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  • Personally I think clubs in Essex will be more affected by West Hams move to Stratford than the Os. The Os are still a pretty big club who will have enough traditional support to keep them going, espcially if they continue to play like they are! However, most West Ham supporters of old moved out to Essex and Upton Park by public transport wasn't easy. This led them to go to Brentwood, Chelmsford, Billericay etc and support their local small clubs. However, now you can get to watch top level football with one train journey I can see many moving away from small non league football.
  • DRF said:

    Personally I think clubs in Essex will be more affected by West Hams move to Stratford than the Os. The Os are still a pretty big club who will have enough traditional support to keep them going, espcially if they continue to play like they are! However, most West Ham supporters of old moved out to Essex and Upton Park by public transport wasn't easy. This led them to go to Brentwood, Chelmsford, Billericay etc and support their local small clubs. However, now you can get to watch top level football with one train journey I can see many moving away from small non league football.


    With the HS1 line from Ashford getting to Stratford in 30 minutes,I think Charlton and teams from Kent have something to fear here as well.

    I seem to remember one of the original Cross Rail ideas having Abbey Wood as a termini from Charing Cross and no longer going to Dartford / North Kent as the new station at Tottenham Court Road would be more centralised for the next generation of commuters,if this happened we would need to think about the implications for Charlton as well as the O's.
  • Richard J said:

    DRF said:

    Personally I think clubs in Essex will be more affected by West Hams move to Stratford than the Os. The Os are still a pretty big club who will have enough traditional support to keep them going, espcially if they continue to play like they are! However, most West Ham supporters of old moved out to Essex and Upton Park by public transport wasn't easy. This led them to go to Brentwood, Chelmsford, Billericay etc and support their local small clubs. However, now you can get to watch top level football with one train journey I can see many moving away from small non league football.


    With the HS1 line from Ashford getting to Stratford in 30 minutes,I think Charlton and teams from Kent have something to fear here as well.

    I seem to remember one of the original Cross Rail ideas having Abbey Wood as a termini from Charing Cross and no longer going to Dartford / North Kent as the new station at Tottenham Court Road would be more centralised for the next generation of commuters,if this happened we would need to think about the implications for Charlton as well as the O's.
    The HS1 £30+ return fare might put one off when you're already paying for a £50 Premiership ticket (£75 on tickets if you're bringing a kid, plus their fare).

    I believe Abbey Wood remains the Cross Rail eastern terminus and the link to North Kent lines, with Woolwich the next stop. It's equally yet another route to get to Charlton, from anywhere across London.
  • I'm also not sure that people switch their allegiance because it's easier to get a train to a game.

    Those that will go to watch Premier League football (and I'm talking about going a couple of times a year) were probably not going to come to us anyway.

    Unless we get into the Premier League I think this makes no difference to us at all, and if we are in the Premier I think we should be able to get 27,000 to most games with a little bit of effort from the club.
  • Essentially it's not about switching allegiance because of a train, it's about being able to go back to youir childhood club because of a train.
    It's people who had to stop going to the hammers because they moved away but still wanted to watch football and so went to a crappy local club. That's why it's not so much of an issue in Kent. More West Ham fans moved out into Essex than did into Kent. It's also about there not being many big clubs in Essex which people may have switched to. They move to poor clubs and may ant to return to their big club, now they can easily.
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