Olympians

[undyingking]

I have complex and mixed feelings about West Ham moving to the Olympic Stadium, but overall am happier for us to have it than for someone else to.

This post though is about the little-explored cricket dimension. West Ham have an agreement with Essex (the two clubs have always been friendly, and have shared training facilities etc) to hold Twenty20 matches there in the footbal off-season -- county games, and perhaps internationals too in due course.

When I was a kid Essex used to play at Ilford; and until 1933 the county HQ was actually at Leyton, even further into modern London. So although the Olympic site isn't officially in Essex, it's in that part of East London that is historically Essexian for cricket purposes.

The stadium is likely to have a capacity of around 60,000 -- for compairson, that's bigger than Lord's and The Oval put together. We have always been one of the best-supported counties in terms of membership and occupancy rates, but have never had a decent sized ground to capitalize on that. Or, of course, big enough to host internationals -- which is where the real money is made. So this could be a really big step on the ladder to allow Essex to join the wealthy counties and stop having to punch so far above our weight.

What I'm not sure about is: how on earth is a cricket pitch going to fit inside the running track? I'm sure they've got something dead clever planned though...

Comments

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

They use mobile running tracks in the various city runs that have sprung up recently, but I'm not sure it's really Olympic standard. My fear is that we will see the outfield, overlaid on the track, made of that fake grass matting stuff that greengrocers use...