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appyhammer78 2:55 Wed Oct 5
Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

West Ham vice chairman Karen Brady has revealed that the club had “no culture” when she was appointed six years ago.

The 47-year-old, who moved to the Hammers after David Sullivan and David Gold took over the club in 2009, is renowned for her outspoken remarks.

Brady was quoted by Owen Gibson, the Guardian’s chief Sports correspondent, on his personal Twitter account, as saying that the move to the London Stadium was an opportunity to “rebrand” the club.

The move to the former Olympic Stadium in Stratford has met with a hostile response from a large section of the West Ham.

Fans have criticised the transport links, lack of police protection, rules regarding standing during home matches and the atmosphere compared to their old stadium.

The Hammers have began the season in dismal fashion, with many believing the relocation of their stadium to be a factor.

One league win in seven games has left Slaven Bilic’s side in 18th position and in the relegation zone.

Bilic’s future in East London remains in doubt, as the Croatian boss also failed to see West Ham progress to the group stages of the Europa League. Romanian minnows Astra Giurgiu profited from the Hammers lapse.

eusebiovic 1:25 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

Russia has been dismantling their old municipal multi-use stadiums and building football only grounds for the past 10-15 years...which aside from the dodgy bribes and FIFA is why they are in a position to host a World Cup

Zenit St Petersburg is absolutely stunning

Razzle 12:13 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

Karren has 2 arseholes!

Razzle 12:12 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

Spelling police

Title Karren Brady...

First line in body...Karen Brady...

Think of it like there is only one R in arsehole and you'll get it right everytime.

GreenStreetPlayer 11:21 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

There was a lot of scepticism and concern on the move, for a number of reasons. We would of been more accepting, perhaps, if the stadium was FIT FOR PURPOSE, and not because of the size of it and the fatuation about the number of bums on seats which Peschisolido has.

It is a square peg in a round hole, quite literally.

Now we are having to "make do and mend". Great!! Sure other clubs do not have that hanging over them. Only West Ham.

CaptainBlueAndClaret 10:10 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

C&P from;

West Ham’s culture was the Boleyn Ground, the London Stadium reminds fans what they lost

http://www.eurosport.co.uk/football/premier-league/2016-2017/west-ham-culture-and-commuity-was-the-boleyn-ground-the-london-stadium-reminds-fans-what-they-lost_sto5893845/story.shtml

"Karren Brady feels West Ham United needed to create a corporate "culture" for the club by moving from the Boleyn Ground, but Desmond Kane says they have traded their greatest identity for a ground that was never built for football.

Wherever West Ham United go from here, they can’t go back.

Especially when they are being asked to fill a lifeless stadium built for another sport and buy into vice-chairman Karren Brady’s vision of a club that she felt needed upgrading away from the sadly longed for Boleyn Ground.

Brady took to social media last night to explain her position regarding West Ham's future prospects, pointing out that when she said in a speech to fellow business people on Wednesday that the club had "no culture" she was really saying that the club had no corporate culture.

Yet she has unintentionally shone a large spotlight on a truth that carries greater bite than a Neil "Razor" Ruddock tackle: West Ham's pursuit of a stronger corporate identity has actually undermined the club's spiritual culture, and what West Ham means to millions.

A few weeks ago somewhere on Spain's Costa Blanca, this onlooker was chatting to an ardent Hammers fan.

Here was a bloke who could tell me that Raymond Stewart never missed a penalty while turning out in Claret and Blue (he apparently scored 81 out of 86 in his whole career), recall Paolo Di Canio’s Premier League volley for the ages against Wimbledon in 2000 as if it were yesterday and why he had waited years to finally get the seat he wanted near the halfway line at the Boleyn Ground.

Like the Bubbles and the Boleyn, it had all gone up in the air for this particular fan after his club had spent 112 years at the old staging post. Three months at the new place already feels like too long. “I’ll never visit the London Stadium, it’s a mess. They should never have left Upton Park.”

He was a bloke stuck in a time warp. A trip back to Green Street would be too difficult, promoting a notion that his memories had been vandalised. He can't return to a demolished Upton Park nor can he visit a London Stadium he does not identify with.

This Hammers fan said he would continue to travel to away grounds, but the shiny new place was alien to him. A bit like Karren Brady’s sentiments on Wednesday when she tried to espouse the benefits of moving to the Olympic Stadium.

Wherever West Ham go from here, they can’t go back. And Brady doesn’t want to.

Defending what she said was the right move for West Ham in moving to the rebranded Olympic Stadium and the push for a new corporate culture for the club - a ground worth £701m but nothing to thousands of the club’s supporters - she unwittingly summed up why the heart and soul have simply vacated the club.

“There were two interesting things about it,” she said in addressing a business conference.

“One, it had £100m worth of debt. Two, it had no what I would call culture. At football clubs we don’t make anything, we don’t manufacture anything, we don’t really produce anything other than more players.

“So getting the culture right, being a place where something is expected of you, having discipline, planning and process and strategy. That wasn’t there."

Brady pointed out that moving to the London Stadium was key to the “rebrand” of the club.

Yet this is a ground that has failed to address the issue of a running track that put a telling space between the home fans and the players.

“Rebranding ourselves was really important with our stadium," said Brady. "We’re in the London Stadium. We added the word London to our crest because we felt it had real global appeal."

Like Arsenal’s move from Highbury to the Emirates, they know that tourists can fill the 60,000 seats because they are in London. Yet at what price?

The London Stadium might have been right for Usain Bolt in London 2012, but is not for Slaven Bilic in the capital of Brexitland in 2016. Bilic was a defender who used to get high on defending West Ham's honour at the Boleyn Ground, but where is the honour in the London Stadium? The folklore of the Boleyn is gone, and that is dreadfully depressing.

Whether or not you agree with the sentiment, Brady's address to business sums up the juncture we have reached. Premier League football clubs no longer refer to fans as fans, they are customers.

West Ham are not a club, but a brand selling a product. And the only currency that seems to matter is how much money they are reeling in. Not what your average working class West Ham fan supping Saturday afternoon ale is likely to think.

Brady is a chairperson who thinks that a club who gave the world Geoff Hurst, Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Billy Bonds, the Claret and Blue, the club’s Iron identity, and a passing tradition to rival Barcelona required a rebrand. But the reboot has left the former Apprentice frontwoman entering a dragon's den of unhappy West Ham fans. Winning may soothe the malady, but it will never make the London Stadium the new Boleyn.

Brady has not addressed the issue of how a club which had arguably the most raucous atmosphere in the gentrified environs of the Premier League suddenly look like lost souls in a ground that seems too big for them.

Middlesbrough fans were bouncing on a giant tarpaulin inside the London Stadium like they were at having a day out in an amusement arcade. It makes the Arsenal's hushed Emirates Stadium feel like a trip to La Bombonera.

Arsenal lost their identity when they abandoned Highbury in 2006 because it was too small, West Ham have swapped the irreplaceable sense of community they had for the empty sheen of profit and a corporate culture.

The pie and mash and pints will never go down as well in Stratord as it did around Green Street. You cannot buy identity or atmosphere.

You cannot hoist a culture or community over your shoulder when you leave your old house.

“We are in the Olympic Stadium, we have limited outside debt and we are ranked 15th in terms of brand values," said Brady. "We were 115th when I joined the club. We’re now 20th in the Deloitte Money League. ”

West Ham are producing a film about moving to the London Stadium called 'Iron Men'. It should perhaps be called 'What We Lost In The Fire'.

Wherever West Ham go from here, they can’t go back. The Bow Bells have been silenced forever."

Desmond Kane

WHU(Exeter) 9:35 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

of course the club had a culture, it's just that she happens to dislike that culture.

presumably Sullivan will have a big hand in changing the culture, really hope so, because if his house his anything to go on...

eusebiovic 8:59 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

It was so bad that the 3 of them decided to make Terry Brown life president...

To think...we had Jack Petchey and we ended up with that Muppet instead...at least we would be in a purpose-built football stadium in the area where the OS is now

normannomates 5:23 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

Private dancer 4.39

Private Dancer 4:39 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

The stadium move was always going to go hand in hand with all the corporate bollocks, it was never just about moving the furniture and relocating Ken's cafe outside the new place. The outrage of it all is weaing a bit thin now. The club has changed forever. We're just left with the memories.

normannomates 3:52 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

Jimbo2 = Paul pescicalido

normannomates 3:49 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

She needs 're fucking branding

Rusty Kuntz

Gavros 1:43 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

I better have a word with WHETSTONE and report back.

jimbo2. 1:36 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

Well maybe she is right? I'm not a great fan of hers, but she has done a bloody good job for us! I just don't understand all the hatred & vitreole she & sometimes our owners get. We nearly went bankrupt & have come a long way since then!

Pedro 12:45 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

Sean is "claret and Hugh". What did he say?

simon.s 12:36 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

Two nil up against Watford the atmosphere was pretty good, standing and stewarding issues aside. Never underestimate the power of a good victory. We fucked that game up royally, and people rightly had a moan.

It's very easy to say winning won't change things, when we're not actually winning. Had we have started like last season, things would have certainly been different. I'm convinced of that.

B6NY B 12:27 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

This 'Sean'

B6NY B 12:26 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

This season is in talk sport. FUCKING DRIP OS'er SPASTIC CUNT.

'We've had a few teething problems' understatement of the year cunt.

theaxeman 12:23 Thu Oct 6
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

Who said Upton Park couldn't have been made even bigger than 42k after all the cunts up the road have permission for 61k in a similarly urban area. The will wasn't there from the 3 stooges ultimately

Hasans Fish Bar RIP 11:58 Wed Oct 5
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

Alf

I'm getting a bit pissed off with people telling me its about results and the uproar at the stadium would be a murmour. I thinks that really insults our intellogence , well i think it does mine anyway. West Ham for me was never ever 100% about results. Which sounds counter intuitive to some but wasn't for me. Wins on the board will not make the stands cover the track anymore, wins will not eradicate the (as crassus puts well) demographic cleansing of our core support. Wins on the board will not mean I can walk where I want to after a game without being told I can't by stop/go wankers or Westfield staff. Wins will not make me feel any better about being lied to constantly and being conned by reservation centre staff.

dicksie3 11:57 Wed Oct 5
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

So, we're getting 57k now but 42k would've been enough for us?!

Dear fucking Lord!... LOGIC!

I guess that CRYSTAL PALACE are our main rivals too?!

Sydney_Iron 11:26 Wed Oct 5
Re: Karren Brady Makes Scathing Assessment Of West Ham When She First Arrived

100

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