ClaretandHugh blogger Allen Cummings this morning posed the biq question: What happens next should the current owners put the Hammers up for sale.
What type of owners do we want? What kind of strategy should be put in place?
Responding Claret and Hugh follower JB15 declared: “I think it would completely depend on the wealth of the new owners?
If they were ‘GSB wealthy’, as opposed to a Man City wealthy, then we’d accept a long term strategy, honesty, transparency and actual effort in trying to achieve that goal.
We wouldn’t expect £50m signings in every position, but if the club know they need 2/3 players to avoid relegation, attempts to actually sign said players, as opposed to cheap sticking plaster loans and has beens.
As Joe Cole said, we’re not a hard bunch to please, we just want to see effort, strategy and a long term vision that runs through the club from top to bottom.”
And a second follower – Flip Gonzalez added: “Anyone who puts the club first and does all they can to make this club a success if they are City rich – brilliant
I’d much prefer us to mimic the Red Bull brand without being Red Bull, spend millions on the training grounds ( one of the future), invest in the youth and only spend say 50m on one player whilst relying on the youth system beyond that. When we semi successful buy the stadium and start again building a fortress.
Also a world class scouting network where we only target youths and bring them into the project and either sell for profit or drafted into the first team.
I also believe. There should be a clause in every managers contract that stipulates at least two youths should be drafter in to either 50% bench appearances and 25% starting every season.
I’ll tell you what the truth is – and I’m guessing most fans won’t want to hear it but here goes. We are an east end club always (apart from Magnusson) by families or individuals from the east end with eastenders mentality which is to buy cheap above quality without considering whether or not they’ll fit into the team. If we can do a deal which is close to the line as far as trangressing the laws of the game or even the laws of the land history has shown we will do it but in all honesty, if you picked any of the fans to run the club they woulddo it in the same way because, as I say, it’sthe east end mentality.
The fans are constantly lied to but would put up with that if all we had was a team full of players who would virtually die for the club together with a bit of flair.
We always fool ourselves that we are a top club but we are not. We sold our heritage and nobody knows what we done with the relatively small amount we were paid for prime real estate (I think we’ve got a good idea, and most of it wasn’t ploughed back into the club). We now rent a beautiful athletics stadium which when it comes to football is not fit for purpose but of course all that matters to the owners is that they sell 65,000 seats each year as opposed to 35,000. Talk about laughing all the way to the bank what with an annual rent of about £2.5 million and they (our owners) don’t even have to pay for the corner flags. Just where is the millions from TV rights, advertising and sponsorship, season tickets etc etc going to. Look at the net expenditure each season NOT the gross expenditure.
Oh how I wish I had walked away after that final match at the Boleyn. Why? Because it’s only West Ham United in name now. They even changed our shirt badge! Dare I say it but even the fans have changed. Us 20,000 or so season ticket holders from the Boleyn have been engulfed by 35 – 40,000 ‘tourists’. Ok, yes some will be proper fans by I doubt the majority are. We’ve even seen our own fans fighting each other. Did that ever happen at the Boleyn? I don’t think so because then we were like one big family. Doesn’t anyone think the same as me though? Make the proper fans the minority, their numbers will dwindle and the new breed will take over.
Then there’s Mrs Brady who apparently earns £1,5 million each year. Can someone please tell us what she does. Do you really think you endear yourself to the fans Baroness Brady when you appear on Lord Sugars TV program and allow him from time to time to mildly take the michael out of our beloved club without response? Shame on you!
There are many other shameful ways in which our owners and board have behaved and I’m sure other true supporters will point them out but I speak to Mr Sullivan, Mr Gold and Baroness Brady on behalf of us all to please do the descent thing and sell the club to people who really do care about it.
Who should they sell it to. Look at the model that other clubs have used. Don’t do what Newcastle have done with Ashley and what we have nearly always done in the past by selling to east end wide boys. Look to Leicester, Liverpool and Man City (Who don’t forget, were languishing in the lower leagues).
Of course none of this will happen because the Dave’s know they’re on to a great little earner. For Pete’s sake, they even have the gal to charge high interest rates on any monies they loan to the club!
Well , despite all the moaning about the owners, we aren’t going to have any this season or probably next either. Even if new owners do arrive next week they can’t change anything as the transfer window will be closed . The only positive thing the fans can do is get behind the team and try to lift the players, because everything else is just negative and counter productive. COYI.
100% Peter. COYI
I would like us to follow the Red Bull model as close as possible – would require an extensive scouting network, top class training facilities and investment in young gems across the world
It seems that ever since I was introduced to Westham in 1963 as a kid of 10, the owners of Westham have always been out for themselves (although I was too young to realize at the time). Except for the Icelanders, who had no idea and were also a bit unlucky with the financial crash. We were always a selling club under Terry Brown, who was happy to bounce between the 1st and 2nd division. Having said that we always played a decent style of football. As we found later with the Icelanders trying to buy success doesn’t work without the know-how. In come the two Davids false promises, selling dreams of grandeur. And like sheep to the slaughterhouse, we followed not realizing the impending doom that awaited.
Well, it is here. Whether by a bolt to the head or knife to the throat the end has arrived. I live in hope as we all do, that a miracle will turn it all around. But I sadly doubt that.
So what would I love to see in my twilight years, owners that truly care about the club and its supporters (similar to the Leicester set-up). But also care about the legacy of the club, (and I do admire the Red Bull concept). We are about as low as we can get, with the current owners. Therefore my biggest wish is to see them GONE!
As much as it pains me to say, Tottenham had the right idea with that massive investment they put into their training facilities before even thinking about building a new and bigger stadium. That has to have been the place to start, before the nonsense with the Olympic Stadium – they had five years to put a structure in place with training facilities before we left Upton Park, and knowing the deal that was in place, not having to make the total contribution to converting the stadium, there’s no reason why they couldn’t have put serious investment into that. What’s the point in having a big stadium if you don’t have the complete infrastructure behind it to make the team that plays there a success?
Very well put Micheal
One question I have for Hugh and the media in general is where have all these ‘truths’ been hiding for so long? Why has it not been reported that the management of the club is widely seen as a shambles? Why has is not been reported that the owners and Brady have a reputation of being jokers that no one wants to work for? Why has it not been reported that the training ground is a joke and is bettered by clubs in league one? Why has it not been reported that the clubs scouting system is non-existent?
Surely all of the above is what you expect from a unbiased media? All of a sudden they are all coming out of the closet at once. Why did no one say or report anything before?
There are simply too many people saying the same things for it now to be ignored. The owners and senior management have been publicly outed and it’s time the tide turned on them properly.
Whatever happens, whether you like or not, the one selling point for this club is the London Stadium. It may be being mishandled as present but in the right hands it was 100% the right move. No different to City moving to the Etihad. As fans we don’t like it because we love the Boleyn but we have to move on to move forward. It was never going to be as good as the Etihad because the idiots in Government messed up the whole idea behind it and it’s post Olympics use. But in time it will get better.
As for the rest of criticism, they deserve it based on what is currently being reported about them.
Time for them to go.
Hugh, how about a poll?
I’m sure they said that if their not wanted they will go. It’s time to put that to the test.
Poll being prepared – too many questions for here JK but I have regular;y blogged there has been a lack of vision at the club, have called for Brady’s dismissal and told DS to step back from doing deals. I guess while things are going ok there’s no need to go looking for issues. That may well be a wrong policy but with so much to report and just two of us not always easy to stand stuff up. We’ll try harder. I will never be defensive about our coverage. Whatever the current view of the board and the club we have always reported as given. Can do no more and will be doing the same 20 years on when I’m dead and gone to glory 🙂
In regards to the poll, what are the views in collaborating with the other fan sites and getting a poll going across them all?
I get what your saying Hugh but clearly these issues have been around for some time but personally I’ve not really seen or read anything of the scale that we’re seeing over the last couple of days.
Where do you now stand on the owners?
I believe their position is untenable and there simply isn’t enough spin available to worm themselves out of the hole they have created. They have not had to finance a stadium for years and could have invested millions into the training facilities.
I’m where I have always been on the owners JK. We are a news site…we need to find out what’s going on to the best of our ability. I have worked for DS. I know what it’s like and left. Were he to sack Brady, bring in a Peter Kenyon type coe, step back and allow people to do their delegated jobs, no problem. But clearly we can’t go on like this. It needs total change under football people or the alternative mate. But we have no assets, only a brand and a justifiably volatile fan base. These are factors potential buyers will look at. It’s never been my job to attack or defend them, just get news. I’ve answered in full because yours was a decent inquiry free of the often normal abuse