Social media seems to be in meltdown regarding the on/off march in Stratford on March 10th but you’ll excuse me if I distract you for a moment.
As many will already be aware, West Ham’s fixtures have all been rescheduled for the month of April to accommodate television programming. Unfortunately this seems to have had a major impact on many overseas supporters groups and in particular the Belfast Hammers who sent me this video yesterday.
In short they had already booked flights, hotel and tickets for the Stoke game safe (or so they thought) in the knowledge that the unglamorous fixture would not be switched. This has incurred huge disruption and cost and as I’ve seen from the messages I’ve received since publishing the video it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
I believe there should be an absolute outcry over this. I’m not personally affected but, as an overseas Hammer who needs to get it organised well in advance to get to a match, I totally empathise with the Belfast mob.
I understand the importance of TV money in the game but surely there has to be some respect for the fans, without whom the game and all the money involved would not exist.
Even if they have to fiddle around with times and switching between Saturday and Sunday surely, as a compromise, it would not be too much to ask that the Monday night games were locked in months in advance, not 6 weeks?