was asked to attend a trial by Jock Steele, manager of the then 4th Division side and soon signed schoolboy forms. There were only three apprentices at Barnsley at that time - one of the other two being Mick McCarthy. Soon after, Steele was replaced as manager by Jim Iley, who wanted to see the players he inherited in action. Mike was given a run in the reserves against Halifax and, following a strong performance, was offered a professional contract. He was quickly promoted to the first team at just 17, playing centre back where, despite not being particularly tall, his strength in the air and reading of the game held him in good stead and he was a key player for the next 3 years.

Given Barnsley’s lowly league status they found it difficult to resist offers for their better players. Mike was told that Southampton (previous season’s FA Cup winners and a 2^nd Division side) were interested and he jumped at the chance of an upward move, despite the upheaval it would cause. “Afterwards I found out that both Ipswich and Spurs had also been interested, but Barnsley didn’t tell me at the time. It was a sore point for me, but in hindsight I don’t have regrets as I had a great time with the Saints. It was a great step up and I was playing alongside players of the quality of Peter Osgood, Mick Channon and Alan Ball.” 

Southampton had played up at Bradford the previous night and Lawrie McMenemy picked him up from Barnsley on his drive back down to Southampton. Spending a 5 hour car journey with McMenemy was a little overwhelming and the move down South at such a young age was not easy. Mike was grateful to Alan Ball for taking him under his wing. “Being a Northerner himself, he looked out for me and helped me adjust. I think he liked the Northern grit I showed.” Mike played all bar one game of that season, missing the final game of what was a promotion winning season as Southampton reached the top flight.

Celebrating promotion with Southampton (No copyright details)

Sadly, for Mike, the joy of reaching the top flight was short lived. By November of the following season he had made only 3 appearances - all defeats. Feeling like a scapegoat, he approached Lawrie McMenemy about making a move to seek first team football.

Within a few hours an offer was on the table, from Jack Charlton at Sheffield Wednesday. The move would mean dropping two divisions but, amazingly, would lead to a pay rise. Money was not the prime motivating factor though.  The return to the “footballing hotbed of South Yorkshire” and the chance to play under Charlton were clearly an influence. Mike talks fondly of him. “He was a good man. He had a certain charisma, but not in the normal meaning of the word. What you saw was what you got. You always knew where you stood. He got some stick in the papers at the time, they said he was always off fishing or shooting and not focused on the job, yet he was always the last person to leave.”

Despite being in his early 20’s, Mike was viewed as the experienced centre half required and was installed as team captain. Following a few signings the following summer, Wednesday went into the season with higher expectations, however they started badly and Mike suffered an injury which kept him out for ten weeks. It took a while for things to gel and Wednesday's home form was patchy. 

Going into the first derby of the season United were top of the table and favourites for victory. It was the 100^th Sheffield Derby and a record Third Division crowd of 49,039 packed Hillsborough. As a player, Mike thought the fact that it was over Christmas and kicked off at 11am took the edge off the build up as the players were sheltered from it.  Christmas Day evening was spent at the Rutland Hotel. There was fun and games organised and Tony Toms (the team trainer) organised a team awards ceremony.  Mike still has the pound notes awarded for his "Best Dressed Player" and "Player You Would Most Like to Have in the Trenches" awards. “The daft mementoes I have kept, the shirts and other items I have given away to charity and friends over the years.”

Leading the Owls out on Boxing Day 1979

The day itself passed very quickly in a bit of a blur. “It was a grey, bleak winter’s day. The build-up had been going on for weeks and, although fans had been queuing outside from early morning, we saw little of it. The noise from the crowd was amazing. They had put a strong referee in charge (Pat Partridge who had refereed at the World Cup in Argentina that summer) and he made us do the coin toss in the tunnel - I cannot remember why! So although we did it again on the pitch, we had already decided who was kicking off and which way we were kicking beforehand. It was a pretty even first half. I remember getting a strong tackle in on Barry Butlin early on, which was always good as a defender and we all just seemed on our game. Then, just before half time, Ian Mellor struck a beauty from 25 yards to put us one up . Then John McPhail (of United) followed up a rebound off our bar, but hit it straight at Bob (Bolder – Wednesday keeper). We started the second half really sharp and early on Mick Speight (United Captain) was stretchered off trying to defend a game of pinball in their box.” Two goals in three minutes from Curran and King made it 3-0, before local boy Mark Smith added a fourth with a penalty. The biggest derby win since United had won 7-3 back in 1951 and the ground was bouncing.

Post match, the players went their separate ways and for Mike that was a return to the family home in Holmfirth for a belated Christmas Dinner. Returning to Sheffield a couple of days later the euphoria had died down a little yet the blue and white half of the city was still buzzing. Some say that day kick-started Wednesday’s season -from the 21^st December 1979 they went on a 19 game unbeaten run. “It had all come together and, once we started to get results, the mix of experienced players and young local lads worked really well. Our away form picked up and we got results at grounds that were always difficult for visiting teams such as Oxford and Swindon. United fell away and we were the team that got promoted to Division 2, pipping Chesterfield by one point.”   

Mike continued to enjoy his time with Wednesday but, after falling out of favour under Howard Wilkinson, “new managers always had new ideas and liked to bring their own players in,” Mike had several loan spells including 6 months in the North American Soccer League with the San Diego Sockers. “They had a largely-German team and I was recommended to one of the coaches as someone who might bring a bit of steel to the defence.” That recommendation was from Brian Tiler, the  ex-Rotherham player who was coaching out there at the time and was later to tragically die in the car crash that severely injured Harry Redknapp during Italia 90.

Playing in the NASL in the early 80’s was a surreal experience. The team shared the stadium with the Padres (Baseball) and Chargers (American Football), yet for Sockers games there would be 4,000 people rattling around a 40,000+ capacity stadium. Mike tells me that the only time crowds significantly increased was when there was a rock concert later in the day and people would wander in from the tailgate parties in the car park. The football match would be the pre-gig warm-up for Guns'n'Roses or other bands.

The league was in regional conferences to limit travel, but only in the US sense. “You would play 2 home games and then go on road trips, taking in 2/3 away games over the next fortnight. Fly, hotel, train, hotel, play, fly, hotel....”  Despite the repetitive routine and the low crowds, Mike talks fondly of playing in some of the great US stadia such as the LA Coliseum and the Rose Bowl.

After returning from California, Mike had a loan spell back at Oakwell, but was recalled to Hillsborough to be told of George Kerr’s interest at Rotherham, where he went on to spend 3 years. “It was a great club, so friendly; the pitch was perfect to play on, even if the surroundings were not too pretty. There was a real community spirit about the place and everyone who worked there looked out for each other.”  Final league spells at York and Stockport, were followed by a return to the area and non-league football, with Hallam, Frickley and Goole. 

Mike’s two regrets from football are that he didn’t build on his O Levels with more qualifications that would have helped post-football, “I had the time to do it, but you just get swept up in football,” and that he didn’t pursue his coaching badges. “I drifted away from football and as a player I was never a good watcher." That continued after I finished. He always looked out for the results of his former teams, but rarely watched.  However, alongside the day job in office facilities, Mike has recently found a route back into football – matchday hosting in the lounges at Hillsborough, alongside John Pearson and David Hirst.  And he loves it. “Watching and talking about football, what more could you want.”  He’s got some of his interest and love of the game back. On Sunday 18^th April, Mike and his son will attend his first Sheffield Derby since leading the Owls out on Boxing Day 1979.

So if you find yourself in hospitality at Hillsborough, take the opportunity to have a chat.  He is a humble man who has played with, played for and played against some of the best and there is that little matter of a certain match 30 years ago.