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November 6: The day we said goodbye to a real nice guy

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It seems like an eternity but it was just 12 months ago on this date that the Hammers sacked Slaven Bilic!

I remember the man as one of the most likeable managers this club has seen who sadly showed, in the end, he was  incapable of taking the club forward.

A 1-4 defeat by Liverpool on the Saturday proved the end of the line for the likeable Croatian who had enjoyed a decent season the year before as we said our sad farewells to Upton Park.

He was summoned by the board on the Monday morning and told thanks for your services but that’s the end following a run of games which had seen the team struggling big time.

He was followed in by David Moyes of course and it looked for a while as though he would be unable to save the club from the drop.

A draw against Leicester City was followed by defeats against Everton and Manchester City before we registered our first win under him against Chelsea.

We have moved on again but some would wonder how far although we are enjoying some fine football under Manuel Pellegrini and we have a real chance over the next run of games to put the win results alongside it.

On this day though I remember a real Hammers nice guy – thanks for the good times Slav!

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Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!"

Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

0 comments

  • OldSchoolWestHam says:

    And, at the time he was sacked, we had more points than we do now.

    Moved on?

    I suspect not.

  • West Ham Fan No 32 says:

    Very nice guy but if you run a club like a holiday camp, where players decide what training they will or won’t do it’s easy to see why we were on every stat the laziest team in the PL thank god Moyes did just about enough to keep us up.

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