Guest blog by Terry Driscoll
As a young lad I remember asking my great uncle if he ever went to watch West Ham play and his reply made me smile: “Not since they moved from the memorial ground son, Upton Park isn’t even in West Ham, they shouldn’t be allowed to use the name they should change it to East Ham United”
This left me puzzled as our family were all Canning Town Hammers fans and I’d always assumed that West Ham played in West Ham. My dad says explained that West Ham was the area from Stratford in the north down to Canning Town and Plaistow and East Ham was to the east of that up towards Barking.
My family settled in Canning Town when my great grandfather migrated from Cork in Ireland and found work as a stevedore in the docks. He later worked for Thames Iron Works and his sons, my grandfather and great uncles, and his grandsons, my Dad and uncles all worked for Harland and Wolf and the Port of London Authority.
West Ham was their home and their place of work so I suppose my great uncle felt betrayed when his football team moved to the neighbouring parish. He must have complained about the heritage of the club and how it was the Thames Iron Works team not a bloody East Ham team.
He probably even complained that it was supposed to be a sports club as the club Memorandum of association clearly states that it is a Football and Athletic club formed to promote the sports of football, cricket, lacrosse, hockey, Polo (yes really), lawn tennis, bowling, quoits, bicycle and tricycle racing, running and jumping and motor car racing. How were they going to do that at a ground where they didn’t even have a running track around the pitch?
So we move on 100 years and the football club moves ground again but this time it’s ok because they are moving back to West Ham! They’re also moving to a ground like the old one with a proper running track! Great uncle Mike would be thrilled if he were still alive.
He would also be puzzled by all these ‘new’ fans complaining that by moving the club to Stratford the owners were stealing the club’s heritage and moving from our spiritual home. What do they know?
So the point I’m trying to make here is that we are in the midst of a civil war between supporters and owners and it’s being stirred up by people who have an opinion about what the club should and shouldn’t be.
The truth of the matter is that it is all about perspective. This move will become part of the history of the club. The true fans will stay true and support the team no matter which league we’re in, or manager we have or indeed whoever owns the club and who knows, one day they might be writing about the dark years when West Ham moved away from it’s spiritual home to far-flung East Ham.
Thanks Terry, for a perspective which must be a very inconvenient truth for many fans.
The Olympic stadium still isn’t a football ground fit for football..it’s as simple as that..
Nor was the cabbage patch at Canning Town, although it might be convenient to overlook that.
Love that Terry what a great piece.
Maybe in the not so far future we can buy the stadium and turn it into a proper home.
It was always East Ham to me as well . Even my Grandfather said the same . West Ham United has always been in “ East Ham “ .
With all this moderation stuff going on I reckon I’ll stop posting .. goodbye .
Wish The Hammers all the luck in the World . My Team since childhood .
There is a lot of hysteria flying around at present and perhaps being a site for older, less volatile supporters, it is no surprise that many on here have reacted to alarm toward the idea of a march. Many, including I, feel that the owners have made a right horlicks of running the club. I do not buy that they saved the club as they like to project. They made a calculated financial investment . I do not deny that David Gold in particular has strong feeling for the club but that was what they did ; they invested. The club remains in more or less the same amount of debt and both Gold and Sullivan who hold the majority of the loan, have been paid interest; quite a lot. Recruitment has been dreadful – 37 strikers or is 38 with an average return of 4 goals tells its own story. The managers have been pretty **** poor too apart from Sam who did a job and whose tenure came to a natural end. The move to the bigger stadium – smart in principle- has been handled appallingly in practice. The board have consistently failed to live up to their proclamations culminating in a transfer window where a team creaking in every department was actually weakened further . The board are rocked by the idea of the march which is why they have done much to destabilise the notion but I think if you feel vexed; it is important to march. As things stand they can always dismiss social media angst and idiots confronting old men as the work of the fringe but the march will , one way or another, give truth or lie to that proposition. And if it is a success it will concentrate minds and give a mandate to the pressure on the board to do the right thing and we’ll never see transfer windows like the last three again. That is why I am marching the board can not be allowed to live in a bubble and before anyone replies that the march will hurt the team on Saturday – I don’t agree- if we end up being relegated it won’t be because of a march but rather years of mismanagement at every level.
Well said
Not sure you’re entirely correct about timing and the calculation of opportunity; Sullivan owned around 25% of the club back in the early nineties and was denied a place on the Board by Cearns and Brown. That’s when he sold up and bought into Birmingham. So it’s not like he didn’t have an ongoing desire to own West Ham, simply that he couldn’t. When Eggbert and the Icelandics took over (and compulsorarily bought ALL shares, including my one), he couldn’t be part of the gig, but when they so spectacularly failed, he finally achieved his aspiration. Not exactly a series of well planned events, was it?
We have some very good players but they don’t put the work in on the pitch. Is there any point at which they can shoulder any of the blame? if we were winning games then there wouldnt be a protest. The players need a good kick up the rear and one of the problems is that we don’t have a leader on the pitch.
At first glance, the ‘civil war’ as you put it, isn’t about a single issue. If you look at the list of complaints leading up to the decision to march, the real issue that seems to be common across them, is the board’s inability to make a commitment and stick to it.
Personally I’ve gotten over the stadium move, but the club keep shooting itself in the foot with smaller failed commitments, like claret astroturf, or wifi not being delivered, etc. I am sure most fans eyes roll when they hear this nonsense. The biggest whopper was obviously the ‘next-level’ promise, which frankly was unforgivable.
When you couple this with the increasing use of the term ‘asset strippers’ by more and more fans, its a worrying time and there’s a lot of distrust out there, which for most normal businesses would be very dangerous. The latest example which creates unnecessary suspicion, is why hav’nt the accounts been published on time? In addition why is David Gold still telling half truths on Twitter about not taking any money out of the club?
People are just fed up with being treated like idiots.
tw in answer to some of your failed commitments, the club has no control over the colour of the astroturf or the wifi only the stadium owners can make those decisions. I believe the club offered to the pay for the astroturf but the offer was turned down. As far as the accounts, they were lodged on the 28th February but because Companies House was closed due to the weather they will not be released until this week.
I agree that promises were made about the next level but we had a manager at the time who we now know, that although we all loved him, had certain deficiencies. Moyes has had one transfer window, he didn’t get the players he wanted for what even reason. Hopefully we will stay up and he is given the chance to have a team HE wants for next season.
Agree with that Frenchie, well said Moyes got sweet FA in the window am fairly certain Hugill wasn’t his choice, he has less than 20% shooting accuracy, Mario is a good player who will hopefully step up. If Moyes does get a window am fairly certain the team will be very different next season COYI!!!
Trouble is that other teams are fighting for survival
Ms French, your inclination to blame most issues on the last manager, is remarkably similar to the excuses wheeled out by members of the board?
The contrast in approach between our club and others already at ‘the next level’ is remarkable. If our board had lost faith in Bilic at the start of the season, they should have dealt with the situation then, rather than limping on until they could unconvincingly appoint the current manager and begin the cycle all over again.
As for the accounts, come off it. A company has 9 months to get them in – it was a miserable snowbound weekend, not a new ice age.
Absolute quality read.
Terry’s article is fascinating. The history of a family interwoven with the origin of the Club; the reminder of the way we construct identity and belonging around a misnomer: West Ham United actually sited in Upton Park/East Ham. That really captivated me. Compelled me to listen up. Yes, it’s all a matter of perspective. Terry’s article encourages pause and reflection, helps us to wind our necks in, my own especially.
Have the diverse stakeholders who comprise the Club disintegrated into ‘civil war’? Let’s briefly consider this question. This may seem a weird digression but back in the day when I was a student at the LSE (1971-74) a lecturer speaking about the so-called Irish ‘troubles’ (surely they were British-Irish troubles…perspective again) made the point that civil breakdown – terrorism, sectarian violence, rioting on the streets – is typically a consequence of the political system not delivering to its stakeholders what it should. Essentially, a failure to maintain open communication between the government and the electorate, resulting in a loss of belief in political change being achieved through discussion, dialogue and negotiation. Is there a lesson here for the Club’s owners?
One of the problems at ‘our’ Club is the lack of opportunity for genuine dialogue. That is, open and transparent discussion with those who hold ‘power’ within the club. Without a way of communicating the various ‘perspectives of frustration’ within the fan base and without a sense of people being listened to, the next step can only be dissent, disorder, revolt and ‘civil breakdown’. Protest is very much a final resort when a group of people believe their perspective is not being acknowledged or taken seriously.
So if the Club is caught within a ‘civil war’, as Terry and other contributors suggest, then a question about effective two-way communications between the fan base and the Club’s owners, driven by raw passion for the Club and its future, deserves to be asked. As to whether the Club is in the grip of ‘civil war’ and who might be to blame for this is also a matter of perspective.
Mr Gold was callously abused and that was wrong. Irrespective of the competence of the owners/board. But, as perspective is always ‘on the move’, one has to question Mr Gold’s judgement in getting out of his car to confront fans. Is this an ideal way to foster dialogue? On the other hand, Mr Gold was probably moved by raw passion to speak out about the way he feels, frustrated, misunderstood and misrepresented, perhaps, and not unlike the fans who confronted him. All in all, there are multiple perspectives vying to be heard here. The problem is there’s no real forum for the different views of a quite diverse fan base to be heard by the owners. The owners have the privileged and powerful position of speaking down to the fan base and not speaking with the fan base. There is a Club responsibility, no blame or edge in this statement, to take the lead, to set the tone in this matter. Fans have a duty to respond to an navigation to dialogue in a constructive manner. A minority of meat heads will always screw things up for the decent majority.
We all have a valid perspective on our Club and its predicament as we now slide towards relegation. A dog fight ensues. Let’s hope those around us continue to lose. All of us have Hammers provenance; we all have Irons in the blood. My Mum played piano at the knees-up ‘do’ when her cousin married Jim Barrett Jnr. Jimmy Ruffell is a first cousin to me, albeit three times removed. I did my ‘A’ levels at Southend Tech and played in the same college football team as a prematurely retired Martin Britt; whose elder brother was my school teacher. My son played on the Boleyn for Swindon Town reserves against golden oldies like Jimmy Quinn, Rio, Leroy Rosenior, Steve Jones et al. Truth is, perspective is born of deep personal identification as Terry’s delightful posting makes clear. We all have a personal Irons/Hammers story to tell. And while this makes for powerfully deep affiliation with a club, a tribe, a location, a mythology….it also makes standing back and demonstrating respect for others’ perspectives, different from our own, a very difficult challenge indeed. For the most part it’s a challenge that is handled well by all who contribute at C&H. Thanks Terry.