It’s just short of 20 years since I previously made it to a West Ham home game (West Ham v Reading in September 2003, to be precise). Back then, the Hammers were in the Championship (or the First Division as it was still known) and hosting their matches at Upton Park. My one lasting memory of that sole visit to their now-demolished old home is that it was a terrific place to watch a game of football. It was big enough to be a credible top-level stadium, but small enough for everyone to feel close to the pitch. The fans were tightly packed in and, when the crowd got going, you could properly hear it.

The London Stadium, West Ham’s home since 2016, is the opposite of that in pretty much every way. Its 66,000 capacity makes it almost twice the size of Upton Park’s far more modest 35,000, and when you opt for a £10 seat in the top tier like I did, the action feels like it’s a long, long way away.

In all fairness to Hammers fans, their average home attendances are currently north of 60,000, so they’ve done a great job of keeping this place full. But when it comes to games like this one – a mid-week League Cup third round tie against a team from the division below – empty seats plus distance from pitch equals a distinctly flat atmosphere.

Although this was my first experience of football at the London Stadium, I’d actually visited three times before. The first time was for the Paralympics, back when the ground was still in its original guise as London’s 2012 Olympic stadium. I returned in 2017 for the World Athletics Championships and a memorable chance to witness Usain Bolt’s final race. Then, in 2019, my other half took me along to a Muse concert (an incredible show blighted only by the fact that the band had selfishly arranged it for the same night as that year’s Champions League final).

A November Wednesday night at West Ham v Blackburn isn’t quite the same vibe as a Muse concert, but the hosts did put on a show in their own way. A pre-match light show was followed by not one, but two rounds of I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles – a song that the regulars have lost none of their enthusiasm for in the 19 years since I last encountered them.

This stadium has borne witness to some of the greatest moments in Britain’s sporting history, and it’s sobering to think that the successes here of Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah and Greg Rutherford in 2012’s ‘Super Saturday’ are now more than a decade ago. The events of this particular night are unlikely to live quite as long in the memory, but at least there were goals. Four were shared among the evenly matched sides, paving the way for Blackburn to triumph in probably one of the longest penalty shoot-outs you’re ever likely to see. I went home happy. The West Ham fans less so.

London Stadium
West Ham United 2 Blackburn Rovers 2 (Blackburn won 10-9 on penalties)
EFL Cup, third round
Wednesday 9 November 2022
Attendance: 40,534

@foodtravfoot
@garypanton