In his funny and honest book, The Heart of the Game (Time Warner,£18.99), Jimmy Greaves provides the best analogy I have ever heard for the experience of following football.

He recalls a childhood pal of his who was given a pocket knife by his dad. A couple of years later the handle broke and had to be replaced. Some years after that, the blade broke, and was also replaced.

"Yet," Greaves writes, "my pal still loved the knife, believing it to be the one his dad had given him as a birthday present all those years ago. I mention that story because I believe the way we think and feel about football is similar to the way my pal loved and treasured that knife."

Now I don’t want to get too philosophical here - "When you can snatch the pocket knife from my hand, Grasshopper…" - but I think this image really does point the way to something a bit mysterious.

What is it we follow when we follow a team?

The players change. The kit changes. The manager changes - in some cases, more swiftly than the kit. The ground changes - as all those clubs now located in efficient but anonymous arenas on out-of-town industrial estates will bear witness.

The badge changes - "Coat of arms and a motto? Fans don’t want that old rubbish any more. Get something a bit more user-friendly…" The style of play changes.

The nickname changes. "Come on, you Glaziers!" Heard that recently, have you? It’s all "Come on, you Eagles" down at Selhurst Park nowadays.

"Come on, you Biscuitmen!" Heard that recently? No, because Reading have been The Royals for the last 20-odd years. Although one of their fanzines does celebrate the reference to the old Huntley and Palmers factory in the town by calling itself Hob Nob Anyone?

So what doesn’t change?

I suppose it is no more and no less than the idea that you support a particular team.

In which case, my antipathy to the possibility that the team I have followed since I was 10, West Ham United, will take up new residence in the 2012 Olympic stadium, is irrational.

But as the club and their partners, Newham Council, bid to secure shared use of the stadium with athletics after the Games have finished, I find myself getting mournful about the idea that West Ham will no longer be at Upton Park.

I will never forget the thrill of reaching the top of the stairs in the East Stand and seeing the pitch so far below me when my dad took me to see my first West Ham game - a 1-1 draw with Sunderland on October 25, 1969.

And when the players whose pictures covered my walls - courtesy of Goal, Shoot, Football Weekly and Football Monthly magazines - trotted out onto that green turf and began scattering and scampering about in the warm-up, it felt like all my birthdays and Christmases combined.

Over the last 20 years, as I have covered West Ham matches from the opposing side of the pitch, I have always gazed across and remembered that occasion, trying to picture where we would have been sitting.

And yet, for many West Ham fans back on that October Saturday, the East stand may have been regarded as an unwelcome addition as it had replaced the hugely popular and historically raucous Chicken Run earlier in the year.

The "new" East stand is now the oldest part of the ground since the West Stand was rebuilt in 2001 - complete, it has to be said, with naff, theme-park turrets to chime in with the club’s badge.



Rationally, then, a move to the Olympic Stadium would be a case of "plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose."

If West Ham do end up sharing a stadium with athletics, it would not be for the first time.

Back in 1897, when they still played under the name of Thames Iron Works, the team were ensconced in a new stadium in Plaistow - the Memorial Ground - provided by the Iron Works owner, Arnold Hills.

But football was far from top priority at the new site, as Hills made clear in his address to the Ironworks’s Federated Clubs annual festival.

Adam Ward’s Official History of West Ham United (Hamlyn, £20) details how Hills remarked that he had "secured a large piece of land for an athletic ground", and that "the ground would contain a cycle track equal to any in London (this comment was met with applause) and it would also be used for football, tennis etc".

Should West Ham succeed in shifting to the new site in Stratford, there will be no question about which sport has priority - which means it is vital for UK Athletics to make a strong case now to secure the opportunity of using the stadium to host significant championships in the future.

OK. I think I’m coming round to the possibility.

 It won’t be the same – but it won’t be the end.

That said, there should be no shifting on the subject of the club’s name - which the newly installed vice-chairman Karren Brady suggested recently might be changed to West Ham Olympic.

Albeit that they began life as Thames Ironworks, West Ham United have been West Ham United since the summer of 1900. Let’s at least keep that precious bit of history intact.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames