Were it not for the fact that David Sullivan and David Gold love West Ham for their lives I could see them walking away from Upton Park after the events of Saturday evening.
AND NO I AM NOT BEING MELODRAMATIC !
History tells us many things and the type of mob rule that saw David Sullivan cornered and abused outside the Hawthorns was precisely the type of behaviour that helped lead to the duo’s departure from Birmingham City.
That was a year on from relegation in 2005-06 when the Birmingham fans went completely crazy, tearing down the goal posts, abusing the players and owners in one of the worst examples of lunatic football behaviour ever!
The team had also suffered a 7–0 home defeat to Liverpool in the FA Cup quarter-final.
On the same night as the club’s relegation and those shameful scenes, the club’s end of season dinner was being held and because of the quite shocking behaviour and abuse directed at him, DS failed to turn up and DG was left to man the fort.
I was covering midlands football for national newspapers at that time and had come to know David G well. I remember him saying to me very sadly: “After that I don’t think we can go on…” approximately a a year later they had left Birmingham City.
The money helped of course but the depth of hurt in DG’s eyes is a memory I’ve carried with me to a lesser or greater degree since that time.
The scenes on Saturday may have been on a smaller scale but in some respect that made them worse – the threatening behaviour of David Sullivan, the sexual abuse of Karren Brady, the disgusting language in general as the co chairman attempt to make peace, is horrifying X-certificate stuff.
Because it was at such a smaller scale it was so so much more personal and not easily forgotten by the recipient.
What will be the fall-out from this? The first should be that every single individual involved in the ‘attack’ – for that’s what it was – on DS should sit down and write a personal letter of apology to the man.
In the absence of that, I hope the club draws on all the resources possible to hunt these people down and land them with club bans.
If a guy can be taken to court for running on the pitch and taking a drunken free kick earlier in the season, these morons should be run out of our club.
Like every person who has contributed to the forums both here and on the ClaretandHugh Facebook group, I feel sickened and ashamed that these people are members of our football club.
And whatever action the club takes against them – if any – we are ready to offer any help from anyone here who may recognise any of those involved.
You could see on his face and from his body language that he was taken aback by these guys, it was shocking to see.
There is no way he should have to put up with this sort of thing, they were like a baying mob – I hope they regret their actions!
I agree that this sort of behaviour is out of order and we must stop it now,yes I can understand the frustration of the fans but the 2 Daves are not the people we should be taking this out on as you could see he was as upset by our display as we were,
Personal attacks will not get these people stay with the club and turning on the players won’t help either,
We must approach the problem the right way to bring our anger against the way our club is playing,
BFS you are responsible for this and you can do something about this now man up and do it
Except you are wrong and play the right way with the right players till the end of the season.
Reading many sites today the owners will be in no doubt the vast majority of fans are indebted to the owners for everything they have done for the club, Im sure it wont be long before the identity of those responsible comes out and hopefully they will be named and shamed . There have been incidents in the past where owners have faced this type of abuse the disgraceful attempt to storm the directors box during the bond scheme comes to mind football by its nature can easily fuel the pack mentality It would be a disaster if they walked away and i don’t think they will allow a miniscule minority who were probably fuelled by drink to stop them taking our great club forward. Ive defended these guys on WHTID many times in the dark days of relegation etc and would be gutted if they left. Good old east end boys running our club which in spite of Saturdays set back is on the cusp of reaching the next level, is the best we can hope for. I for one would not want some overseas billionaire or anyone else for that matter, buying us out and am happy for these guys to take us forward even if its takes a few more years to get to where we want to be.
They wont leave until the OS move is complete & then they will sell up for mega bucks to some foreign consortium.
And so what if they do? They took on a bankrupt club, more than £100m in debt, with discord in the dressing room and facing relegation, at great financial risk to themselves. They have pumped in tens of millions of £’s of their own money and devoted much of their time while backing their own business skills to turn the club around. When you take on that type of business risk you fully deserve the rewards if it works out because it is a very big ‘if’. There is currently no indication that they wish to bail out and if they do one day, we should wish them well and be grateful that they saved our club when it was in danger of simply fading away.
Well it wasnt an attack sparrow,it was merely a statement that as businessmen it would make no sense to sell or leave now.They are both not the youngest of guys & when the time comes to maximize the opportunity to sell at a profit they will do.The best time to sell will be when we are at the OS.Understand my comments meaning before having a rant.I didnt have time to expand on what i ment at the time.
They have spent a fortune to buy and save West Ham, and then more again to buy half of the debt so it can function properly. If anyone can even critisise them let alone verbally attack them, then those people are definitely not true hammers supporters.
bang out of order. after what him and gold have done for us, that is an absolute disgrace….the shame
There are a couple on here using the type of inflammatory words that fuel exactly what happened Sat. And as such, they are aligning themselves with a bunch of abusive morons.
I hope they feel good about that.