Evening Standard
David Sullivan must take a step back – West Ham need a chief executive to direct the club
KEN DYER
What occurred at the London Stadium on Saturday was unpleasant, unacceptable and for some - such as club legend Sir Trevor Brooking, captain Mark Noble, and members of the club’s triumphant FA Cup-winning side of 1964 who were there as special guests - just plain sad.
Centre of the storm | Irate West Ham fans turn their anger on club co-owner David Sullivan in the directors’ box at the London Stadium on Saturday Photo: Christopher Lee/West Ham United via Getty Images
As Sir Trevor will be only too aware though, it is not the first time that a section of West Ham fans have shown their displeasure in a similar way.
In the 1991-92 season when the club, on the back of promotion, decided in their wisdom to introduce a bond scheme, there were various pitch invasions including one where a fan took it upon himself to sit down in protest on the centre spot at the Boleyn Ground. West Ham were relegated that year.
In 1996-97, when they were again struggling to stay in the top division and the then chairman Terry Brown refused to sell to Michael Tabor, there was a ‘red card’ protest and another pitch invasion. The club stayed up, largely because they responded by investing significantly in two strikers, John Hartson and Paul Kitson.
So the question today has to be: what are David Sullivan, David Gold and Karren Brady intending to do to placate those supporters - and there are many of them - who are unhappy with the way the club are being run?
Not the few who ran on the pitch on Saturday during the 3-0 defeat to Burnley, the fan who brandished a corner flag, not even the couple of hundred who took advantage of the inept stewarding to vent their fury at the hierarchy - but the mostly silent majority who feel the club they loyally support are at best shambolic and at worst entirely dysfunctional.
The first and most pressing answer to what now seems an almost insoluble problem is that there is no repeat when West Ham next play at home in three weeks’ time of the weekend’s ugly scenes which are now the subject of a Football Association and club enquiry.
That, you would imagine, could be solved by sensible stewarding but not at the London Stadium, where such matters are overseen by the stadium operators, LS185.
Is it too much to ask, when there are supposed to be a thousand stewards at West Ham’s home matches, for one or two to actually go onto the pitch and give club captain Noble a hand in apprehending one or two of the offenders?
The reasons why those few infiltrated the playing area, why hundreds roared their abusive discontent - and thousands more are unhappy and disillusioned - are more complex and, as a result, more problematical.
Noble summed it up on Saturday when he said that the ill-feeling had been bubbling away for two seasons - in fact ever since the club moved from their old home, with all its East End history and atmosphere, to the more sterile environs of Stratford.
There were those, as with every club that moves home, who just do not want to go; there are some who are apprehensive but prepared to give it a try - and those who cannot wait to sample a new, bigger stadium with infinitely better transport links, loads more toilets and - in West Ham’s case - sensibly-priced seats.
It is even okay, as West Ham’s owners did, to promise their supporters that this was the moment - not merely a commercial opportunity - to take the club to a different level and even European qualification.
That ambition was something to which fans could cling when the seating was not retractable as was promised and some seats were so far away from the action that opticians in East London and Essex suddenly struck boom time.
If you promise success, you have to deliver it and a £29 million net investment in the West Ham playing squad since they moved has proved totally inadequate.
When you add in a selection of the intemperate public utterances by the people who are supposed to run the club, the £43m profit they made in the 2016-17 season - and failed to re-invest in the squad - and it is unsurprising that West Ham’s fan base has quite simply had enough.
Even the cancellation of the mass protest march last Saturday backfired because many who felt thwarted by that decision vented their spleen in the stadium immediately Burnley scored the first of their three goals.
So how can this perilous situation be improved? Most importantly, Sullivan must stop doing player deals and talking to agents but follow the example of practically every other professional club and appoint someone with experience and knowledge, whether a chief executive, managing director or whatever, to act as a conduit between owners and management.
As for West Ham’s supporters, they need to temporarily put aside their grievances and back their team if they want to be watching Premier League football next season.
One thing is for sure, things need to change at West Ham DisUnited - and quickly.
