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Gifts from The Morning Star
2012 to nothing: lions led by donkeys
What has happened since the night of hope and ambition that was the London Olympics opening ceremony, asks PAUL DONOVAN

“WHAT a difference eight years makes,” I thought following a recent visit to the London Stadium to report for the Star on the West Ham match with Watford. No fans in the ground, an eerie atmosphere, with the players’ shouts and the journalists’ commentaries the only things breaking the silence.

What a contrast with the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, which the stadium played host to. It was one of those strange quirks of fate that a rerun of that ceremony was televised on the same night as that football match.

The opening ceremony was a masterpiece from film director Danny Boyle and his team, showing the many different aspects of Britain. There was the history of the industrial revolution, the factory towers reaching up into the night sky, the tribute to the NHS and the Windrush generation.

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