West Ham United’s trite club statement was received with a pretty unanimous ‘so what’ (being polite..) from supporters last night as fans started to come to terms with the side’s relegation from the Premier League.
The recriminations have already begun and the finger pointed exactly where it should be, of course, at the besuited figure in the directors box who executed a smart exit yesterday rather than witness the end product of his years of shambolic mismanagement.
As Barney Ronay put it so succinctly this morning in the guardian.com:
“Why have West Ham been relegated? Relentless executive failure. The shameful squandering of resources. A complacent, low-quality management tier that has been completely outflanked by highly competent middleweight clubs elsewhere levelling up in every area, while West Ham have doodled around in their rented shopping-centre annexe.
Sullivan and his assorted close relatives in executive roles must take the blame for this….
West Ham’s entire corporate structure contains nothing but slackness, no exceptional qualities from player production to managerial hiring and firing.
This ‘relentless executive failure’ is not Kretinsky’s style: Fans will wait to see what emerges from the ashes.
This is a hugely mediocre organisation, one that has now expressed those qualities in the hard currency of results. The remaining dinosaurs will at least live to see their own investment value shredded. Or better, cut their losses and lumber off, with the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky flexing his ownership muscles.”
Normally, the club statement would be a rallying cry to assure supporters that the work to get back into the top tier begins today. However the club statement West Ham put out last night seems to suggest another year of ‘more of the same’ – more pointless rhetoric and diabolical decisions that led to the club being relegated after years of mismanagement. It doesn’t bode well.
However for fans, followers, bloggers, journalists, who like me have claret and blue in their heart – the task is simple. Love the club, support the club, follow the club but be relentless in demanding change in the boardroom. For as one reader reprimanded me not so long ago for my inaccurate verbal shorthand, Sullivan is not ‘the owner’: He just owns some shares in the company that runs our football club. For the time being.
Let’s be very clear as supporters that only one person shoulders the blame here. Yes, there have been many supporting cast members that have added their own particular brand of incompetence, but the rot always starts from the head. A very special mention has to go to Karen Brady, who has rather very cowardly run from the scene of her crime of butchering of business matters. She effectively run the club on behalf of the ownership for the last 16 years, as she had always done so previously for Gold & Sullivan. Her running away enables her to carry on the pretence that she is / was somehow a top class business woman. Having never successfully started a thriving business project of her own of any considerable note, but seemingly having turned herself into some sort of expert for the national media to fawn over is actually quite comical. Sullivans incompetence in trusting Brady to run the club business has deservedly now lost him millions in share value and a failure in footballing terms. He has to be accountable for everything that’s gone wrong. Anyway, looking forward to the near future, it’s absolutely imperative that Sullivan admits his failings and sells some or all of his shares or hands over the control and business of the club to Someone else. Is that Kretinsky ? Is he clever enough to run a good business operation that provides outcomes for the football team. The club is crying out for strong leadership or someone who is absolutely top class in running organisations. The business model has to be fit for whatever level it chooses to compete in. Right now, it isn’t fit enough for success in the championship. I actually don’t mind what level they aspire to, but just go about it in a highly competent manner. If they have ambitions of once again competing in the premier league then they need to spend work some hard graft overhauling the entire operation and not trying to run before they can walk. I must admit, my hopes aren’t that high.
So the only way too hurt Sullivan and his cronies is too hit them in the pocket and boycott buying a new season ticket as long as we keep him financially viable he Sullivan will not leave simple economics is don’t renew and starve him out not really rocket science is it but like all West Ham supporters will foolishly renew their ticket at a slight discount?? And line the pockets of Sullivan I for one will not be renewing and support my team from afar now love West Ham and it’s family but enough is enough COYI
Sullivan is an old man and old men have hobbies.
Whu is Sullivan’s hobby which he doesn’t take seriously.
With his association club will continually spiral downwards.
How many players will want to stay loyal or how many will club be able to afford.
Some hobbies cost thousands but Sullivan’s amusement has cost him millions.
Sullivan needs to sling his hook (fishing) and walk off into the sunset.
Looks like summer period will be a busy period all for wrong reasons.
Those academy players which have been dangling could now become future players.
Time to wipe the slate clean starting at the top.
Brady obviously could see writing on the wall.
I have been a hammers supporter for 50 years
I am gutted this morning
But I can now relax and my stress levels can rest until it starts all over again
Unless Sullivan and his family do the decent things and move on.
I feel so sorry for the fans, we did not deserve ithis but I am afraid the performance of the players was just not good enough and we had too many players thinking they were.too good to be dropped. Bad player recruitment and a massive amount of money wasted.
Sullivan was in charge of this and has done a shambolic job ,I would expect to be sacked if I had produced this mess for a company
Do the right thing and resign like Brady did, the one decent thing she did
Hi morning
It makes my blood boil at how poorly this club is run from top to bottom..
Then you look at the so called smaller club in the epl
Bournemouth
Brighton
Brentford
Fulham.
They have structure right the way through the club where we dont..
Yesterday has been in the making for last 3-4 seasons and the buck stops with sullivan and brady..
AN APOLOGY TO MY KIDS- sorry Martin I hope you don’t mind? I’d like to apologise to my kids for the mental suffering I have bestowed upon them by introducing them all to the world of West Ham from birth. I’m an East End boy and I have no choice, it’s in my blood & the blood of my forebears. My kids had a choice but they chose to follow the family tradition and are staunch hammers. My youngest daughter was in tears last night and I feel guilty as f*ck. they read your posts so hopefully they will get to see this. ⚒⚒⚒🏴. Rob
Hello CHH – They read Martin’s posts? Well there you go then. Please send your children my commiserations and promise them it is never quite as bad as Martin portrays.
Plus the WHU family is always here, COYI!
You’ll have to do better than that, Peter, if you want to get banned…
😊