I attended London Stadium for the first time on the opening day of the season to watch Manchester City defeat West Ham United 5-0 - as a Manchester City fan I was delighted with this win, however, I was also impressed by the stadium its-self. Located in Stratford, it's probably one of the easier stadiums to get too in London especially considering the nightmare I had earlier on in 2019 at the Tottenham Hotspur Station, Stratford Station which has multiple railway, tube and DLR services is not too far away and just a short walk through Westfield gets you to Queen Elizabeth Park where the stadium is located in. - Do bear in mind however that this cut-through is closed after the game for away fans, which meant it doubled the length of time it took me to get to the stadium, to get out - but with a capacity of 60,000 when the match is even close to sold-out, they do need to do something even if it does bring inconvenience.
Back to my review - This is one of the newer stadiums in English football which was built for the London Olympics of 2012 with West Ham moving in for 2016, there has been some debate for whether the stadium is built for football however I really did like my view from the away end but people who weren't as lucky as me and were sat far back were so far away from the pitch - it was ridiculous. It would be a lie to say this stadium was built with football in mind as it was originally for the Olympic games, but surely more planning on what would happen to the stadium would have been better - just look at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, despite being built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games and also having a running track around at first, that is a beautiful, spectacular stadium which was indeed a proper football stadium of the modern era.
The staff around the stadium seemed really friendly and didn't mind having a chat to me about my journey up from Manchester, the game and taking me to my seats - the bag policy here is probably the best out of any stadium in London, especially compared to Wembley who seems to hate bags of any sort with some of the most restrictive policies I've seen in a ground.
I liked how they had two big screens at either end, similar to Wembley in that fashion (the shape, size, location) but they did mess up on two occasions
1. The VAR replay which disallowed a City goal actually shown a different player instead of the player who was supposed to be offside which added controversy to the whole system especially with it being the first season with VAR.
2. It just seemed like a regular game, I'm used to the Etihad making the first game a little special but here that just didn't happen.
Safety could have possibly been an issue with the home and away fans being so close together - which was much worse compared to any new build football which once again could be down to it not being a football built stadium.
The atmosphere of the stadium again lacked to Upton Park on that front - again it's another sad example of these modern new stadiums in many ways alienating fanbases with the atmosphere declining - but the stadium now is in a much better location and does look better.
A pretty underrated stadium in my opinion and amongst the best in the Premier League for the fan experience, overall feel of the stadium and catering towards disabled supporters (located in the middle without an awful view at the back or front) - the concourse area could be better designed but still a great stadium, which I much prefer to the new, costly Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (what a waste of £1 billion pounds)
4* read more