As the Hammers subsided to their first away defeat in the Championship, long suffering supporters, who’d undertaken the 480 mile round trip to be served up a pretty spineless team performance, decided to let their team have it with both barrels.
After last week’s displeasure culminating an Hammers fans singing ‘sacked in the morning’ to their own manager, this weekend brought the players into the crosshairs as the next logical target for their ire.
As the sun.co.uk gleefully reported:
“Furious West Ham fans yell ‘you’re not fit to wear the shirt’ after dismal defeat in Scott Parker’s second game”..
..With Nuno Espirito Santo out of the job and with Scott Parker just 72 hours in, the 7,500+ travelling fans turned on their stars.
Under no illusions after the result – and the away fans’ response – yesterday: Scott Parker
..As well as booing their own goal keeper pretty much throughout, if the reports on the radio were correct.
Traditionalists will likely be aghast at the thought of fans undermining their own team in this manner, whilst those who participated no doubt feel it was the only way to show their contempt for the perceived lack of commitment and effort which those eleven representatives of the Claret and Blue heritage displayed.
Not to mention the hundreds of pounds it costs each supporter, every game, merely to arrive at the turnstiles in support of our club. But is it the ‘right’ thing to do?
For me – it’s a no. I started attending games with my son when he was ten years old and however bad it got (it was pretty dire in that season of 2003-4) we never left early, never booed our own players (Luis Boa Morte excepted, I must confess to once letting my frustration with his indolence bubble over) and always, always applauded those who’d put in a shift, regardless of outcome. And I’d not even heard ‘you’re not fit to wear the shirt‘ sung by West Ham fans in my couple of decades’ worth of attending games.
I just don’t see it helping team morale or positively influencing the final outcome. Which is, after all, the point of ‘supporters’.
Giving ‘The Sun’ another gleeful headline to point out our sufferings sticks in my throat too.
But don’t get me wrong, each has absolutely the right to their own response. Just don’t see it helping is all.
Considering how much it costs to travel to, & to get into, games – & the grossly excessive salaries the players receive – I consider that the supporters have every right to criticise what they see from the players on the pitch. It could be counter-productive, in that it upsets the players’ mindsets & effort, but what about the mindsets of those who, at least partially, pay their salaries. I don’t like to see the players get booed etc., but the supporters do have the right to express their opinions – just as they do when they cheer the players. These are professional players & yet they continue to serve up displays which are not even worthy of amateurs – who don’t get paid obscene salaries & do it for the love of the game. They should take the supporters’ criticisms as an incentive to raise their game & make an extra effort for , what could be described as, their employers.
I don’t agree with these chants, but if you are a paying customer, it is your right I suppose.
All I will say is, if Scott Parker wasn’t aware of the size of the job he has signed up for, he certainly does now. And when it comes to the goalkeeping situation, Hermandsen reminds me of Mervyn Day, a very good young keeper who came through the youth ranks, which we all really like. But through a series of unfortunate incidents, like being lobbed from forty yards on a couple of occasions, he had been reduced to a rabbit in the headlights, his nerve completely shot. John Lyall realising that in his current state of mind he wouldn’t be good enough to take us forward, did the extremely unkind but completely necessary act of removing him from the team, and go out and break the world record for Phil Parkes, and that didn’t work out to badly did it? Harsh, absolutely, but football doesn’t exist on seniment, difficult choices sometimes have to be made. Mr Parker has been around the game long enough to be well aware of this, and I don’t think he will hesitate to do whatever is required to fix this and other positions.
You clearly don’t go to many away games. It also happened at Cardiff away and Leeds away last season.
I think our fans are very poor compared to other clubs who shout and sing all the way through the game. Look at the Lincoln supporters who were all singing at 6-0 down. Our ground is like a morgue until we score and also if we go behind. Leaving before the end is the pits, when we are down we need more support than ever
This is the worst squad of players and I’ve been watching for 60 years!!
We are being beaten or draw with opposition who are extremely average BUT work hard for each other for 90 minutes and we pass the ball from side to side and backwards with zero creativity, zero pace and it’s abysmal. 100% these players need to be booed and criticized, they are pathetic, Bowen included!!
The team isn’t perfect but it’s certainly not spineless. Just look at the number of games we have come from behind in. Lacking the ability to control games, absolutely. Lacking the right balance, definitely. Lacking experience in a number of areas, certainly. It is a difficult time for sure. It affects every part of our lives but we must stick together and trust in the new head coach. He’ll make some wrong decisions but get more right. Most of us won’t agree with many of them but they are not our decisions to make. Supporting is what we are here for. You may not feel the players have earned unconditional support but we all know they need it.
I attended the WBA game with a respectful WBA fan and he was genuinely shocked at fans leaving on 70 mins and booing. He’s the same age as me (mid 40s) and couldn’t get his head round it.
I’ve been going since 87/88 so this season is like a party in the park compared to some of the dross I’ve seen. It’ll have to get pretty bad for me to boo the players.
Won’t lie I’ve boo’d a few of the managers in the past and obviously the board. Not sure I can sit there boo’ing and shouting the c bomb for 90 mins like the holiday supporter behind me the other day. Can’t waste the energy caring that much anymore or risking a heart attack.
I have trouble understanding the attitudes of an awful lot of our supporters these days. I know we’re all entitled to our opinions, and how we react is pretty subjective, but why travel all the way to Blackburn just to express vitriol when the result doesn’t go your way? As someone that has been going since 1968, and for a long period seldom missed a game, home or away, this attitude is a relatively recent phenomenon. Is it linked to a sense of entitlement that seems to be prevalent in society these days? It certainly doesn’t improve the matchday experience. I’ve witnessed far worse teams and performances that Saturday’s one that have never provoked the sort of response I’m stunned came from West Ham supporters. Who, exactly, wasn’t ‘fit to wear the shirt’? Jarrod Bowen? Ezra Myers? That chant isn’t one size fits all, you know.
And let’s be honest. For the overwhelming majority of the game, West Ham were camped in the Blackburn half faced with 2 banks of 5 defending their goal. A couple of good saves by their keeper stopped us, and if Bowen’s header had been 2 inches to the left the result would probably have been very different.
The trouble with the chant is all the players are put in the same boat. My view Kilman and the goalkeeper were poor and probably deserved it. Up front we want a centre forward, Championship is just not Tatty’s game Peroe needs someone playing with him and we haven’t got anyone who can play the target man. Scott hasn’t had a chance to change things yet and Myers was probably the best player on the pitch for us. The chants left the players with no doubt how we all feel, now if the team come out next game and start on the front foot get behind them. You can’t do one without the other!
I love it these players have got away with it for to long
Totally agree, how can it do anything but make the performance worse?
Spot on. My thoughts entirely. Our goalkeeper will also be shot to pieces with all the criticism.
Or perhaps that goalkeeper is just remarkably incapable of saving anything! Look at the second goal he didn’t even bother moving he just ushered the ball into our net. As for the idea muted in the article that we haven’t sung you’re not fit to wear the shirt before I have to ask where has the author been as we’ve sung that throughout the years. I really love the rewriting of history that goes on it makes me laugh, Allan McKnight, David Kelly, Alex bunbury, Mike small, Gary strodder, Lee chapman, rigobert song and many others in the 80s and 90s may disagree as they heard that sung at them on many occasions. The travelling fans deserve far better than the rubbish that’s being served up and I’m surprised so many fans appear to defend the dross on display, preferring to batter the fans as the underachieving prima Donna’s trudge around yet again
I no stats don’t tell the whole story, but they don’t scream out “spineless” to me. It looks more like good control of the game, chances made and missed then being caught on the break. Perhaps someone who was there can put me straight if I am mistaken
I wasn’t there but having watched The Irons since the 1970s all I can say is players, managers and owners come and go, only the fans remain. ‘Boing the team’? If they deserve it, why not? It is a privilege to play for West Ham. They should act like it and play like their lives depend on it. Killman looks as though he’s drugged and kidnapped and is not a footballer at all. No, if the team were booed I’m sure they deserved it. They’ll get a standing ovsiif they loose… so long as they try.
I wasn’t there but having watched The Irons since the 1970s all I can say is players, managers and owners come and go, only the fans remain. ‘Boing the team’? If they deserve it, why not? It is a privilege to play for West Ham. They should act like it and play like their lives depend on it. Killman looks as though he’s drugged and kidnapped and is not a footballer at all. No, if the team were booed I’m sure they deserved it. They’ll get a standing ovsiif they loose… so long as they try.