When social media gets it so wrong – we are United!

Before I begin, imagine the music from the the old Hovis adverts, the brass band playing that old slow sad song….are you with me? Ok.

I miss the days of teletext. The anticipation of waiting for page upon page of stuff you had no interest in, & taking longer to switch to another page than it takes Benni McCarthy on a visit to a Pizza Hut buffet. Eventually you will get to the West Ham section and you would be greeted with little to no news at all, and certainly not anything of note.

But despite this you waited for the pages to go around again (for another week or two) in the hope something had been updated. But no. you got nothing but blurred vision waiting for news on the teletext/ceefax services

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Compare that to nowadays, when we have 24hr news, dedicated sports stations on both TV and radio, and more “in the knows” than you can shake a stick at. We even have owners family sending out snippets of info, no doubt secured by holding a glass up against  the old man’s office wall.

This is all as great as it is depressing. While we all rejoice at the good news and the exciting rumours, the flip side is that anyone who dares to offer a view or an opinion that is different from the masses, is often ridiculed, personally insulted and loyalties questioned.

When did we all revert back to the playground antics?

Social media gives everyone a voice, no matter how smart, dumb, nasty or nice they are. We  have all  had our moments dealing with trolls, but I was astonished at some of the comments my fellow Hammers have received this last week over when daring to express a negative ( or even a non positive) opinion on Stratford.

People who  have spent more of their life with a season ticket than without being called “fake fans”  and being told to “give your s/ticket to a true fan” or simply “don’t come back”.

This is ridiculous to me. You are no less a fan of West Ham if you question the club, than if you blindly believe/obey everything they tell you like a lovestruck teenager. If you think everything they do is bad you are probably a bit simple, likewise if you think they do no wrong, you too probably lose at noughts and crosses more than the average person, or look at the sun and mutter “ooh, shiney shiney”

We need checks and balances. We need a round of applause and acknowledgement when things are done well, as much as we need people to be held to account and informed when they get it wrong.

Exactly whether Stratford is wrong or right is open to everyone’s own interpretation. My mind is far from made up as I’ve seen pictures that make me grin like a Cheshire Cat, and others that make me pull the face you do when you’re stuck in a lift Big Sam used after he’s been out on a curry Thursday at the local Wetherspoons.

Ultimately, having a different opinions makes us no less or more of a fan than we were before the move. It just means we are passionate and care about the club. As it says on the tin we are West Ham United. Not West Ham divided. Disagreement is fine, but disrespect?

Let’s unite and get behind the boys this Monday and show that 13year old west London outfit what proper fans sound like.

#COYI