The Daily Mail’s Martin Samuel has been recognised for a long time as one of the most authoritative writers on football in the country.
He is also a West Ham fan – as is the case with many Fleet Street journos – and in his latest piece for the ‘paper has addressed the issues the club is facing right now.
It is a must read as it is balanced piece which puts the clubs many problems into an easily understandable perspective. Dare I add that it in fact parallels my own.
He looks at the latest Sunday Supplement programme and the legal challenge it brought from owners who he rightly describes as having become “super sensitive to criticism.”
He adds that many of their mistakes are hard to defend whilst some are not and once again – in our view – he is correct.
He argues that the problems at the London Stadium are not ‘the work of an efficient club’ but instead is ‘most certainly the folly of an expensively financed one.’
He goes on to address the numerous issues including of course the protests and claims – like ourselves – the stadium move was OVERSOLD .
It’s an excellent piece and a must read to all Hammers fans and you can find it at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-7958875/West-Hams-owners-David-Gold-David-Sullivan-spent-240m-taken-club-backwards.html
Disappointing article by Martin. I’m a fan of his and he programme. He clearly knows which side of his of his bread is buttered. A few points :-
Even if Sky help to finance football their presenters still be accurate.
We all know what is meant by ”hands in the till’ – Journos should be more careful.
Good idea for Geoff Shreeves to read from the AutoCue so the same mistakes aren’t made again.
Name a club whose Board hasn’t made mistake
How many cubs have owners who are also supporters
This guy usually nails it. I remember he was one of the few to get to the heart of the Tevez business.
I’m not sure I agree with his view that we needed a bigger stadium though. Everybody thought at that time that it was essential, but now we have Leicester & Wolves (ground capacities of 30-35k?) challenging for Europe. And Sheffield Utd. Everton will be there soon even if they stay at Goodison.
Not everybody thought that 65 – far too big a generalisation. I dodn’t for one 🙂
I agree an interesting piece – like our strikers over many seasons we fans now have to feed on scraps as we wait for the potential hidings by City and Liverpool to pass
Definitely there has been gross inefficiency and I shudder to think of what will happen if we are relegated
struggling to find something positive to say…
The club will never move forward properly until an experienced all ruling Director of football is brought on board to sort out the mess that has got worse and worse lately.I bet most football supporters in the Country could not name more than 2 or 3 club owners ie .Mike Ashley springs to mind for one, but everybody knows of Gold,Sullivan and Brady and they are a source of constant ridicule and this comes back onto our club and unless the players are ironclad (pardon the pun) it has to affect them on the pitch.They just will not let go of the reins and let someone run it properly and discreetly.Everyone knows our business and that is half the problem.
Good point about owners names 64
Thanks for the article. We have, as you say, read it all here too. I also think the decision not to employ Stuart Pearce with Moyes was a big mistake. Those two points thrown away will, I fear, come back to haunt us. Psycho would never, I believe, have brought on Arthur in that situation.
I do think that those in charge do need to look at how successful clubs are run. I’m not talking about your mega money, ‘we buy success’ clubs, but clubs who simply do better with the resources available to them. There are, and have been very few clubs in world football who have been able to challenge, the footballing elite over the years, but we do have at least two in the premier league right now that I can think of.
Then I think the fans need to be shown changes to most departments, this needs to happen in a clear and transparent way. Seeing those at the top let trained professionals go about thier jobs in a clear, planned, and concise manner might help relations immeasurably. Just having a proper DOF/scouting network ect would be a start.
Obviously much more needs to be planned and executed, such as improvements to the training ground, but we gave to start somewhere.
Martin Samuel says it correctly and clearly. An expensive folly, clearly badly run with no vision, no plan, no paradigm. No trusting in any manager nor capable of doing it themselves we fall into an almost not quite, nearly but never. We live the truth of our song until the bubbles become something more permanent.
They wanted so much for the fans to want the new stadium the oversold it, and because of the anger of our mismanaged club doing so badly gave that anger an outlet. Not bad people, not crooks, well intentioned, and not the worst, but just good enough to show us a dream, not good enough to fulfill it, with zero trust in anyone else to do so,
That stagnation led to decay, and IF we escape this season sooner or later we have to find a way out of this loop.
Thats the story of west ham.
The fact Martin samuel is occasionally a guest on the Sunday Supplement television show is just a coincidence is it? Not at all biased in his oppinions then.