RIP Alex Van de Weyer - founder of WestHamOnline

[wils]

I received a very sad message about Alex, the founder of WHO. I didn't know him personally but I am aware of who he is and that he deserves a tribute from us all. Perhaps it's fitting for those who were around when he was contributing here to share memories under this post.

RIP Alex and thank you for creating this site.

Hi there,

I’m not sure how many people who were around in the early days are still
using this forum, but I wanted to share this news in case it’s relevant to
a few. Alex Van de Weyer, who founded this site back in the day, died
unexpectedly last month. He was only 52 and was found at home; he died of
natural causes. He was my partner for many years, and we have a daughter
together.

I think it was in the late 1990s that Alex decided to teach himself PHP
coding to create a West Ham forum. He launched WestHamOnline.com. He wrote
weekly match reports, while I contacted opposition fans with a
questionnaire to create match previews. I remember a column by “Billy
Blagg,” player injury updates, transfer rumours, and fan votes. One
December I even made advent calendar picture posts. There was Steve Potts
in his bedroom full of West Ham merch, plus plenty of other silliness! Alex
V spent huge amounts of time working to make the site a success, coding any
features he thought it needed. His posts were always full of wit and strong
opinions.

Alex was a football stats nerd, and even contacted the club to point out
that Crysencio Summerville could be classed as a home-grown player when
they hadn’t spotted it. This was apparently due to a complex detail
involving birth dates and Covid-era season rules. He was proud of that
spot, and maybe it made a small difference to the club.

Alex later gave up his season ticket and moved out of London, but he still
followed the team with passion. He posted about club strategy on social
media and stayed involved that way. My daughter believes the last message
he read from her was about West Ham being ahead in a recent match. That
feels fitting.

Alex V will be missed by all who knew and loved him.

[CaptainBlueAndClaret]

AlexV lives on, in this website that he created.

THE memory of Alex Van de Weyer - founder of WestHamOnline, lives on as long as this website continues, which it must and will do so, as it has to do…

THANK YOU AlexV, for creating WHO, where the fan base can rant and rave about, ensuring West Ham Supporters worldwide can keep connected, in difficult times…

To all the family of Alex Van de Weyer, at this most difficult time, condolences and an appreciation of Alex’s ENORMOUS gift to the fan base of West Ham United.

[Rubble again]

R I P Alex
Condolences to your family and friends.

[Billy Blagg]

Oh, dear God. This is such a shock. I am heartbroken by this news. Alex gave me my first break on what was then the Ironworks back in 1998.

I found the WHO predecessor as I worked in IT, and was very early on the web and actually worked on Prestel (the forerunner of the WWW). I saw Alex was looking for writers about West Ham and, as a WHU fanatic and a frustrated writer who'd had a few things published, I thought I might find a voice on the web. It changed my life completely.

I started the Blagg column on Ironworks / WHO and everything just took off. Within five years, I had written a book - Alex provided the foreword - and was writing for Soccernet (later ESPN, which actually paid me, giving me a second career) and the local Guardian newspaper. I never gave up on WHO, though, and contributed a column whenever I could right up until 2018 when my wife died.

Bizarrely, as is the way of things on the Internet, although Alex gave me an opportunity and another career and we 'spoke' online often (his wife drew some early Blagg representations too), we never actually met. I could have passed him in the street, and I'd not have known it. Nonetheless, this has hit me really hard. 

Thank you for telling me about this Wils, but I can't find the original post. If anyone has an email address for anyone in Alex's family, can you please let me know by WHOmail as I'd like to pay my respects.

RIP Alex and thank you so much for everything you did for me. 

[Gentile]

Sorry to hear of this news. 

Alex was a gentleman. Over the decades as we all grow older it's sad news like this that makes you realise how fragile life can be. 

RIP Alex and thanks for creating something enjoyed by so many people. 

Pig Destroyer and now Alex. Really sad news. 

[Far Cough UKunt]

Oh look it's the man from GLOLcester

[Johnson4E]

Heard about this through friends who I'd made through WHO via WhatsApp which is the more modern way of chatting bollocks about West Ham and anything else for that matter.

Back in 1998/99, when I first joined WHO, no-one had probably realised just what Alex had created. Was by far the easiest to use message board I'd come across at that time, one of the funniest on the internet and certainly the best West Ham board - FUCK OFF KUMB. 

Lots of us have made lifelong friends through this site, cried tears of laughter, got into some situations good and bad, probably raged a lot and got far too wound up by it, such was the beautiful nuance of it all. 

During 9/11 it somehow managed to be one of the few sites working on the web so become a critical news source for a while, I remember relaying to my office what was going on through WHO updates until the TV news started to take shape. 

Didn't really, if ever, agree with Alex V on anything but he did create a fucking good forum and his impact on lots of people is more profound than he'd have ever realised. RIP Alex V. 

Anyway, I'll probably fuck off again now, although it was always more fun on here when we were shit so maybe I'll loiter for a while. 

[Godwinson]

RIP Alex V. I’ve been posting on here since 2003 and am very grateful for all he did. I first interacted with him in 1998 on an older site he ran.

A sad loss.

[Stepney.Ammer]

I haven’t been on WHO for donkeys and gutted to see this news.

I first started using the site back around 99/2000, and over the years it has given me more laughs than I care to remember – especially in those early days. For 20+ years, this was the first website I opened each day. As well as being my go to place for West Ham related stuff, it was also a source of many weird, random, and occasionally useful facts, information, and advice.

RIP Alex

[BRANDED]

it was a good idea

[Council Scum]

If I remember correctly we all met up in a pub in London with Alex as the website launched. Think skerrit and mad dog were there.

or am I miss remembering.  Rip Alex.

I was there. 

[Manuel]

So this is all his fault!? But no, obviously know who the man is and it's very sad, even more so considering his age and the fact that he was seemingly in good health.

As said, he did have some strange views and was very often contrary, but as said took all the abuse he got straight on the chin for the best part. I seem to recall that he gave up on WHO with the dawn of social media, more so Twitter, and began to see WHO as a little old fashioned.

RIP.

[Jasnik]

If I remember correctly we all met up in a pub in London with Alex as the website launched. Think skerrit and mad dog were there.

or am I miss remembering.  Rip Alex.

[Nurse Ratched]

RIP Alex.  Thank you for all you did to set this site up.  Sad that there are so many on this thread who no longer post.  Sensible contributors have been driven away by the constant bickering, name calling and repitition from the dozen or so who live their lives through this site. 

Spoken like someone who has no idea of what this site was like when Alex V set it up and was still running it. 

[stubbo-admin]

RIP Alex.  Thank you for all you did to set this site up.  Sad that there are so many on this thread who no longer post.  Sensible contributors have been driven away by the constant bickering, name calling and repitition from the dozen or so who live their lives through this site. 

Agree with this.  Whilst in sad circumstances, great to see that a number of old faces are still around lurking, even if not actively posting from day to day.

The pull of WHO to this day despite all its evolution and reincarnations testament to Alex and what he created.

[northbankfrank]

RIP Alex.  Thank you for all you did to set this site up.  Sad that there are so many on this thread who no longer post.  Sensible contributors have been driven away by the constant bickering, name calling and repitition from the dozen or so who live their lives through this site. 

[GBHammer63]

Sad news and condolences to the family, thank you for creating something which has been a bigger part of my life than intended for the last 20 years, definitely put some very interesting characters together in the same virtual room.

[riosleftsock]

Very sad news.  Alex was not only an innovator for football fora, but he was one of the everyday folks who embraced the internet when it was the wild west.  Thank you Alex for being one of the few people who have an idea and actually made it work, not to make money but because it was important to him.  I'm sure we all got far more from this site than he did.

Godspeed to an altruistic chap, condolences to his family and friends, I never had the pleasure of meeting him but did correspond with him occasionally years ago.

RIP Mr Westhamonline

[WC Hammer]

RIP Alex - thanks for creating the consistent backdrop for the last 20 of my 52 years of disappointment as a West Ham fan. Condolences to his family. COYI

[Don Ravioli]

I don’t post a lot but have been coming on here since 2001, just after the dicanio goal at Old Trafford. 
This was always the best West Ham forum. Slightly mental, sometimes hilarious but always a place where you could say what you want. 

Hopefully his family read all the good things people are saying about him and realise how much this place has meant to people over the years. 

Rip 

[TR1]

I haven't posted for 20+ years but still stick me nose in occasionally, Alex was a passionate and knowledgeable Westham man, also a decent human being, rare enough these days.

[Dirty Den]

Horrible, horrible news. I have been a member on this site since the 9th May 2002 and have been drawing comfort from my fellow fans on here. It has helped me with my few pleasures and lots of pain following this crazy team of ours. This site at times has been like a therapist to me. My sincere condolences to Alex's nearest and dearest in this extremely difficult time.

[Forest Gate Ugly]

The most important thing here is, of course, Alex V and those who knew him and loved him most. I never met him in real life but I interacted with him online and am deeply saddened and shocked by his passing. I’ve also found it really moving and consoling to see so many of the older user names reappear to honour him and his memory. To see them resurface and talk about what WHO has meant to them- especially in the nutty days of who would win a fight between a shark and a croc- (before everyone on the internet did it) is wonderful. You love to see it and I’m sure Alex would too.  

[mac]

RIP Alex

[WHU(Exeter)]

Condolences to his family and all his friends

R.I.P Alex

[Sir Alf]

Was thinking ( dangerous !! they cry ) this is about the only West Ham site that has been and continues to be “Mod lite”.  Fortunately most of us have the humility ( comes with age ) to not let it be a problem so it works nicely not feeling there is a “big brother” and being able to swear gratutitously, use some old school politically incorrect phrases and terms that have the snowflakes fretting on other forums about. I mean mist things ssid are not extreme ( with the odd exception where Mods do correctly intervene) .  There are posters of course on here, just as in life, that are insecure, inadequate types who hurl abuse, cyberbully to any view or opinion they dont agree with ( but they also make it entertaining at times too especially when eventually they commit a WHOICIDE by disappearing or adopting a new login ID ).   Btw like others im guessing, I found this site via the old “Bashing the Bishop” site if IIRC in the mid to late 90s.  

Been some real characters and great posters on here in the last 30 years who are no longer with us ( Pig Destroyer, Ted Fenton come to mind along with many others and now founder Alex V).  

Long may it continue, where else can I spend hours boring everyone? ( the missus just zones out when I get on me soapbox, come to think of it, she zones out most of the time these days now im a miserable retired old git ).