Nigel Kahn looks over a new season of discontent and believes rank and file fans showing a hostile reaction are not necessarily responding to what’s happening on the pitch but to what’s happened in the past couple of years.
Sack the board, sack the board, sack the board” the chants rang out during the first half of the Tottenham game, perhaps a reflection of what was happening before our eyes as yet again a season an inept performance was being played out.
It goes deeper than that though. This is not just frustration from the debacles of recent weeks; it goes back far further and links into the marketing of the move and the way rank and file West Ham fans feel generally about the club.
When the owners bought the club, they proceeded to what I describe as launcing a project called: ‘Modernise West Ham United.’ With Brady on board they changed the culture, to use her own words, of the way they wanted West Ham to be seen. No longer would we be the poor relations of top flight London, they wanted us to be the LONDON club, effectively they wanted to change the DNA of the club.
No longer would just scraping by making do. No longer did they want the glorious victories over the big boys fragmented by the embarrassing defeats by the minnows and the annihilations when the big boys came back.
We all know how they set about doing that, change the stadium, Bigger is better in the modern day football world, Change the badge, cross hammers is fine but were not East London, we are LONDON, as the badge screams. When players are unveiled, The subliminal message is there even in the background, the images are the London skyline, not the east London skyline. They want the world to come to see us and know who we are.
All good sentiments im sure, but does it resonate with the rank and file fans.
At the Boleyn, apart from 2015/16, there was around 20,000 season ticket holders, fans that would generally attend 95% of all home games no matter what the result was, nor the performance the week before. I may be generalising but I reckon most realised that the chances of a top 10 finish was borderline, and that a good cup run was getting to a quarter final, personally that was my bench mark.
Fast forward to now, is that benchmark acceptable?
The 20,000 season ticket holders is now 50,000, a big big uplift no doubt about that, but the 30,000 new season ticket holders didn’t materalise from thin air. When the season ticket capacity at the Boleyn was 26,000 why did we only hit that the season after the FA cup final in 2006 and in the last season. What changed at the club?
Well, The DNA of the club.
No longer were we going to be the unpredictable West Ham, the team that scrapes by, getting beat by the lower teams only to then turn round and beat the reigning champions. Mid table obscurity or relegation scraps is not for the new west ham, no sir, we will be propelled into the big league, that seemingly closed shop at the top of the table, we will be propelled into to the Next level.
And so, a success starved fan base came back to the fold, wanting to see this new dawn, accepting the modernisation, accepting of the wiping away of the Family friendly back street East end culture that actually, made the club what it was.
Not happening though is it, with every Brighton game that is followed by a Tottenham in the cup game, what is evident is that on the pitch, the same old West Ham is there. Down on its knees, but then comes out fighting when the chips are down.
Great when it comes off, but that generally is only 25% of the time.
Problem with that, is that a lot of fans thought those days were gone, the realization that we are still the same old West Ham just in a different ground is too much for many, and so like the cheated on spouse, they turn on those they perceived to have cheated them, in this case, the board.
My biggest fear about the move was what happened if West Ham simply stayed as West Ham in a different stadium. Would the fans that watched in pubs, that came every other game or every third game, or even had stopped altogether but now wanted to come back, stay, or would they go back to what they had done for the previous years, shrugging their shoulders saying: “Well we gave it a go.”
Allied to that are the fans, small in number but still not insignificant, who now feel so detached from the club they once loved, who can’t accept an athletics stadium can be an upgrade on a smaller football stadium.
They walk away, still on love, but a tainted love of a divorced couple. Unlike like marriage though, you can’t fall in love with another, generally football fans are monogamous and love for life.
Our owners are top business man and like all top business men they come with egos, they want a legacy to be left, they want to be the people that took little old West Ham and made them a global team.
Problem is, their legacy at the moment is one of destruction of a way of life for many of those rank and file, personally, I will never forgive them for that.
Traditionalist, Dinosaur, Luddite, – I’ve been called them all, but hand on heart, are we really a better club now than we were five years ago; more importantly will we be a better club in years time, because if the answer is no, then I hate to think what the fans will be chanting. be.
The views expressed here are those of the blogger and are not necessarily shared by ClaretandHugh
I agree with a lot of that. Good article. I have become disenchanted with the owners in the last two seasons. They will argue it is early days & the benefits of the new stadium are just taking time to come through. But I agree we have not changed ENOUGH in regard to performance / player quality but are now doing it in a rubbish stadium. Also, all the marketing things you mention have been brought in, but there is still a frightening amateur approach to recruitment of players/ managers. We have not moved with the times on those big issues. I can’t speak for other fans but these are the things I want see brought up to date- not the glossy rubbish. And since in my opinion the increased attendances are not going to move us up the table ( the tv money means Saints,WBA, Stoke maybe even Burnley can compete) I would rather we were doing our usual struggling at the Boleyn. I know that you can’t turn that clock back but it means I will not forgive G& S for moving us out unless they quickly put the other things right.
+1. Nige lol, that’s me you are talking about !! I will not and never will accept the athletics track as home simply because it isn’t ! Period !! Soulless !! No ghosts if you know what I mean !! Every time I walked into the old girl I felt ghosts , a past. A way of life, a smell !! That may sound dramatic to some who have never had the pleasure of experiencing what us oldies if you like have witnessed ! A different time , a different era , when we had jack shyte but spent what we had on a Saturday afternoon going to be entertained , win or lose it was real ! Not this sham that’s ripped it from us simply for business and legacy gains as you say ! I’ve attended seven cup finals in my time , so you can see my POV is from the heart !! The present owners have a huge legacy of their own that they need to bring on track , and quickly , there’s no turning back and the next level befitting all the bravado needs to start being seen ! If not as you say nige , they will not be around for much longer ! But we will !!! 😉 Coyi,s
100% agree but what do I know !! I am one of those people that would rather keep slav and get rid of the Board !!
As they say bil ! It will all come out in the wash eventually !! 😉
Yeah I also agree Nigel with what you are saying…Still my club but not quite with the same love anymore because it’s been changed so much in such a short space of time…I also will never forgive the present owners for what they have done to the ‘old’ West Ham, which has been sadly lost forever..the only people that will benefit from this move is them not the supporters in the short term.. And what I mean by that is when they sell the club as they will never have the financial clout to compete with the top clubs….
Excellent article Nigel. Sums up exactly my feelings but I could never put it so well. The deadly deed is done unfortunately so we’re stuck with it for the foreseeable future. Unless we get the opportunity to buy, the ground and some body comes in to buy the club. Hopefully it can then be turned into a football ground. It will never be the same as our old home but we can at least improve it 200% on what it is at the moment.
I agree with the narrative and line of questioning, but I embrace the new. And it’s about longevity – I’ve been a STH for years and going since ’67. It’s different, it’s not as intimate, and we have – apart from the occasional victory – dismally failed lived up to the promise. But it was ever thus – being pretty crap most of the time and giving our fans a steady lifetime of vaguely entertaining – but largely unsuccessful – football sprinkled with the odd sparkling victory to cling onto was, and still is, the West Ham Way. Our buying star strikers who turned out to be crap once they pulled on the claret and blue didn’t start with Benni McCarthy and Zaza; I recall John Radford back in 1976 (P28, G0).
My emotional attachment to ‘the old girl’ evaporated years ago when it became clear she would be one of the main limiting factors that would hold us back as everyone else modernised. I don’t want to be Burnleys equal in the world’s eyes; I really do want my club to be up there and not cut adrift. Upton Park was a crumbling edifice that many of us ridiculed when the Disneyland towers were added. Whether we like it or not, an extra 20,000 on every home gate is a desirable thing; new blood, not just old relics like me have to be able to support their team and UP stopped that as we simply couldn’t fit them in. In reality, while lots of us don’t like the change, it was necessary. I’m sure when we moved from the Canning Town Memorial Ground in 1904 some people complained, but UP was the new home and now those people are all forgotten.
The main problem Nigel identifies – and other posters reiterate – is the matter of failure to deliver on the ‘promises’ made about the move and our development. The issue of ‘the Owners’ isn’t really fair, since I think we’d all be much angrier if we were saddled with a bunch of far Eastern businessmen or a Russian oligarch who just regarded us as a toy to complete his set. For every Sheikh Mansour and a Roman Abramovic there’s a Randy Lerner – or, dare I say it – an Icelandic biscuit baron.
So what’s really the problem?
Maybe our biggest problem is the fact that our Owners are fans, and they don’t have that detachment that sees a manager sacked after nine games. Maybe Bilic is the root of the problem – they have stuck with him when many clubs would have cut him loose long ago. It’s not really Karren Brady, who’s just a business woman doing what she’s paid to do. Sullivan is actually a revelation compared with his predecessors Terry Brown and the Cearns family; they were the polar opposite – silent, aloof and introverted; to them we were just there to keep them in place without comment or justification. Of course, they didn’t have have the benefit of social media to embarrass themselves.
Which brings me on to whether part of the problem is actually us. We now have the ability to express our personal views on forums like this, when there are lots of us who whose mates would ignore them if they started talking in a pub. We can sustain those views over a long period to a wide audience with little effort, and some of us do. But social media and websites are part of a malaise in the way that news and commentary are now carried. If one lazy website writer writes a piece of fantastical rubbish claiming, say, ‘the players are in revolt and have told Sullivan that they want Bilic sacked’, it will get picked up and copied by a dozen other lazy websites and in twelve hours will be seen as ‘factual news’. Maybe Donald Trump has a point.
Maybe we take statements of aspiration, hopes and dreams too seriously; did anyone really expect us to be a European force within 18 months of moving? If the new place is soulless, that’s our fault. Only we can make it otherwise. When Andy Carroll scored ‘that goal’ against Palace or when Lanzini scored against Spurs, I never heard anyone say ‘it would have been so much better if I’d been ten yards closer’ or ‘I couldn’t see it over the running track’. It’s up to the team to deliver something to shout about, and us to provide the support and backdrop. The club is us, and always will be.
No matter where we are playing.
Excellent response Demon puts more perspective on the whole issue.
I am in your club Demon, I am fairly certain that in 10 years time the fans will seem not dissimilar to when we were at UP, like you I hated the changes made at UP that changed the feel of the place, nostalgia is all well and good but it is history I want to see us creating it rather than harking back to history. Everything changes all the time it’s upto us to adapt and make the best of it as it always has been. The point about the chairmen was also well made I would rather them than our former ones, I would like us to be more innovative and professional despite the move the club feels a good few miles off from the approach of the most successful clubs and the chairmen can fix that but I am not sure they understand what it takes, time will tell until then COYI!!!
One of the most reasoned balanced and well written comments I’ve seen on here or any other west ham-related site
I too agree with much Nigel says here, although I do accept that progression (or more to the point, just keeping pace with others) was not achievable had we chosen to stay put. Primarily because the old girl could not be redeveloped and eventually would have become a factor in holding us back.
The single biggest issue is we went for an unsuitable, cheap option, which is par for the course for our owners. Liverpool were fortunate enough to be able to build up Anfield, whilst the likes of Arsenal and Spuds found the optimum solution in my view, and have, or are, invested in purpose built football stadia. Yes the financial risks are greater, but the outcome is one which suits the fans and ultimately the whole football club. They remain close to their spiritual homes, the views/atmosphere are what you’d expect, (although I accept Aresnal have work to do in this space, but that’s down to their fans, not the ground), and the club can grow as a collective. Our board saw an opportunity which delivered financial opportunities, and they proceeded to make promises on the back of that. They did not effectively consider or tackle the challenges faced with moving us into an athletics stadium which clearly is not suitable for football, or how this would prevent that collective transition needed for the club to grow.
Perhaps future generations will not remember the Boleyn and attitudes will change, (i know folk who say well at least i can watch ganes now, which i never could had we stayed), and thats a fair point, but for now we have a dysfunctional football club with unhappy fans, broken promises and a growth plan which went off course from day one due to a lack of proper planning.
My guess is this will all turn out alright in the end, but as I’m one of the oldies who enjoyed 30 years at the Boleyn, I feel like I’ve been promised a Ferrari and given a Reliant. Which takes me nicely back to our only fools owners!
Well said Demon it about time someone said how it is i agree with everything you said
Great piece by Nigel, enjoyed reading that and agree with his analysis.
Of course football develops and so do clubs, including us.
A stadium move as such is not a problem.
HOW we moved and into what we moved is the issue.
I am not sure our board are so much better than others. Just because we have been subjected to mainly crap owners in our history doesn’t mean it has to be thus forever.
I think the board have their private accounts far more at heart than West Ham, but maybe that’s just me. I’m not sure that them being British makes them better owners per se compared to Russian or Arabian owners.
For sure Gold, Sullivan and Brady have changed this club more than any previous owner, and I suppose ten years from now we can assess more realistically what their decision making has done to West Ham.
Great pieces Nigel and Demon.The owners will never take away West Ham, the ups and downs, the memories hopes and dreams. What I simply cannot bear is the way these owners take supporters for mugs and fail,even as alleged supporters, to conduct themselves in the true traditions of our club:the class and approach of our true legends (you know who they are) replaced by shouty ego filled nonsense.
My true hope is that these guys sell up, we redevelop the ground and move on. For me we will never have enough oil wells to win the league (does tha5 matter as a West Ham fans but I do want to be entertained, watch a team that cares and once in while turns over a top side and has some decent cup runs. With that the stadium will improve…there is no going back right or wrong.
And under those crap owners we had greenwood and lyall , who took us to Wembley many times because they were in charge of the team and brought in who they needed and promoted youth lol! The common denominator here is buying and promoting British !
Wearing and playing for the shirt , those times are gone , its all about the paypacket and moving on when a different club offers more !! West ham will never be west ham as we once knew! We might as well moved to hackney marshes for what this move has achieved ,and the greed and self preservation of the current owners ! This parrot is dead mate , what we get from now on is exactly what is on offer now , the sport needs millions and its that that has killed the British game , add to that the current board cannot compete with the big boys which means we either get lucky on the player front or a change of owners will be a necessary process , , there is no going back that’s a nailed on fact , all I know from a personal view is I am not enjoying any of it , and never will lol , its just not my west ham anymore ,
I get the fact we need to move with the times , but I can’t embrace it !! To long in the tooth as they say ! All we can do as said above , go support and see what happens , that’s it !!😉