It was a successful first visit to the new ground for Saints supporters, but opinion was split on the overall experience.
Empty seats during West Ham’s 3-0 defeat to Southampton
West Ham United away is a fixture that many fans will have pencilled in to their calendars this season, with football supporters keen to visit the stadium which hosted so many famous Olympic moments four years ago.
The fact that West Ham seem to be playing the role of obliging hosts and handing three points to visiting teams will only serve to enhance the appetite for visiting fans, with Southampton supporters following Watford fans in leaving the new stadium with a victory in the bag.
The debate rages on, however, about how suitable the stadium is for staging football. It may be an impressive arena but it certainly lacks the atmosphere of Upton Park, which was notorious for allowing the fans to feel part of the action and almost on top of the players.
The distance between the pitch and the stands means this is simply not possible at the new ground, and the atmosphere has suffered as a result.
Around 3,000 supporters can be housed in the away end at the London Stadium across two tiers, but there is a big gap between the upper and lower tiers. Saints fans packed out the visiting section this weekend, and several fans took to Twitter to express their view on the quality of the experience at newest addition to the Premier League stadium circuit.
One Saints fan also took to Twitter to mock the new stadium, a post which was very popular with the wider footballing public.
The prevailing view from the Southampton fans, then, is that the stadium is a great arena but not an ideal venue in which to watch football. The distance between the fans and the pitch is undoubtedly an issue but is something that cannot be changed – it was built as an athletics stadium, and West Ham knew this when they agreed to move in. As the season goes on, it will be interesting to see if the teething problems continue or whether the away fan experience improves at the ground.
Have you visited the London Stadium as an away fan or are you planning to with your team? Leave your views below.
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