40 years not out, that’s how long I’ve been watching West Ham regularly. I’m not bragging, I’m not playing I’m a better fan than anyone else, just putting it there to show how much I have seen go before my eyes.
Football is very different now to when I first watched it, I’m not sure it can be solely blamed on the birth of the Premier League in 1992 but since that day the top clubs have organised themselves business wise, they market themselves as Brands, not football clubs.
When asked why I support West Ham i just point out my birth certificate, Born in Plaistow Newham in 1969 in what was part of the old West Ham borough, brought up in Canning Town, the area that housed the Ironworks that gave birth to a team that in 1900 separated and reformed itself into West Ham United. West Ham is not just a football team, it’s also where I come from, where I lived for 35 years, where I brought my children home too, when they were born. I was born into West Ham and West Ham was put into me.
All my family were West Ham and I was brought up that we weren’t the best but we could play on our day, Ron Greenwood’s claim:
“The crowds at West Ham haven’t been rewarded by results, but they keep turning up because of the good football they see. Other clubs will suffer from the old bugbear that results count more than anything. This has been the ruination of English soccer.”
is how I was brought up to support the team, it wasn’t the result that was important, it was how it was achieved.
WEST HAM WAY
That mantra has sadly been pushed aside, nowadays a bad result can lead to fan complaints. Social media has many good points, if it wasn’t for the internet I wouldn’t have friends in New York, in Texas, New Zealand & Australia. It has enabled those fans from far and wide to communicate and come together, sharing their views, but the problem arises when those views differs, then social media can become a kids playground full of bullies and their victims.
I never really used social media until 2010 since them I have become immersed in it, also in 2010 West Ham was in danger of going bust until two (so called) West Ham fans rescued the club from pending oblivion. Well, that’s what they would like us to believe, but since they arrived the division in the clubs fan base has grown & grown. It started with their treatment of Gianfranco Zola, the well liked West Ham manager who ultimately was out of his depth, was sacked 6 months after the Dave’s arrived. First, he was undermined in the press by the owners, then after West Ham survived, they sacked him. Next came the plan to move the club out of the beloved Boleyn Ground (RIP) into the Olympic Stadium, they spun their stories to convince the fans this was the only option. Lies is a strong word and not one I would level at them, I prefer Economical with the truth into what the plans would be, how the stadium would look and feel and how it would change the club around the world.
Then came Sam Allardyce, a man whose football mantra was as alien to Ron Greenwoods view as any manager could ever be. His appointment was only welcomed by some after the disastrous season under Avram Grant, who despite two good cup runs, was out of his depth in the league, undermined by the board by their failed courting of Martin O’Neil to replace him, then they sacked him in the tunnel at an away game after the final nail in the relegation coffin was hammered in Wigan.
What with the stadium move and Sam Allardyce managing the club, on the West Ham forums there was virtual civil war. Lines were drawn, sides were taken.
On one side it seemed if you were pro owners, you were pro Allardyce & pro move, on the other (my chosen side), Anti Board, Anti Move, Anti Allardyce.
The comments on the fan forums came more barbed the longer the years progressed, to the point that some users of different websites still taunt the rival websites with name calling and disputes.
Allardyce’s removal and the appointment of Slaven Bilic, coupled with the final fantastic season at the Boleyn seemed to have watered down the divisions between the fans but that fractured last season with the move and many fans realisation that what the owners said, and what they saw with their own eyes once we moved into the Olympic Stadium were very different.
Again arguments raged on, again the fans turned on each other.
Pre season 2017 and many fans were impressed with the signings the club had made, international players supposedly at the top of their game in Joe Hart and Zabaleta from Man City, Arnautovic from Stoke, a club record signing and the best of the bunch Javier Hernandes, the outstanding goal poaching forward. The owners it seemed to many fans were starting to deliver on their promises from years before when canvassing their support for the move, World class players Brady claimed in one video. Yet just three games into the season, three games played away from home because of the move to an athletics stadium, despite Brady claiming in another video years ago “Our matches will always take priority.”
SACK BILIC
West Ham finds themselves rock bottom of the Premier League. After this latest defeat away at Newcastle West Ham fans exploded onto social media, and again battle lines are drawn, this time the lines are Back Bilic or Sack Bilic.
Polls on websites crank up the pressure on the owners to act, the instant voice social media gives to fans mean they spot off too fast at times, no thought goes into what they say, #BILICOUT did the rounds by many, those that countered this argument were treated as Luddites, blind to the failings of the current manager.
Civil war has resumed.
5 MANAGERS
West Ham was the club of 5 managers in 90 years, we still are only on number 15 yet far too many are voicing they want number 16 to arrive.
I stand by Bilic, I will defend him to the end, as do many and yet I read on Twitter a tweet that perhaps best described why I will defend Bilic to the end, “Bilic is pretty much the last bit of the club we loved.”
Straight away I understood what was meant by that tweet. For many of us, West Ham no longer resembles the club we fell in love with, the modern day version is actually the antithesis of what I thought our football club should be, West Ham is not about branding, the putting of London on the club badge so foreign fans could identify where we play, (true reason), West Ham is not about playing in a stadium that is not made for football, but is adapted to accept it, West Ham is not about entertaining clients in lounges supposed to rival the best in the country but actually are second rate.
West Ham was a family club, a working class club, a club that had a soul, It was a loyal club that treated people properly. Bilic is an honest honourable man, whose values sat well with what many thought the club were. Sadly though those values are gone from the club and what makes it worse, those values have diminished under the ownership of two men who are supposedly steeped in the traditions of the club.
Both West Ham fans from childhood, if you ignore Sullivan was a Cardiff city fan first. Under their watch the fan base has fractured, by their decisions the fans base has been divided, how can two supposedly west ham fans have made the club become this monster.
It in my eyes reflects what they are, money obsessed business machines that cares for not a jot for fans, as we are not considered fans, we are customers. all that want is our money they care not for anything else.
CHELTENHAM GAME
Evidence is the Cheltenham cup game recently, West Ham drawn at home are forced to change the game to away as the London stadium wouldn’t be ready to play in after the Athletics World Championships. Cheltenham Town are financially out of pocket as the crowd receipts at their Whaddon Road ground even with Cheltenham keeping all the gate receipts and not sharing with West Ham still don’t come near what they would have received if the game had been played where it should have been. To cover this West Ham agree to recompense Cheltenham as well as allowing them to keep all the money.
What of their own fans though, instead of a shorter trip to Stratford, they are now faced with a 3-hour journey, paying out extra in travelling expenses to get to the game that should have been played in Stratford. What have the club offered them? Basically, nothing has been offered, in fact, the refuse to give any gesture to their own fans that have been made to pay out more money than they should have, while acknowledging Cheltenham’s loss of revenue. They basically have chosen opposition fans over their own. If we were run by foreign owners or even owners not claiming to have been brought up as hammers fans then I could understand that behaviour, but for it to come from owners who love nothing more than constantly claim how big fans they are, then they should be ashamed and rightly criticised and exposed as charlatans.
I hope their money makes them happy as while they know the cost of everything, they know not one jot, the value of anything.
The club in Stratford is the carcass of the once proud club called West Ham United. nothing will ever bring it back with the two chancers owing it.