Sitting staring relegation in the face is not where West Ham fans would have expected to be ten years ago, saying goodbye to Upton Park with the promises of ‘world class football’ ringing in our ears. The lavish farewell celebrations, hosted by lifelong Hammers fans and media starts Bianca Westwood and Ben Shephard, brought a lump to the throat of everyone present as West Ham signed off with a superb victory over Manchester United.
Westwood has taken to twitter near the 10th anniversary of that last game at Upton Park to voice what she and tens of thousands of West Ham fans are thinking at this juncture of the club’s history.
Despite all of the promises, all of the upheaval, all of the failure and the stress of moving to Stratford, what has really changed. The fan experience is worse, the costs are higher, the travel is tougher – and the club is about to be ejected from the Premier League. As Westwood calls it out on twitter:
’10’years almost to the day. What was the point”
When challenged by a reader, she elaborated:
..”We were always relegation fodder. I’ve seen us go down enough times in 40 odd years. But if we were going to remain that way we might as well have stayed where we were.”
Exactly. Sold a pup, like the rest of us, lifelong fan Westwood made the mistake of believing the Brady and Sullivan promises of retractable seats, brilliant fan experiences, world class football – and in reality, nothing has changed. Except supporters pay more for a crap experience in a crap stadium with crap travel links and a crap atmosphere.
With the same crap owners who see the profit (or £105 million loss) in everything and the history, heritage and fan base of our proud club as merely an inconvenience to be milked relentlessly. Happy days.
What a total load of rose tinted rubbish. The Boleyn was too small, getting back to the station was a nightmare , nowhere to park etc etc. We’ve almost doubled the capacity , so many more people can attend.
Ok it’s not perfect , like the ownership , but it’s a move forward from the Boleyn .
The stadium isn’t the reason we are 18th with 2 games to go .
Moyes left an aging team that without Rice was really struggling. Lopotigo was well backed by the board but his signings just didn’t work !
Potter was a disaster and the reason we are where we are !
We could all see how poor the team was on the USA tour but he was blind to it .
The right Manager is everything! Ask Sunderland, Brighton and Bournemouth. Nothing to do with stadiums!
I don’t think Spurs will get anything at Chelsea .
We need Everton to beat Sunderland this week .
They are then going to Spurs needing to win for a European place !
Moyes could yet keep West Ham up for a third time !
How ironic could that be !
I think 4 points will keep us up .Its critical we don’t lose at Toon as assuming spurs lose to Chelsea they then have to win their final game rather than draw – big difference !!!
I am not keen on Gary Neville but he stated WH neeed to do everything to keep Nuno & the players if we go down. This is the critical message you need to be getting across to the board!!
I’ve been saying this for weeks now! Obviously Gary Neville reads my comments 😊😊😊
Couldn’t agree more with Bianca!in that if there was no ambition beyond enriching themselves, we should have stayed in reality we should have moved but to a purpose built stadium that leveraged our passion and fervour as fans to make an intimidating place for away teams to play.
Spurs only drew with Leeds and have to go to hated rivals Chelsea next. Win at Newcastle and we could be above them and have it back in our own hands
What a load of nonsense. Upton Park was a tired old stadium which had no room to expand , appalling train links in one of the worst parts of London where you were lucky to get a pie. The London stadium might not be perfect but with fantastic train links and Westfield next door with an array of restaurants I know which I would sooner visit.
For sure most fans are frustrated that we are going down but it is important we focus on the board who have badly let us down
You’ve lost the plot , Upton Park had one thing that Stratford will never have is soul !!
Westfield don’t make me laugh they don’t even want us in there after match has finished
Nostalgia won us nothing. We wouldn’t be happy whatever happened.
Misery is in our DNA. And if it isn’t, we’ll import some specially.
Exactly. Maybe our crest needs new wording under the crossed Hammers: Instead of ‘London”, add”Misery”
I watched the arsenal fans last week and they were great, cheering their fans on , same at Tottenham this evening. West ham fans ?
Waiving red cards and singing sack the board at every game.