Stunning athletics bid could be good news for West Ham over London Stadium future

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West Ham United could be offered hope by Birmingham’s stunning bid to become the new home of UK Athletics.

A large section of West Ham United fans are unhappy with how the club’s heralded move to the former Olympic Stadium has panned out so far.

The Hammers‘ move to Stratford from their beloved Upton Park was beset by problems from the start.

Ahead of the stadium move, Hammers fans were promised a genuine retractable seating solution and that West Ham fixtures would always take presidence in communications from the club.

In reality they have been left with a temporary lower tier built on a complex scaffolding which takes weeks to deconstruct and reconstruct between football and athletics mode each summer and having to wait until mid-September to play their first home game of the new season due to the IAAF World Championships being staged there.

The distance from the stands to the pitch is a major bone of contention for many fans with the bowl shape of the venue the biggest problem as the stadium was not built with football in mind.

Having signed a 99-year lease many supporters are disillusioned at the prospect of a long-term future at the ground in it’s current state.

But there could be hope for the Hammers from Birmingham where officials are bidding to make a beautifully upgraded Alexander Stadium the home of UK Athletics, as reported by Birmingham Mail.

Birmingham and Liverpool are currently bidding to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games after Durban, South Africa, was stripped of the event, with the Commonwealth Games Federation saying it did not meet its criteria.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is expected to announce soon who will be its UK candidate.

And if Birmingham get the go-ahead the Alexander Stadium will be upgraded into a 40,000 seat arena – a fitting venue for some of the world’s leading track and field athletes.

Currently the Alexander Stadium has a 12,700 seat capacity and already hosts the British championships and team trials as well as international Diamond League contests and is the official headquarters of UK Athletics.

With such a low capacity the stadium is not seen as large enough to carry the torch from the Olympic Stadium and preserve the 2012 legacy.

But if Birmingham win the bid West Ham owners David Sullivan and David Gold may get the chance to buy the stadium outright – something Sullivan’s son Dave has admitted is a possibility – and perhaps even redevelop it properly for football.