This disease needs to be removed from our great club

Regular CandH blogger Allen Cummings offers his most heartfelt blog yet on events on and off the pitch in Wales yesterday.

For the past sixty years I have been a supporter of West Ham United.

This is the club I have loved from boyhood to manhood and now through to a more gentler age. That makes me a Hammer for just over half the club’s entire existence.

I’ve seen most things in my time, and until recently I was happy to say to anyone who listened “seen that, done that, got the t-shirt”. Thrilled by the amazing highs. Sent to despair by the shattering lows.

I’ve worshipped truly world class players. Shaken my head at some hopeless journeymen. There have been true legends,  genuine heroes mixed with embarrassing and hopelessly inadequate villains. But through all that, it has always been about the football. That’s what really mattered.

 I can understand the frustration over yesterdays result. I was as frustrated as everyone else, not necessarily just by losing, because that’s the chance you take in competition. It was the way we lost was the real sickener for me.

But having said that, I can recall many times when a West Ham team, with better players than some of those on show yesterday, contrived to lose a game in similar fashion. So it wasn’t new, and I consoled myself in the knowledge that being West Ham we could just as likely turn in a super show next Saturday against Burnley. That’s the West Ham way.

Then to start the long, sorrowful journey home and discover what had gone on with our Vice Chairman David Gold, supposedly in the name of my club. I was lost for words. That’s #notmywestham – not the club I remember, not the club I want it to be.

And it’s surely not an aspect of the club most decent supporters like me want to be part of. Last week it was the disgraceful ‘Hitler’ banner, This week it’s the hi-jack of an 82 year old man and the abuse and intimidation to which he was subjected. How low can you sink?

Is that what we want this club of ours to be associated with? I’ve disagreed and debated with a number of people on here over a variety of issues but I respect their views and I believe they respect mine.

Sadly the people trying to tarnish my club, our club, wouldn’t know the meaning of the word. They are becoming a cancer, eating away at the very core of West Ham United.

And it’s a disease that needs to be cut out and eradicated before it’s too late!