The Chicken Run - Where Real Fans Stood

Kids today don't know what they missed with the old terraces. The Chicken Run at Upton Park was where the real atmosphere was generated - packed in like sardines, swaying with every attack, singing until your throat was raw. I first stood in the Chicken Run in 1972, aged fifteen. My older brother took me, warning me to "keep my wits about me." The surge when we scored was frightening and exhilarating in equal measure. You'd end up twenty feet from where you started, carried by the crowd. The characters in the Chicken Run were legendary. There was Big Dave who led the singing, a bloke we called "Megaphone Mike" (no actual megaphone, just incredibly loud), and Old Harry who'd been going since before the war and knew every song ever written about West Ham. The smell was unique - beer, sweat, cigarette smoke, and those awful meat pies that somehow tasted amazing when you were frozen at a January midweek game. The view wasn't great - you spent half the game on tiptoes - but the experience was unmatched. When all-seater stadiums came in, something was lost. The Bobby Moore Stand is magnificent, don't get me wrong, and the London Stadium has its moments. But nothing will ever replicate the raw, passionate, working-class energy of the Chicken Run. I'm in my sixties now, sitting comfortably in my padded seat. But in my dreams, I'm still there on the terraces, crushed against the barriers, singing my heart out with the best supporters in England.