If Seb Coe was driving back to his Surrey home late on Saturday night and had the car radio tuned to LBC 97.3 his eardrums would have been assaulted by a volley of abuse coming from disgruntled Londoners.

Mostly from those who had lost out on the initial ballot of Olympic tickets but also others who thought what is about to engulf the city next year is a total waste of time, space - and money.

For a good couple of hours the airwaves crackled with ire and invective as the regular phone-in conducted by the excellent Nick Abbot became awash with epithets like "scandalous", "outrageous", "disgraceful", even "criminal".

I appreciate that these phone-ins are more often little more than a repository for nocturnal nutters with nothing better to do. But the volume of hostility towards Coe and the Games organisers was astounding. And actually quite worrying.

This was not just because the likes of "Pissed Off of Peckham" hadn't got a ticket for the 100 metres final, or even the preliminary rounds of the water polo, but because suddenly Londoners had awoken to just how much disruption there will be to their lives when the five-ringed circus starts to hit town a year from now. And how much it will cost.

Many miles of road closures, oppressive security, daytime deliveries to shops curtailed and prices hiked for almost everything.

It was always going to be this way, of course (it happens at every Olympics) but few seemed to have realised it - until now.

There are those, myself included, who believe it will be worth it, but clearly there are hundreds of thousands of Londoners who don't.

Judging from the vehemence of the callers their beef wasn't simply about those who aren't getting tickets - but those who are: VIPs, sponsors, corporate fat cats, politicians, and, yes, the media (some 11,000 of us).


As someone pointed out, Boris Johnson jokily made great play of missing out in the ballot but the Mayor's office will be allocated 2,000. So there's fat chance of Bojo, should he be re-elected, having to hover outside the Olympic Stadium asking a scalper the price of two nice ones together.

Similarly, the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, political overlord of the Games, claimed not to have got any either, but his Department of Culture, Media and Sport will end up with £750,000 worth for "special guests". No doubt a Mr and Mrs J Hunt will be among them.

On a more positive note it is good to see the British Olympic Association will be allocating tickets to former Olympians. The Tickets for Troops scheme is laudable, though surely there are equally deserving cases, not least nurses and firemen.

However, I believe where LOCOG have gone wrong is in not having more tickets available to the general public, thus making them more of the People's Games we were promised they would be, and reserving fewer for the hospitality hoo-rays.

It may have cost a bit more but it would have been good PR and saved a lot of the current aggro.

Apart from the ticket situation, what seems to be getting up Londoners' noses more than anything is the 56 miles of roadway that will be exclusively for the use of the "Olympic family". Venture into these lanes if you dare and you'll instantly be £200 poorer.

Fair enough. Something similar happens in all Olympic cities, but London seems to have decided on a more aggressive approach, with such an extensive network and a longer period for which parts of the city will be a no-go area.

Supervising it will be a jobsworths' charter.

What is becoming increasingly apparent is, while for the majority these Olympics will be a fabulous, memorable experience, others will continue to see them as an unaffordable irritant.

No doubt Coe has seen all this coming. When I last interviewed him he was well aware that while the bouquets had been showered on him and his team virtually since the day the bid was won in Singapore six years ago, barring the odd hiccup, the brickbats lay in waiting along the road to 2012 in the final year of preparations.

As I have said before, no-one has greater admiration than me for what Coe has achieved so far but he will need to keep a flak jacket handy during the next 12 months.

The ticket situation has been a PR disaster, even though it is hard to argue when he insists that technically it could not have been handled in any other way - except perhaps making more available to the genuine punters and not raking in the money before people actually knew what tickets they would be getting, if any.

London may be well ahead of the Games, rightfully basking in the glow of praise from the IOC for organisation that so far has been impeccable, arguably the best-ever.

But the Olympic honeymoon is over. As Coe knows only too well, the last lap will be the most hazardous, with himself and all at LOCOG under microscopic scrutiny from an increasingly forensic media and the more sceptical elements of the public.

One irksome question that will run and run is why so many roads need be affected, some by up to three months, by the introduction of those Olympic lanes, which will necessitate costly reconstruction, with the removal of pedestrian crossings, installation of special traffic lights and new signage.

Most Olympic competitors will be housed in the Games village within the Olympic Park, so who will use them?

Why, the IOC bigwigs of course, transported to Stratford in their chauffeured limos from their five-star hostelries in and around Park Lane.

So why are they ensconced in the West End and not the East End, where the Games are taking place?

Funny, I thought 2012 was all about boosting the regeneration of East London, with the hearty approval of the IOC.

There are some pretty good hotels in Docklands where jolly Jacques and slippery Sepp could bed down for the night.

But, supremely comfortable as they are, they aren't called the Dorchester, the Savoy, the Hilton or the Lanesborough, and for so many sybaritic IOC members they are rather a long way from Annabel's, the Ivy and the pole dancing lovelies at Spearmint Rhino.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.