|
Northern Sold 11:28 Wed Mar 14
The Sun getting stuck in...
|
|
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/5801052/west-ham-london-stadium-west-ham-0-3-burnley-premier-league-fa/
West Ham is a club in dire need of shock therapy and ordering a match to be played behind closed doors would have been a fitting punishment
WEST HAM won the World Cup for the FA in 1966, if you believe East End folklore.
And the FA should have returned the favour this week by locking down the London Stadium.
Because West Ham is a club in dire need of shock therapy — from the boardroom to the terraces.
Ordering a Premier League match to be played behind closed doors would have been a fitting punishment for the Hammers after a spate of crowd disturbances.
It would also symbolise the vacuum which exists in place of a once proud and classy football club.
Such emptiness would have conveyed exactly what happens when a club’s ownership cheats on its fanbase.
It can be difficult to define the ‘soul’ of a football club. But it’s easy to recognise the absence of one, once it’s been sold off.
And that is what we are witnessing at West Ham, whose home ground possesses more toxicity than any place east of Salisbury.
The FA’s failure to react to the ugly scenes which disrupted Saturday’s 3-0 defeat by Burnley suggests this was an isolated afternoon of madness.
Yet West Ham bade farewell to Upton Park with a riot which saw the Manchester United team bus attacked and kick-off severely delayed.
Then their early weeks at the former Olympic Stadium were marred by major rucks, most notably at a League Cup tie with Chelsea.
There has been a systematic failure of stadium management ever since West Ham moved — with sporadic violent outbreaks still far more common there than we’ve seen inside any English football ground for years.
Of course, the vast majority of Hammers supporters are thoroughly decent people at their wits’ ends.
Theirs was once the much-respected ‘academy’ of Ron Greenwood, John Lyall, Trevor Brooking and 1966 heroes Sir Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and Bobby Moore.
On Saturday, the 25th anniversary of Moore’s death was commemorated, with some believing the club cynically upped those efforts as part of negotiations to cancel an anti-board protest march.
Those talks included vice-chairwoman Karren Brady meeting members of the old Inter City Firm — a hooligan troupe still fetishized by too many West Ham supporters.
Outside of the West Ham bubble, and away from a media in which Hammers fans are massively over-represented, many are heartily sick of the phony romanticism surrounding what has become a rogue football club.
This is a company trousering millions in TV money just for being part of the richest league on the planet.
And yet, it has been handed a vast taxpayers’ subsidy to move into a new home.
Sympathy is in short supply out there.
And while David Sullivan, David Gold and Brady are rightly vilified, there is still far too large a minority of toe-rags infesting West Ham’s support.
If Saturday’s unrest — which left frightened children sheltering in the Burnley dug-out — was part of some righteous cause, why did trouble only break out once West Ham went one-down?
This was more about a bunch of Herberts on the sherbet than the continuation of some grand tradition of civil disobedience.
When the move to Stratford was originally mooted, there was vast opposition.
But most believed assertions that the financial benefits of a low-rent tenancy would propel the Hammers to that elusive Utopia football clubs refer to as ‘The Next Level’.
Once they stepped inside the new ground, though, West Ham supporters knew that they had been sold a pup.
It was immediately clear Tottenham’s counter bid for the site had been right — and that the stadium was simply not fit to stage football.
And the financial dividend is also being squandered by amateurish recruitment.
Sullivan has been far too hands-on and too dependent on favoured agents.
Meanwhile, head of recruitment Tony Henry was sacked for his assertion that the club would not sign African players in January because they ‘cause mayhem’.
The irony of that statement after Saturday’s capers is almost too grim to mention.
So where do West Ham go from here?
Not ‘home’ to Upton Park, because the old ground has already been flattened.
The bold, visionary option would be to realise the London Stadium will never work, cut short West Ham’s tenancy and a plan a new purpose-built ground.
This won’t happen though. Not least because it would cost a lot of money and short-term pain.
And that is never going to happen under an ownership which saw the opportunity to make a financial killing, but ended up killing a club instead.
|
|
|
Replies - In Chronological Order ( Show Newest Messages First)
Takashi Miike
11:29 Wed Mar 14
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
who was that written by?
|
Buster
11:30 Wed Mar 14
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
'Yet West Ham bade farewell to Upton Park with a riot which saw the Manchester United team bus attacked and kick-off severely delayed.'
Stopped reading at that point.
|
Takashi Miike
11:32 Wed Mar 14
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
Dave Kidd, the Fulham fan, who cares?
|
Toe Rag
11:44 Wed Mar 14
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
“there is still far too large a minority of toe-rags infesting West Ham’s support.”
Why pick on me specifically?
Saucy prick!
|
cartis
11:50 Wed Mar 14
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
The bold, visionary option would be to realise the London Stadium will never work, cut short West Ham’s tenancy and a plan a new purpose-built ground.
This won’t happen though. Not least because it would cost a lot of money and short-term pain.
And that is never going to happen under an ownership which saw the opportunity to make a financial killing, but ended up killing a club instead.
Can't disagree with that at all.
|
Swiss.
11:52 Wed Mar 14
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
That 's absolutley incredicle and I'm awe stricken.
People still read The Sun !!!!!
|
Northern Sold
12:10 Wed Mar 14
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
I do Swiss... as it winds up so called bwainy blokes... oh and scousers...
... nothing worse in modern day society than paper snobs...
|
madeeasy
12:27 Wed Mar 14
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
Of course some of the article was written to generate talk, like 66 and our fans, man u game etc
But has he not actually got the message right?
Just doesn't understand what it means to the fans but overall i think he has got it spot on.
|
cornish
1:15 Wed Mar 14
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
Dave Kidd the idiot who wrote this is a tw.t he loves sticking the knife in,he just can't help himself.
|
collyrob
1:48 Wed Mar 14
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
Imagine reading the sun hahahah.
|
Wilko Johnson
1:54 Wed Mar 14
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
Toe Rag 11:44 Wed Mar 14
😁
|
claret on my shirt
1:55 Wed Mar 14
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
I wonder what tits mcgee made of it,
|
E20 2ST
12:35 Thu Mar 15
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
People still read this rag?
|
Northern Sold
12:36 Thu Mar 15
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
Yup great racing section
|
happygilmore
12:46 Thu Mar 15
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
When I wonder about, the meaning of life, I generally consult The Sun.
|
E20 2ST
12:47 Thu Mar 15
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
Don’t you mean ‘racist’ section? :0)
|
Texas Iron
1:02 Thu Mar 15
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
"...that is never going to happen under an ownership which saw the opportunity to make a financial killing, but ended up killing a club instead..."...
100% Accurate...
|
stoneman
1:08 Thu Mar 15
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
Do they still have page 3 girls?
|
Northern Sold
1:15 Thu Mar 15
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
Kind of stoneman.... its pc now as they wear a bikini top
|
chim chim cha boo
1:48 Thu Mar 15
Re: The Sun getting stuck in...
|
That is one of the worst written professional articles I've ever read. Absolutely all over the place.
|
|
|
|
