For Season Ticket Holder Mary Flight, West Ham United’s move to the new Stadium promises to be transformative, even if her commute remains more arduous than most.
Mary, alongside her son Tim, will be travelling down from Scotland’s Highlands to take up her seat on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, just as she did for a recent tour of the Hammers’ new home with Joint-Chairman David Gold.
Though the stands, of course, were empty on the day, Mary insists the Stadium already has its own unique atmosphere, even before her beloved West Ham make it home.
“It feels as though we're here already,” she told West Ham TV. “It will be tremendous [when it’s finished], but it already is. It's thrilling, the atmosphere here, even without players is just amazing.
“It's wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Walking down the tunnel was a lovely experience, seeing how the players will see the pitch as they come out.
“We seem to have the squad for a fantastic couple of seasons and here is just the right place for it.”
Mary’s love of the Club is no accident. Her father, now 87, was a local lad, and brought Mary into the fold as soon as he could.
She continued: “My dad's a big West Ham fan, his whole family are. He's one of nine, born in the East End.
“When I was eight, he used to take me and my sister to the Boleyn Ground and we’d stand on telephone directories to reach Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Jonny Sissons' hair over the tunnel.”
Naturally, her son Tim caught the bug too and has his eye on a European adventure when the Hammers make the move.
“I was really sad to be leaving the Boleyn Ground, but, once you're actually here, I know it's a bit of a cliché, you do think, ‘fair enough, this is so much better’,” he said. “I just hope we have some good European football here again.”
The next time Tim sets foot inside the former Olympic Stadium, the seats may well be in their new West Ham configuration, an added bonus, he says.
“I think that was one of the concerns for fans, how West Ham-based it would be. So I never expected the seats to actually be West Ham too. That's absolutely superb.”