Who is the worst owner/chairman of West Ham in the last 50 years and why?

[El Scorchio]

• The Cearns
• Brown
• Icelandics/Eggman
• Sullivan

Be interested to know everyone's opinion and reasoning.

By the way Sullivan for me. I'm not really old enough to remember the full bond saga although I realise that might resonate even more with some others than anything else that's been done.

[eusebiovic]

It's Sullivan by a country mile

I'm reposting this from another thread regarding the refinanced £145 million debt secured against future TV revenues. 

After 15 years, due to his pig-headed stubborn refusal to operate a player scouting network which by all known estimates would only cost about 2% a season of that £145 million debt on very high interest like the rates on an average credit card. 

His abject failure to implement a structure where the club does all the homework and due diligence itself before even having to contact an agent beforehand means the way Sullivan and his performative feminist sidekick run the club isn't fit for purpose. 

If you make say an 80% profit on a few gems that get sold on then you don't need more than half a dozen of those to wipe out that debt over the 15 years to make it all worthwhile. 

Basic fuckin' economics!

It's cognitive dissodance - mental illness at it's finest

[Massive Attack]

It's all very debatable but I can tell you the cunts under which I've enjoyed football the least, and it's by far these current embarrassing cunts by a wide margin. Incompetent vermin. 

That's actually an interesting angle and feel inclined to agree. Bar 1 Boleyn Season under Bilic who was the only one to really deliver regular exciting West Ham style Football, other than that it's mainly been shocking, dull Football under Grant, Allardyce, Moyes (twice), Lopetegui, Potter. Sure there's been the occasional flash of entertainment but nowhere near that Boleyn season which I would regard as proper WHU attacking, entertaining Football all season long when watching it in person. 

 

That's a damning indictment on GSB's time of Ownership. 

 

It just goes to demonstrate how they never understood what the genuine WHU fanbase want. And on top of that they even knocked our Home down to rub salt in the wounds which encapsulated what they wanted, whilst running roughshod over our desires.

 

At least the Icelandics, Brown, Cearns reigns they made many games watchable with their managerial appointments. That's not by chance but by design.

 

Safe, mindnumbing Football centred around not trying to get relegated (although still managed it anyway) at all costs of seeing entertaining Football. That is The GSB Way. Bored us to tears for 15 fucking years. 

Selfish money grabbing cunts and at a time when they've had the most resources out of all of them to do the opposite.

[Vexed]

It's all very debatable but I can tell you the cunts under which I've enjoyed football the least, and it's by far these current embarrassing cunts by a wide margin. Incompetent vermin. 

[Massive Attack]

Bellamy and Parker were excellent signings. Less said about the likes of the costly Ljungberg, although could see why they did try to raise the profile in doing so. 

[El Scorchio]

Just look at some of the signings the Icelandics made.

 

 

Rotten bait.

[Mad Ferret]

Just look at some of the signings the Icelandics made.

[El Scorchio]

Icelandics were the worst as they very very nearly put the club into administration 
Cearns were crooks and treated England's best ever Captain like shit,at least Sullivan looked after him
Brown was out of his depth
Sullivan is hated because of the move and his legacy will be that



 

It wasn't their fault though.

Yeah, I thought it would be bizarre for anyone to mention the Icelandics as the worst. Who knows what could have happened under then after a couple of years. Factors completely out of their control and external to football did for them. Victims of circumstance rather than any mismanagement of the club.

[greenie1]

Hard to say who was (is) the worst. Different eras etc.
You could say the owners of WHU at the time of winning the World Cup. Winning the FA Cup in 64, EWC in 65, WC in 66 (with 3 WHU players playing a major part in us winning), then nothing until the FA Cup in 75. Where was the investment then?

Having the likes of Cole, Carrick, Lampard, Ferdinand, Johnson and Defoe in the squad, what happens? no investment from the owners. We end up selling Ferdinand and buy a lot of shit. We get relegated, end up selling the remaining talent.

Current owners - I've always said, and this was when they became owners, they mean well, but they have not got a clue.

[Gank]

Icelandics were the worst as they very very nearly put the club into administration 
Cearns were crooks and treated England's best ever Captain like shit,at least Sullivan looked after him
Brown was out of his depth
Sullivan is hated because of the move and his legacy will be that


 

It wasn't their fault though.

[Sir Alf]

Whu(Exeter) very good summary

Its the change in demographic they have sought that tells you all you need to know. A club who’s roots are industrial and working class but they wanted a wealthier fanbase to exploit. Quite simply one of the 7 deadly sins= GREED

[WHU(Exeter)]

Sullivan by miles for me.

the day they took over was for me the worst I've felt following the club since the mid-seventies. Worse than any defeat or relegation.

I remember watching a documentary about them when they were at Birmingham City and thinking then that they were self serving, brash and crass.

There and here since they came in, they have an arrogant and patronising attitude towards all the things that make up the fabric of the club, the fanbase in particular. From the off they tried to gentrify the fanbase, long before the move, meddling in the ticketing as they didn't like the 'banter' between the away end and the section of the East Stand closest to it. Ridiculously low take up of away allocations at grounds like Loftus Road, just in case they lost a few hundred quid (which was never going to happen anyway). 

They've tried to change the very fabric of the club since day one, in a clueless way that's shown no appreciation of what makes the club so special.

Despise them and hate the fact that Sir Trev has to sit in the same vicinity as them.

[Sir Alf]

Sullivan, Gold, Brady by a country mile. Cearns and Brown were awful but these people “take the biscuit”.

Sullivan is of course the undisputed champion of peddling lies, BS, deflecting truth, indulging his ego and need for validation to the detriment of the club.

His 15 year tenure, from the football success potential  angle should be the “poster child” for how not to do it. A balanced scorecard of wasting millions, missing opportunities, sub optimisation, alienating customers and losing all trust and confidence.  

[GBHammer63]

Sullivan and Brady by a mile for me, although barring the icelandics they’ve all been pretty much cut from the same cloth. The current lot are the only ones to have successfully split a fan base that traditionally always stood together. 

[GBHammer63]

The Caerns were awful. Wrote the book on how not to invest, how to grab defeat from the jaws of victory several times, and how to fuck over club legends (Lyall for example).
Brown wrote the book on how to take the piss out of the fans including the bond scheme and fucking talent off out of the door, giving those involved a reward for doing so. Basically, taking the Caerns playbook and adding to it.
The Icelandic's were victims of circumstance and the crap that followed them didn't really define their uselessness/duplicity so I don't really have a view on them.
Sullivan and Brady have learnt the lessons of the Caerns and Brown, kept Brown around for "guidance"  been totally disingenuous, deceitful and dire in their stewardship of our club. No club ambition but seem to come out of it personally quite nicely. They have added the media manipulation to their arsenal to meet 21st century demands. In addition they have sold the ground and mortgaged the training facilities so, as there are no longer any tangible assets in the club they are the worst ownership we have had. Their legacy could, quite easily be oblivion. 

 

Abso fucking lutely 

[Keep dreaming]

Sullivan with his wanker poodle Brady. Soul destroying, lying and deceiving arsewipes

[BerlingtonBertie]

Hands down the current spivs that own and run the current shit show. Destroyed the fabric and soul of the club and made us more of a laughing stock than usual. ‘Next level’ bollocks.
 

[yngwies Cat]

Could argue the Cearns, 

But Dildo and the Czech fella who's now bought the
Post Office, anyone told him yet .

Lady Brady 

I have no doubt running a football club is a fuckin pain in the arse (my local team)

All sorts of conflicting shit that gets involved, let alone clubs get bumped up.

Shit times.







 

[XKhammer]

Icelandics were the worst as they very very nearly put the club into administration 
Cearns were crooks and treated England's best ever Captain like shit,at least Sullivan looked after him
Brown was out of his depth
Sullivan is hated because of the move and his legacy will be that

 

[ATHammer]

The Caerns were awful. Wrote the book on how not to invest, how to grab defeat from the jaws of victory several times, and how to fuck over club legends (Lyall for example).
Brown wrote the book on how to take the piss out of the fans including the bond scheme and fucking talent off out of the door, giving those involved a reward for doing so. Basically, taking the Caerns playbook and adding to it.
The Icelandic's were victims of circumstance and the crap that followed them didn't really define their uselessness/duplicity so I don't really have a view on them.
Sullivan and Brady have learnt the lessons of the Caerns and Brown, kept Brown around for "guidance"  been totally disingenuous, deceitful and dire in their stewardship of our club. No club ambition but seem to come out of it personally quite nicely. They have added the media manipulation to their arsenal to meet 21st century demands. In addition they have sold the ground and mortgaged the training facilities so, as there are no longer any tangible assets in the club they are the worst ownership we have had. Their legacy could, quite easily be oblivion. 
 

[Gank]

Cearns oversaw some dodgy business but by their own admission, they weren't astute in the business of football so appointed a businessman. That businessman was Terry Brown, who had made himself a millionaire in caravan parks. He did a great job convincing the Cearns family that his business acumen would be the way to progress the club using their money. A great businessman he was, and obviously a great salesman too but this is football and all his moves to spend were ill-advised whilst his moves to make it save money were even worse. It's hard to blame the Cearns for being hoodwinked into employing him and especially in trusting him and keeping their noses out of it so I'm not putting them as worst, not Brown because he actually was a good business minded away from football and just wasn't suited to the role. We blame Sullivan for interfering and not employing someone to do the football business, the Cearns did that. The Icelandics also did it with Scott Duxberry but again he turned out to be poor. Sullivan did it with Steidten, one of his has already turned a decent profit but Sullivan sacked him.

The only one without the best intentions is Sullivan, so he is worst.

[Mike Oxsaw]

No doubt about this one, Sullivan may well be a megalomaniac, but Terry Brown was a fucking clueless leech, he took us down, sold off all of our 'Golden Generation' for peanuts and if we hadn't beat PNE in 2005 then according to Pardew we would've gone into administartion.

He got the gig as then Chairman, Martin Cearns, admitted he wasn't qualified and suffering with mental issues due to the grief he was getting from the Bond Scheme, so his side kick in that grotesque debacle a certain Terry Brown took on the role. He became a majority shareholder through a loan from the Club, he then awarded himself the 2nd highest salary in the PL over 500k, when football wasn't sloshing around with cash

I still despise him to this day, ironic that after the Icelandics banished him from the Directors lounge that Sullivan invited him back, possibly he knew of Sullivans skeletons 

 

 

Brown's path back has always mystified me: maybe he could have rented out, in the past, some of his caravans by the hour to certain connected people and, as has been suggested, got a closet full of skeletons as a collateral bonus.

[Massive Attack]

As a Football Club we have been cursed with unscrupulous, asset stripping, conniving, clueless lying shitcunts that we don't know what it's like to be run properly. How the fuck we managed to win what we did is a testament to us under the circumstances, because had we been run competently we would have achieved a hell of a lot more than we did.

[Jaan Kenbrovin]

No doubt about this one, Sullivan may well be a megalomaniac, but Terry Brown was a fucking clueless leech, he took us down, sold off all of our 'Golden Generation' for peanuts and if we hadn't beat PNE in 2005 then according to Pardew we would've gone into administartion.

He got the gig as then Chairman, Martin Cearns, admitted he wasn't qualified and suffering with mental issues due to the grief he was getting from the Bond Scheme, so his side kick in that grotesque debacle a certain Terry Brown took on the role. He became a majority shareholder through a loan from the Club, he then awarded himself the 2nd highest salary in the PL over 500k, when football wasn't sloshing around with cash

I still despise him to this day, ironic that after the Icelandics banished him from the Directors lounge that Sullivan invited him back, possibly he knew of Sullivans skeletons 

This nails it.

[North Bank]

No doubt about this one, Sullivan may well be a megalomaniac, but Terry Brown was a fucking clueless leech, he took us down, sold off all of our 'Golden Generation' for peanuts and if we hadn't beat PNE in 2005 then according to Pardew we would've gone into administartion.

He got the gig as then Chairman, Martin Cearns, admitted he wasn't qualified and suffering with mental issues due to the grief he was getting from the Bond Scheme, so his side kick in that grotesque debacle a certain Terry Brown took on the role. He became a majority shareholder through a loan from the Club, he then awarded himself the 2nd highest salary in the PL over 500k, when football wasn't sloshing around with cash

I still despise him to this day, ironic that after the Icelandics banished him from the Directors lounge that Sullivan invited him back, possibly he knew of Sullivans skeletons 

[Barty888]

https://www.change.org/p/enough-is-enou ... m=copylink