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OLD GEEZER 11:25 Sun Mar 11
The alternate view

Why is it that the board haters, marchers, protesters, call them what you like are so aggressive to anyone with a different point of view. I personally can see lots of reasons why so many are against the board but what I cannot accept is calling critics cunts, arse lickers, mugs etc. Anti board protesters will never win the majority of fans over by violence, bullying and bringing the club into disrepute.
I fully expect my fair share of abuse from this so bring it on. But remember that not all West Ham fans share your views and that does not mean that they are any the less a West Ham fan than you.

Hermit Road 6:56 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

Alex V 5:11 Sun Mar 11

Exactly. You’re contradicting yourself.

Alex V 5:46 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

>>> ...is probably a fake ID from a Russian hacker.

Top sleuthing. Probably KGB honestly.

Northern Sold 5:46 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

kirok1 5:15 Sun Mar 11

Superb piece that....

Willtell 5:35 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

Alex V 4:52
That article in C&H was written by a Sergey Novesh. I Googled him. He's a Belarusian wannabe writer and is probably a fake ID from a Russian hacker.

Google it for yourself...

kirok1 5:15 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

For all that some on here deride KUMB as board lackeys... decent article which lays the blame firmly at their door.

This was on their Facebook link.

The darkest day

Filed: Sunday, 11th March 2018
By: Peter Morris

When an opposition goal can turn a stadium atmosphere, almost like a flick of a switch, from reasonable positivity to universal venom, then you know that something must be deeply wrong in the state of West Ham United Football Club.

Of course, we old hands saw many tempestuous times at the old stadium. The hooligan days of the seventies - who can ever forget the battle of the South Bank in 1975? - and the Bond Scheme protests of 1992 were both on a scale of intensity far in excess of the aborted marches and the handful of pitch intruders that we have just witnessed.

But, in my opinion, the mood yesterday was on a scale of intensity that makes what we are witnessing seem far more fundamental, perhaps even existential, as far as our grand old club is concerned.

For whereas the Bond Scheme protesters were bold, confident and ultimately convinced of their eventual success, today we are frantically looking for solutions to a problem that is almost too big to comprehend.

The corner flag bearers of 1992 and 2018 respectively almost epitomise the differing size of the tasks. In 1992, the man with the corner flag strode imperiously out of the Chicken Run, grabbed the flag and serenely marched to the centre spot to plant his symbol of defiance. He even stopped for a quick bit of jaunty banter with Mark Ward (then of Everton) before returning to his appreciative acolytes.

His 2018 imitator was a sorrier figure in every regard. He didn't even seem to have a firm grip on his implement and his footing was hardly self-assured. Unfortunately, he then struggled to find the centre spot, thus rounding off a miserable performance. Though to be fair, he did have a lot further to walk than his predecessor of 1992...

To me, the symbolism of the two corner flaggers is palpable: In 1992, we were confident, we were united, and we knew what we were fighting for and loved what we knew ((c) Oliver Cromwell). We were not going to be priced out of our birthright, which was so much more to us back then than just a football team - West Ham United represented the East End of London at its very best, it had been forged by our own family members among others through the tumultuous twentieth century, and it was not going to be taken away from us by people (the Cearns family) who had clearly forgotten their own historic responsibilities.

But in 2018, those old certainties seem very remote, and our ability as fans to take control of the current situation, in the way that the Class of 1992 (WHU version) did back then, has to be in doubt.

For what we had then has been cruelly taken away from us by the current regime, who certainly know how to operate in accordance with Oscar Wilde's adage about "knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing."

By this, I do not necessarily mean the Boleyn Ground. As a structure, it had been changed out of all recognition since my first visit in 1968, when the East Stand was almost completed. In 1990, when the club, in a fit of unprecedented democracy, asked fans what they thought about a range of issues in a survey, I was one of the 10% who responded positively to the question "should we move to a new stadium?"

But what we lost when we abandoned our ancestral home in the way that we did in 2016 was not bricks and mortar, but our very independence.

For a move to our own purpose-built football stadium could have seen West Ham United thrive and prosper; the move to a stadium which looks like the Lego creation of a blind four year old would well lead to our extinction.

Is that harsh, perhaps hysterical? Well, who knows the future, but I really fear for it.

The current regime took a huge gamble when agreeing to move the club to the Olympic Stadium in its current form. They believed that attendance increases, plus the allure of the new stadium, would inevitably lead to top players flocking to the club, an upturn in performance leading to Champions League qualification, and that we would all live happily ever after.

Unfortunately, like all fairy stories, this one was not for the real world. More seats sold has seen hardly any increase in sales income, because so many of those seats are being sold on the cheap; top players tend to join the top clubs, and do not move to inferior ones on the promise of future glories - or wages. And in any case, the almost complete lack of investment by the owners ensures that we will never be in the market at the top end.

And then there's the stadium. As you may have gathered, I was always opposed to the move there, but like most other fans, I decided to put my best face on and try to love it - or at least get used to it. Yesterday's atmosphere finally indicated to me that, like grieving relatives emerging from the immediate pain of loss , West Ham fans have finally accepted what has been done to their club, and have been reduced to a state of abject despair:

"We want to go home, we want to go home, this place is a s******e, we want to go home!"

"You've destroyed our f*****g club!"

And perhaps the most poignant of all:

"We're not West Ham anymore!”

So, what is to be done? Well here I begin to flounder. To me, there are only two long-term solutions, but they are both, well ... long-term. And, of course, they are both predicated on the speedy departure from the scene of the 3 Marx Brothers (well, 2 brothers and a sister, none of whom ever seems to want to take the part of Harpo ....)

They also require new owners with real money, and who are prepared to spend it.

Firstly, the new owners could renegotiate the Olympic Stadium deal with the explicit objective of doing what Tottenham said they wanted to do - knock down the monstrosity and build a football stadium on the site.

Or secondly, they could build our own football stadium some in West Ham country (Havering?) and tell Seb Coe and the politicians what they can do with their "legacy".

Sadly, in the meantime, we could be facing Championship football next season - and I wouldn't bank on a quick return to the top flight anytime soon thereafter. Those wide-open spaces on the pitch, combined with the even wider-open spaces in the stands, will seem most appealing to the average journeyman opponent of that league.

Finally, a couple of words about our current regime. Has any club ever conducted itself with less class and even less success during a transfer window, as they did during the most recent window? The ridiculous non-bids for players who wouldn't join us in a million years, and who play for clubs who weren't going to sell them anyway, was embarrassing enough, and was finally topped off with the claimed bid of £25m for Joe Allen on the last day.

Does Sullivan really have such a low opinion of the intelligence of the fans that he thinks that stunt would be seem as credible? Stoke had already said repeatedly that he wasn't going for any price, Allen said he didn't want to leave, and yet Sullivan still spouts this nonsense! I am only surprised that he hasn't claimed he put in a £100m bid for Lionel Messi on the same day!

Joao Mario is a decent technical type of player, but as he showed yesterday, he isn't going to be pulling up any trees in the foreseeable future. And as for Jordan Hugill - can anyone explain why we bought him, unless as preparation for life in the Championship? We needed serious investment in the squad in January to ward off the prospect of relegation, and instead .... we turned a profit.

Lastly, am I the only one who found yesterday's attempt on the part of the regime to wrap itself in the Shroud of Bobby just a bit too much? I will yield to no-one in my reverence for the Great Man, but he has been dead for twenty five years now, and shoddy stunts like yesterday's are actually an insult to his memory.

Anyone who was at the Wolves game in 1993 who saw Geoff and Martin carrying the No. 6 floral arrangement to the middle of the pitch, or the minutes' silence accompanied by Ken Wolstenholme's commentary on Bobby receiving the Cup Winners Cup, will never forget it: The raw emotion of it all can still almost bring me to tears all these years on.

Yesterday's pastiche (the flowers looked positively dead from where I sit - but then again, I am in the Upper Tier) bordered on necrophilia. Quite why Bov, Stag and the Moore family allow themselves to be cynically manipulated in this way by a rotten regime is among many of our current mysteries.

steveiron64 5:15 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

Fans care about their clubs and, increasingly, clubs are finding out (as also happened at Lille in France yesterday) that fans will not put up with half hearted rubbish from their team while the players earn 50000 euros a week. No us, no clubs and we are, perhaps, more than mugs anyway for filling the coffers of those who care less than we do.

Alex V 5:12 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

>>> people have posted evidence with that latest article/letter that was published on C&H.

That's evidence of what exactly?

Alex V 5:11 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

Hermit Road 5:04 Sun Mar 11

Every club uses social media. If not every business.

Takashi Miike 5:06 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

evidence? people have posted evidence with that latest article/letter that was published on C&H. stop being a contrarian cunt

Hermit Road 5:04 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

Alex, I suspect the only thing you would accept is 100% proof rather than evidence, of which there is plenty. Start with the existence of a social media department that exists in part to shape fans' views. That wouldn't be fit for purpose if it didn't try to shape fans' views. Is that 100% irrefutable proof? No. Is it evidence? Yes.

ChesterRd 5:04 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

Stop being a trolling idiot Alex V.

Alex V 4:52 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

>>> That had the hand of Sullivan all over it.

Evidence?

>>> The club are also waging a huge social media campaign planting stooges on twitter and on fans forums with the explicit purpose of either proclaiming the owners as saviours of the club or rubbish the views of those anti board.

Evidence?

>>> people being paid to impersonate and lie.

Evidence?

This is conspiracy theory nonsense. It gives legitimate criticism a bad name.

ChesterRd 4:50 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

I understand what the OP is saying but I don't accept that the abuse and vitriol is in a one way direction. Only last weekend we had a loyal West Ham home and away season ticket holder and a fully accountable fan group in WHUIISA being threatened with violence because they wished to proceed with the march that so many fans wanted. That had the hand of Sullivan all over it. The club are also waging a huge social media campaign planting stooges on twitter and on fans forums with the explicit purpose of either proclaiming the owners as saviours of the club or rubbish the views of those anti board. These are not legitimate West Ham fans giving their honest opinion, which I don't have any issue with, but people being paid to impersonate and lie.

VirginiaHam 4:28 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

Willtell 3:16 Sun Mar 11

I can't disagree with anything you've written.

kirok1 4:22 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

Decently balanced article here tooo...
https://www.football.london/west-ham-united-fc/news/west-ham-fans-stadium-protests-14394929

Hermit Road 4:07 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

OLD GEEZER 3:57 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

Mate, I understand there are alternate views but having started a thread called The Alternate View, I'm not sure what yours is. I know what you're against, the fans opposing the board, but what are you for and why otherwise, what's the point of the thread?

kirok1 3:58 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

Agree, largely, with both Willtell and Infidel.
Well stated and clear.

We do need to forget our differences about some things and come together. The trouble is, there’s such a gulf while our owners are at the club that only their leaving will allow the divide to heal.
Yet Gold has stated they’re going nowhere.
On a purely safety principle. Much as I agree, to some extent, with Sir Trev that those looking to protest should keep away until the end of the season, I also feel that if you pay your money, you’ve a right to complain if what you paid to see was not up to task.
However, if fans with a grievance should stay away, shouldn’t those with whom they have that grievance, the architects of our misery and the subjects of or ire, be asked to stay away too?

For the good of the club - at least until the end of the season - if fans with an issue should stay away, so should the blood sucking, asset stripping, money grubbing trio - and their families -too.

If they then, finally, deliver on their promises to invest, perhaps some of the gap can be narrowed. But I can’t see it happening.
At best, anything now is a band aid on an amputation. But at least we might stop the blood letting until our inadequate squad limps to the finale and hopefully grasps enough points to remain in the Premier League and stop Allardyce smirking his way through our last match...

OLD GEEZER 3:57 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

Hermit
Never once did i say iwas pro board. I said that I was against the pressure and abuse of people that disagreed with the anti board protesters.

threesixty 3:30 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

Willtell

Kind of said everything there.
So true.

Infidel 3:21 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

Aside from the shocking state of our club, the way this has turned supporters on each other is very sad.

The various threads on here have as much abuse directed at fellow West Ham supporters as they do at Sullivan & Gold.

You are apparently not allowed to have a point of view that the pitch invaders were in the wrong or that Brown was even worse than S&G. Some people on here are acting like children having a tantrum.

We are all in the same boat, our club is being ruined by S&G, let's not start firing missiles at each other.

Willtell 3:16 Sun Mar 11
Re: The alternate view

Infidel 1:20
Thanks. I know it is a popular view about Brown but he was easy to hate. He was the accountant made good but lacked imagination and did get virtually given West Ham but after years of association with the Cearns family and WH iirc?

I think Brown owned a camp site with more than managing a caravan site but point taken. Yes I think you've let your memory fade too because he paid himself £500k pa iirc. I part justified it in my mind as an MD paying staff huge sums and thinking he should get something similar...

However, that aside Brown wasn't so bad for me as a season ticket holder that lived in Kent and didn't often read newspapers. I don't think he would ever speak to any media so he definitely never told lies and we always knew that when the club needed cash, a player got sold. Brown could not finance deep losses so had little alternative. Laughable now that Brown pushed the boat out to get a £4m laon and sign Hartson & Kitson to save us from relegation.

AS for G&S? Far worse than Brown imho. David Gold lied about a Tweet regarding the £16.4m they took as loan and accrued interest payments after years of telling us they took nothing from the club. He replied and said "That's not true". I sent him the page and item numbers.

So Gold lied to me personally. Brown never did that. Then I look at all the statements back to when they first bought the club and talked about getting the Olympic Stadium in January 2010. Now according to Gold, he didn't want to lose UP because it was where he grew up la di dah di dah.

How about when Gold Brady & Sullivan said we would not move unless the pitch was the same distance form the seats?

How about the 40 odd strikers we've signed? How about the press leaks about signing £40m Carvalho only to have Sporting call Sullivan a liar publicly? How about Brady's weekly column where she ruins the relationship with Leicester and others so that they won't deal with us?

How about the 10 point plan from early 2010 where we were targeting CL and top 6 by 2017? And in the words of Frank Lampard junior, spending £29m net while promising CL and Top 6 at the OS....?

The worst aspect of all for me is the continual denial by Sullivan that he buys players. All of the problem players are the manager's choice and the successful ones he takes credit for. And then on Page 7, Paragraph 6 of this year's accounts, the Board's thanks go to David Sullivan for his role as Director of Football....

Liars and cheats that play at being Football Manager and then look to blame professionals for Sullivan's failings as a manager of people, football and everything except being a greedy little shit which he excels at....

Fuck Gold Sullivan and their bitch Brady.

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