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Sullivans Argument

Hoowl

Dr wHo(owl)
Staff
Aug 18, 2005
6,526
266
West Ham: Stadium decision is about promise made in Queen's name
David Sullivan, West Ham co-owner
9 Feb 2011

What is an Olympic Park without an Olympic Stadium? Do we need the debate to go any further than that?

West Ham are the only ones proposing to stay true to the Olympic legacy with a running track in the stadium - and we know it will work.

I keep reading about 'white elephants' but the only elephant in the room is the one that suggests it is okay to rip up the track and bulldoze the Olympic Stadium to the ground - and in its place build a run-of-the-mill football stadium for a club that is over 10 miles away from the East End. Now, that would be crazy.

Spurs claimed the other day that the decision should not be based on emotion. I disagree.

I know as well as anyone that business is about the bottom line, the numbers and how they stack up - but when you have all that in place in a strong, secure and sound bid as we do, it still has to feel right.

Good financial sense must sit side by side with honest sentiment.

In fact, emotion can often drive a financial plan forward. The legacy of the Olympic Stadium affects us all. We have paid our taxes and have a vested interest in what happens after 2012.

When David Gold and I came home to West Ham United after taking Birmingham City from the third tier of football to become an established Premier League name, we made the Olympic Stadium our priority.

Initially, I didn't know if it could work but our due diligence, fans and the experts we have consulted at every step soon convinced me.

Everything adds up and we are all now together on the starting line of a fantastic adventure. There is real excitement in the air and we just want to get going.

It is right that we have a proposal that will make it possible for a multi-sports venue to be at the heart of the Olympic Park. Anything else simply won't be the Olympic Stadium.

Anything else runs the risk of damaging the nation's reputation around the world and affecting the commercial viability of the wider legacy vision.

If you believe in something, you will work harder and for longer to make it a success. You have to care. Lord Coe cares. He was emotional and full of sentiment when delivering the Olympic legacy promise which resulted in us winning the 2012 Games, against the odds. He cares as much as us about honouring that promise. Demolishing a feat of engineering and expertise that cost half-a-billion pounds and then knocking up a plain football ground in its place is about as cold and clinical as it gets. And, by the way, doesn't make financial sense.

No wonder those who propose that option want the emotion stripped away and instead are choosing to patronise the tens of thousands of loyal Hammers fans who know a thing or two about atmosphere.

We will be able to answer their desire for affordable tickets and better access at a world-class stadium that is fitting for a club that produced three World Cup winners.

The fact we will be staying in our borough to do so just makes the case even more compelling.

After £90million of conversion, we'll have great sightlines - no seat will have a worse view of the pitch than Wembley Stadium - and a new roof designed to create intimacy. I have no doubt that this stadium will succeed.

The opportunity this country has to take a massive long jump forward will only come round once in two or three generations.

I am a father of two boys and we owe it to young people across London to preserve the integrity of an iconic venue that would be the focus for the aspirations of many.

It won't just be about sport but about education and culture. Are we really going to drive a bulldozer through all of that?

Spurs chairman Daniel Levy said: "All I care about is moving the club forward". I think we all know that is his sole motivation.

Living and working locally, I make no secret of wanting the best for West Ham United but to do that while helping UK Athletics, Essex Cricket, the hundreds of schools that we are already working with and an area that so desperately needs regeneration is a great opportunity. That is what I care about.

Sure I want it to be a financial success because the more it is, the more money will go straight back into the community and to the public purse.

That's why we are equal partners with Newham Council.

This isn't some private plan with offshore banks and tax exile investors waiting in the wings to profit from the UK taxpayer like myself. We all have our own sporting story. My dad, Wing Commander Eddie Sullivan, devoted his life to English amateur boxing and refereed internationally. Made an MBE, he was proud of being given a royal honour for something that he loved doing every single day.

In a way, we as a nation have all been given a royal honour.

With the Games entrusted to this country in Her Majesty's name - the Olympic Stadium at the heart of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is a medal for us all.

It would lead to money being ploughed in locally while providing a vibrant global destination.

That's why 12 Olympic boroughs and dozens of MPs across all political parties are publicly supporting our bid. They know the importance of matching our financial clout with their desire
to care for their communities is a win-win.

At the same time, my club would grow in a way that our fans - we have 700,000 supporters on our database and a 17,000 season-ticket waiting list - and worldwide name deserves, and national sports like athletics and cricket would get a major lift. This is fundamentally about what it would do to kick-start five regeneration projects in four boroughs. It is all about London.

I spent my formative years in Forest Gate and Stratford and did my economics degree in Mile End. Everywhere you go - now as it was back then - there are people striving to better themselves against all the odds.

People who want to take the emotion out of the East End clearly need a history lesson or two.

We have our field of dreams at last and no one should be allowed to take it away.
 

soup

On the straightened arrow
May 26, 2004
3,494
3,592
This is beginning to smack of desperation on WH's part. It's almost like they've turned to begging and pleading.

Something tells me they know they are on the losing side at the moment, otherwise why would they be regurgitating the same line every single day. I think we're ahead in the bidding stakes and they know it.
 

jurgen

Busy ****
Jul 5, 2008
6,711
17,170
There's an elephant in the room - and for just £4.99 a month you can see a woman nosh it off...

Lord Coe was on board from the day we paid off the John Terry and Steve Ovett lookalikes we found him hanging out the back of in a Kensington massage parlour. Did he smash it? Like a world record!

The Royal Honour is what Karen Brady calls her 12 inch dong.

We have 700,000 supporters on our database, this may be a database of supporters of Asian Hoes, but supporters nonetheless.

Football is all about emotion, not cold hard rational thought, which is why having produced three world cup winners makes us the right choice, the cold rational thought that a champions league team who has won some trophies, and with many more fans may be more suitable is rational thought, but this sentimental old pornographer just lies back, thinks of Hurst and gets ready to receive each pulsating inch of the Royal Honour.
 

$hoguN

Well-Known Member
Jul 25, 2005
26,626
34,700
This is beginning to smack of desperation on WH's part. It's almost like they've turned to begging and pleading.

Our bid does sound more solid than theirs, when you consider everything. The post that MattyP took from skyscraper city has also alluded to the fact that Levy will be rubbing his hands together over all of the West Ham's boards comments as they are building his legal case for him
 

Spurz

Well-Known Member
Feb 3, 2004
2,612
499
Hopefully they win the bid, get relegated, sell off their best players, erm if any, build the stadium, cant pay the cost, go into administration, then are forced to sell off the stadium to us at the quarter of the price.
 

sherbornespurs

Well-Known Member
Dec 9, 2006
3,758
9,241
This isn't some private plan with offshore banks and tax exile investors waiting in the wings to profit from the UK taxpayer like myself.

No, it's whether London is ready to commit what remains of the Olympic Stadium to some odious little creep who has a conviction for living off immoral earnings, who started out photocopying and flogging pornographic pictures before moving on to the publication of hardcore porn followed by the production of equally hardcore sex films, some featuring his then girlfriend who topped herself when in her early 30's.
 

alamo

Don't worry be happy
Jun 10, 2004
5,047
7,226
Demolishing a feat of engineering and expertise that cost half-a-billion pounds and then knocking up a plain football ground in its place is about as cold and clinical as it gets.

Still got their facts straight then. :roll:
 
Feb 19, 2009
17,009
2,830
I'm actually really starting to get pissed off with Brady the **** and Sullivan the ****.

I'd honestly like to punch them in the face right now. Turd burglars.
 

3Dnata

Well-Known Member
Oct 5, 2008
5,879
1,345
It's what the Queen wants though we know cos we supply her with dil.... oops.
 

sloth

Well-Known Member
Mar 7, 2005
9,018
6,900
Sullivan's opinion one year ago:http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...rview-david-sullivan---the-freedom-fighter.do

By then Sullivan should know whether West Ham can move to the Olympic Stadium. This is central to his ambition to get to the Champions League within seven years. "If we don't we'll struggle to get in the top four," he admits.

For Sullivan to succeed the present plan to convert the 80,000-seat stadium into a 25,000 athletics one after 2012 will have to be scrapped and the running track will have to go.

Sullivan says: "It is obscene in the credit crunch to build a stadium and bring three-quarters of it down." So what about Lord Coe's dream of an athletic stadium? "The bigger dream is for West Ham fans to have a football stadium. He can have an athletics track elsewhere."

Sullivan is already working on plans to fill a ground of 80,000. "We would offer tickets at £5 a go for some matches. We can bring Premier League football back to the people."
 

nightgoat

Well-Known Member
Sep 12, 2005
24,604
21,898
I love how West Ham have put Champions League hoardings round the pitch in their artist's impression of the stadium... :lol:
 

worcestersauce

"I'm no optimist I'm just a prisoner of hope
Jan 23, 2006
26,894
45,042
Just reading that it seems clear to me that he is arguing for something he doesn't believe, I'm sure his option would be exactly the same as the Spurs one, his previous statements confirm this, but West Ham couldn't manage that and had to go with the Newham bid or nothing.
The rest of it is just Spurs bad West Ham good and trust us I'm sure it will work out alright and it won't lose money; he should be able to demonstrate that not just plead for it.

Pretty pathetic really and he doesn't even know where the East End is!!! It certainly ain't Forest Gate mate ffs:shrug:

Still think they'll get it though.
 

trasores

Butterfly chicken
Feb 20, 2006
836
804
The annoying thing for me is when Karen Brady and messers gullivan refer to the promise that we (royal we) made....... yeah sure.

The promise was a running track and a 25000 capacity.

In which case the only real bidder should be leyton orient..... or wet spam.
 

L.A. Yiddo

Not in L.A.
Apr 12, 2007
5,639
8,051
Sullivan's opinion one year ago:http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...rview-david-sullivan---the-freedom-fighter.do

By then Sullivan should know whether West Ham can move to the Olympic Stadium. This is central to his ambition to get to the Champions League within seven years. "If we don't we'll struggle to get in the top four," he admits.

For Sullivan to succeed the present plan to convert the 80,000-seat stadium into a 25,000 athletics one after 2012 will have to be scrapped and the running track will have to go.

Sullivan says: "It is obscene in the credit crunch to build a stadium and bring three-quarters of it down." So what about Lord Coe's dream of an athletic stadium? "The bigger dream is for West Ham fans to have a football stadium. He can have an athletics track elsewhere."

Sullivan is already working on plans to fill a ground of 80,000. "We would offer tickets at £5 a go for some matches. We can bring Premier League football back to the people."

What a two faced hypocritical tosser.
 
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