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Andy H 3:16 Sat Feb 10
Pretty much sums it all up...

Not sure if it's been posted anywhere else, but grabbed this from the Real West Ham Fans Action Group on Facebook.

A good read from a fellow West Ham fan:
“After being accused of not being a "real fan" a few times, I have given it some thought in recent weeks.

A "real fan" seems to be someone whose support is unwavering and consistent regardless of the shenanigans of owners, managers, shareholders. Their support remains blindly positive regardless of the actions of the many, many shysters, hucksters, ingrates, fuckwits and ne'er-do-wells that this great club has welcomed into its boardroom and management structure.

I have followed this club for over 50 years.

As a thirteen year old I would get the train from Stevenage and travel into London to watch the games. To stand on concrete steps, protected by steel railings, getting rained on, snowed on, shouting myself hoarse in support of Moore, Bonds, Lampard, Robson, Sissons et al. Close enough to see them sweat.

I put up with being herded like cattle, but treated far less respectfully than cattle would be. I have been insulted. Spat at. Pushed, shoved and hit. Sometimes not even by the police. I have endured ridicule and sympathy, following a team whose performances seem to oscillate between disaster and calamity. I have saved my money as a kid and bought shirts. Scarves. Hats. Rattles (yeah, I am that old).

And I been rewarded with shite.

For the entire 50 years, with a very few transitory peaks of delirium, 99.5% of my time following this club has been a catalogue of unmitigated, undiluted, shit.

I have watched us capitulate to minor league opposition countless times. I have seen us flog players who go on to greatness elsewhere. I have seen us flog the family silver. I have seen us embarrassed by our peers. I have watched, powerless, as manager after manager made decisions which - even for someone like me with far more love of the game than technical knowledge - would make me want to put my head in a vice to ease the pain.

And yet I have stuck with it.

Not for success. No West Ham fan ever supported this club for the glory. There simply ain't any.

Maybe it is just habit. I would love to think it is pure loyalty. Perhaps, in the deepest recesses of my little head, I am labouring under the delusion that one day the club will repay these decades of loyal support with some astute management or - god forbid - style.

But in all those years, through all that disappointment and frustration, I have never felt the way I do now.

It's got nothing to do with results.

I don't care about results. And I would suggest that no West Ham fan really does. Not really. If you want results, you go with Chelsea or Arsenal or one of the Manchester clubs. West Ham are not on the list. So if you support West Ham, de-facto, you can't really care a lot about winning.

No, this is about the club as an entity. Its philosophy. Its DNA. And it is this which has been betrayed. Shat on. Dragged through the crap until it is no longer even discernible. We are no longer the Academy of Football. We are no longer everyone's second favourite club. We are no longer professional. Or respected. We are a joke. A laughing stock. A snidey little two bob outfit run like a market stall by two old market traders using a reality TV star as the acceptable face of business front.

Our entire raison d'etre has been corrupted to a point where, personally, I do not think it can be recovered.

We sold our souls.

The Icelandic affair, with the global financial meltdown that followed, scared many into believing that the club would disappear. Forever.

We allowed a pair of shysters, with a clearly documented history of asset stripping, to convince most of us they were our saviours. That they were the only game in town. And we bought them hook, line and sinker.

I didn't believe it then. I don't believe it now.

But whatever, we allowed them in. We rolled over like grateful lap dogs.

And they have spent their short years here systematically ripping the fuck out of this club.

We went from a club with 50m of debt and our own stadium, to being a club with 50m of debt in a rented athletics ground.

We went from a club with a team of second-tier players with some desire to play for the shirt, flirting with relegation, to a team of second tier mercenaries, willing to play only when it fucking suits, flirting with relegation.

Not only this.

We have allowed our expectations to be manipulated downwards so far it makes me ashamed.

I have never witnessed West Ham fans so grateful for such tiny crumbs.

This forum was full to the brim of posters welcoming a failure of a manager, whose approach is clearly aimed at survival, whose idea of success is not getting fired, who was employed because he was cheap. Because nobody else wanted him.

A manager who is so clearly bonused and targeted on Prem survival alone that he effectively gives up on the FA cup without a squeak. And seems happy to admit it.

We have got to the point where we buy a 26 year old bloke from Preston North End, and then treat him like he's our saviour. I'm not having a go at the lad. He seems to have a good attitude, and I hope he is a roaring success. What I am saying is that THIS is now the level of our expectation. That we see THIS as normal. As a positive outcome. We are that demoralised. Dispirited. Dejected. We are the beaten half of an abusive relationship. To the degree that we even assume that our failures are partially our fault. That we fail because we have not supported fervently enough. Or loudly enough.

Have we not got the wrong end of the lever? Are not the team supposed to give us a reason to cheer? Is it not incumbent on them to deserve our support in the first place? And yet we, as fans, can be criticised for not "motivating" the players. Fuck that. Their job is to motivate us.

We have become the butt of all problems. Whatever shit happens, it's probably our fault.

And the sum total of our response?

A few forums who appear happy to toe the club line in return for a seat on the rug by the fire and an occasional bonio chucked their way. NOT this one I hasten to add.

And a pressure group asking for better toilets. I don't wish to be disrespectful of a bunch of fans with the same or more history with the club than myself, and I do admire that they are trying to do something. But it does feel like arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Since the arrival of Gold and Sullivan, throughout their appalling tenure, culminating in the appointment of a failed manager with nothing to lose, employed simply because he is cheap, I have been critical. And called plastic. Not a "real fan".

And it's right. I admit I probably am.

Because, I don't see why I should have to put up with this kind of fucking shit without comment or complaint.

I don't see why I should shut up, tug my forelock and be grateful.

Why should we sit back, powerless, waiting for Sullivan to put his kid in charge of the family business because he has spent a week in every department so now knows the club inside out.

No. They can fucking fuck the fuck off.

They have taken my support of this club - always a difficult prospect, always pretty one-sided - and made it nigh on impossible. These people rip the piss out of all of us, and we are supposed to say thank you.

I hate what they stand for. Always have, always will. I hate their attitude. Their approach. Their strategy. Their lies. Their bullshit. Their manipulation. Their pathetic attempts at ingratiating themselves. Their embarrassing attempts at being "clever" and pulling the wool over our eyes.

My greatest wish now is that I am still interested , and alive, when they fuck off from this club forever.

I hope we get relegated. I really do.

I've witnessed it before. And will do again. It's not the end of the world.

And I think there is a strong chance we will be. We are, as we have become used to, reliant on other clubs being worse, rather than us being masters of our own destiny. So it's a lottery.

And if we are, I will welcome it.

Because this board seem happy to stay here, spending a few bob here and a few bob there, talking like Ambramovich but spending like a benefits claimant.

They will be the end of this club.

Fuck the board. Fuck the manager. Love the team.”

easthammer 11:32 Mon Feb 12
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

Hardly a summary!

I have been going longer, started sometime in the mid 50's.
I didn't choose to support West Ham.
I was born and lived within a mile of the Boleyn
What else was I going to do?
If you can walk away sorry but you ain't West Ham


Do I like the Board?
No. They are two bob classless mountebanks

But they are a symptom, not the real cause.

Football has changed. The world has changed.

Anyone that thinks relegation is the answer is just wrong.

Razzle 11:16 Mon Feb 12
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

Reply Dr Moose 10:45 Mon Feb 12
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

The gloss of the cup has gone? Not for me mate i love the FA cup, I like seeing the non-leaguers battle it out even if clubs put out weakened sides. As a supporter a finals day is the best day and to be honest as a club we have done and won fuck all for nearly 40yrs. Give me an FA cup any day...

On The Ball 10:47 Mon Feb 12
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

That's the opposite of what he said, Moose.

Dr Moose 10:45 Mon Feb 12
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

A good read, and pretty much what us 40+ years olds think and attempt to sum up in posts only to be shouted down by post 96ers who want a day at Wembley rather than a sustained and long term presence in the Premiership. I loved cup final day as a kid but the gloss of it has gone, as a club we do not have the squad to maintain a run at the cups and a comfortable finish in the league.

Peterboroughiron 8:41 Sun Feb 11
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

If I was able to put all my thoughts and feelings about West Ham down on paper like that it would read very similar must be an age thing

Chigwell 5:14 Sun Feb 11
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

Mmmmm........if his definition of a real West Ham fan is "blindly positive", he's obviously not one of us.

arsene york-hunt 4:39 Sun Feb 11
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

David L 8:35 Sat Feb 10

Mostly the same crowd every week. occasionally somebody bring a kid. Some of the people round me have been going since the days of Moore Hurst and Peters.

Pub Bigot 8:55 Sat Feb 10
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

Sold0, he's not wrong, but he did fail to acknowledge what kept him going in those 50 years.

In those 50 years the club has seen limited success bordering on non-existance for some of us, poorly run and the supporters treated with contempt.

Northern Sold 8:41 Sat Feb 10
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

`For the entire 50 years, with a very few transitory peaks of delirium, 99.5% of my time following this club has been a catalogue of unmitigated, undiluted, shit`.



Lets be honest that is getting in 13BR he is having a very heavy period territory

Pub Bigot 8:40 Sat Feb 10
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

Dave, I disagree. Taking season ticket money from his pocket won't change much. I'd either be replaced and at a cheaper rate, or we'd end up like Wigan with a half full ground.

David L 8:35 Sat Feb 10
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

More fool you then Bigot, having more money than sense to chuck it at Sullivan and co every week. I bet he loves you.

Arsene - you "like the fans"? Do you honestly like the mix of day trippers and families that probably sit near you now, but change every match? That's one of the things I miss most, the people around me at UP

Pub Bigot 8:26 Sat Feb 10
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

I enjoyed reading that. I found myself agreeing with most of it.

We all clearly get different things from this club, and for me it's the make up of the support which is my attraction as it feels an extended family of like-minded souls.

On the football front, all I care about is effort and some flair. Football is referred to as the beautiful game and his comments regarding Moyes as the cheap and safe option (negative) are spot on.

Survival in this division is the boards only real aim and anything more is a bonus.

I enjoyed the result today as it's nice to see effort and a win and player putting in a shift and entertaining us, but had at lost I'd still be at the next game.

I hate the board, I hate what football is becoming and I hate the stadium, but I feel like I'm married to West Ham so I'll renew. 50,000 not renewing is a drop in the oceans relatively speaking when you consider television rights, so Sullivan won't care of the London Stadium ends up looking like DW Stadium each week

arsene york-hunt 8:16 Sat Feb 10
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

Well I have been supporting the club for over fifty years. You pay your money and get what you get. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Most of those 50 years we've been in the topflight. When we've been relegated we've soon come back. All these shit teams around us are only in the PL for a short time and will soon fall out and spend years in the lower leagues. Over all this time I've experienced all the lows but have also experienced just as much pleasure.

The thing above all that I like is the fans. They are loyal and support their team through thick and thin.. You know they are genuine because we have not won any trophies for years.

Takashi Miike 8:16 Sat Feb 10
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

you must be desperate for attention, I've done my rowing with you in the past, but its gone past being about individuals and 'look at me' posts. anything is worth trying in either getting these cunts to change the way they run the club, or preferably sell up and fuck off. and I did the 'stop going' thing almost twenty years ago because of their good friend brown

Vexed 8:07 Sat Feb 10
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

I hate these owners as much as anyone. In fact i was one of the very few on here that didn't want them in the first place. I "wasn't West Ham" for my views on them at the time apparently.

Now you've all changed your minds you seem to want to do all this embarrassing whiny and ineffective shit rather than the only thing that would work - to stop going.

Once again I'm not West Ham according to you lot. You'll suss it out eventually.

David L 7:43 Sat Feb 10
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

Did you stamp your feet in the athletics stadium today vexed, just like Sullivan says, adding to the unique sound? MR Sullivan will be very pleased with you, one of the 'youngsters' the club needs.

Vexed 7:31 Sat Feb 10
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

You're all such whiny embarrassing cunts. Get a fucking grip. A march, fucking petitions. Jesus wept.

jakehammer 7:31 Sat Feb 10
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

well i thought the article was superb and mirrors my own opinion.
i became west ham in 1956 at 5yrs old and reckon i've seen it all as regards our club including all the nomarks that have owned the club from the pratts/cearns, brown, the icelandics, but i think the dildo brothers and baroness bitch are clearly the very worst of a horrible fucking bunch.
they promise much and deliver nothing but misery.
all i ever ask for is for any team we put out to sweat blood for the shirt like Bonzo always did and give us a tickle in the cups every few years, but as it stands now that is now nothing more than a fucking pipedream.
i . like any other west ham supporter love my club, but these days it's harder than ever to get motivated, what with all the lies and bullshit coming from the conniving charlatans running the club.

irisiris95 6:49 Sat Feb 10
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

Agree with a lot of that, my journey started in 1979 whilst watching Brooking dominate Spurs at WHL and the Cup win the year after cemented that.

I just wish we could get competent ownership in & at least compete. As someone pointed out on another thread, what's the point of owning a football club if you don't want to win!??!?
Sullivan et al out

David L 5:48 Sat Feb 10
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

Very good article that. Sums up how I feel perfectly. Anyone taking the piss out of it must be about 12. Boring? Fuck off. Read it and weep sunshine, while continuing your homage to these cunts in charge. One day you'll realise what these three have actually done.

cup of tea 5:29 Sat Feb 10
Re: Pretty much sums it all up...

"Yeah it's been shit with the board but they'll be gone soon"

Problem is, THEY WON'T BE GONE SOON

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