Are West Ham going down??

You just know they are going to get unlikely wins at Man City and Liverpool now.

.

MuttleyCAFC said:

If they go down, doesn't their rent?

Probably

I accept that reporting on dissent may have been suppressed skilfully by an adept PR team but I wasn't aware of any great protest against moving or desire to keep their old ground and traditions. 

As an outsider my impression is that they embraced the taxpayer subsidising their club and sod their heritage.

Ferryman said:

West Ham brother-in-law adamant they will become the next Sunderland.

That's exactly what I said to my son will happen if they go down. 

It would be excellent if it did. And another example of Boris bullshit.

LenGlover said:

I accept that reporting on dissent may have been suppressed skilfully by an adept PR team but I wasn't aware of any great protest against moving or desire to keep their old ground and traditions. 

As an outsider my impression is that they embraced the taxpayer subsidising their club and sod their heritage.

my eldest son is a devoted West Ham fan (can choose your friends etc) .. he and most of his friends/fellow fanatics were in favour of the move for the obvious reasons .. prestigious ground in a huge new development, improved match day experience, massive crowds generating lots of cash for new players etc .. 
his dreams are yet to be realised of course, but like all devoted fans he hangs in there .. B T W he thinks the stadium is not such a disaster as is widely thought and/or reported .. there was quite a bit of resistance to the move, mostly from the older ammers who lived 'just rahnd the corner' from the Boleyn and like many many Addicks fans re the Valley had a total emotional attachment to their ancestral home.

Thanks for sharing that poignant piece, @Valley11. Almost made me feel sorry for the fans.

Your additional comments re appreciating what WE have at this moment in time is SO true.

But we've had to fight the good fight to reach this point and that's what makes it all the more special.

Maybe if Hammers' fans had formed the HATE group( Hammers against the exit), raised a ridiculous amount of money to support the initiative, paraded a huge paper mache dildo through Westfield, protested with banners outside Ann Summers' shops in London with big girls' pants on their heads & thrown those sweet little rampant rabbits on the pitch at Upton Park, they MIGHT have stood a chance of retaining their home....

What was/is the next level for West Ham though?

Even we've finished higher in the top league than them throughout our histories.

Got no time for Gold, Sullivan or Brady but West Ham are a proper football club and I think are very similar to Charlton albeit usually operating at a higher level than us. Plenty of scummy fans but the majority are decent and proper not plastics. Hope they stay up because I want them to offload Josh Cullen which I think is more likely if they are PL next season. Given their scandalous deal for the Olympic Stadium I wonder if they are actually quite ripe for a really big takeover on Man City scale ? Sad times for them and the fact that using my enemies enemy is my friend (Millwall) I wish West Ham no harm apart from their obnoxious owners.

I'm not terribly impressed by the slightly excessive empathy for their fans shown by some of you. This bears repeating: they are the least organised fanbase in London, the only one without a Supporters Trust. This means they have credulously lapped up what a succession of owners have fed them since 1990, and never organised themselves to question anything they were told, still less asked to cough up for. Older Lifers will remember the Valley Investment Plan, which started when we were at Upton Park, raising the final million to get us back to the Valley. At first a bond was discussed, but it was dropped because West Ham had tainted the word, offering a so-called bond which was in fact something you had to buy for the privilege of being able to then buy a season ticket. (The VIP was effectively bulk forward purchase of your season ticket for years ahead at good prices - a tangible benefit). You'd think that would have prompted some of them to get organised, but no, just a load of random gobbing off and abusive chants, while they revelled in the good old dodgy dealings of 'Arry.

When the Dildo Bros unveiled their plans, not only did most of them fall for it, but those few brave souls who dared to ask questions were harassed, sometimes physically, for their troubles. And to make it a bit personal, when our Olympic Campaign was in full swing, and the thread was running on here, some of theirs (remember "gavros"?) came on CL, and were welcomed as much as our regular Spanners and and Operation Pig. Then somebody tipped me off to have a look at KUMB. On the thread about the Stadium, they (I think gavros, who some say is an EDL twat) had identified me as an OSC ringleader, and were freely using my real name. Whatever. But when I tried to sign up on KUMB, so I could go on and put a few things straight, they blocked me. And it wasn't an oversight, as I nudged them about it. They just ignored my application. Wankers.

Eventually other members of the Coalition, notably the Spurs people, identified WHUISA as reasonable people trying to raise issues around the stadium, and tried to reach out to them. It would of course have been great to be able to say that many West Ham fans agreed that our concerns about the contract were legitimate. But basically, the answer came back that while they thought we were right, they did not dare say so. They were intimidated both by other West Ham fans and by Brady.

So you'll excuse me if I am not going to shed too many tears for that lot. 

JohnBoyUK said:

https://twitter.com/SundaySupp/status/1223921878126997504?s=20

So presumably the Dildo Brothers and the Evil Witch have got the hump and are threatening Sky with legal action?

Oh and why is it the West Ham old boys in the media (Tony Cottee, Tony Gale etc etc) keep talking about West Ham having full houses week after week when every time I've watched their home games on MOTD, I can see bloody empty seats in all the stands.   Far from a sell out.

That apology was in response to the below,

Journalists Jonathan Liew, Matt Lawton and Matt Dickinson laid into the club's hierarchy as they slammed the board for the club's perceived lack of direction and their stewardship during the decade.

And Liew, who writes for The Guardian, claimed that West Ham were no longer considered to be a serious player in European football - despite recently being named as the world's 18th-richest club.

"They're not taken seriously any more," he told presenter Jacqui Oatley. "If you think about the major players in European football then the owners just aren't taken seriously as football people. And that's a huge issue.

"We talked about culture previously and there is a culture that basically everybody's got their hands in the till. The players are there for a pay check, the managers are there to do a couple of season to buff up their CV.

"There is no long term thinking. If you go from Moyes, to Pellegrini, back to Moyes, what is the long-term plan, what's the vision there? There isn't one."

Meanwhile The Telegraph's Matt Law highlighted the club's sheer lack of depth with regards to a support mechanism behind the playing squad. "They probably have the worst training ground in the Premier League," he said. "And I think, at the moment, they've only got one scout.

"When David Moyes came back he wanted to bring Stuart Pearce - who'd done a good job before - with him. It was vetoed because he'd dared to criticise the board on a radio station.

"He's got one member of the backroom staff that he's brought in, Alan Irvine, because Alan Stubbs turned them down. He's got no backroom staff, it's just a shambles, an absolute shambles."

Our history may indeed not quite match up to that of our rivals over the water, but it shouldn't be forgotten that WHU were in Div 2 from 1932 to 1958, some of our most glorious years, and since 1978 they have been relegated five times. Not as yet to the third-tier, it's true, but as mentioned earlier we could be about to witness the next Sunderland. Oh, and it should never be forgotten that England's future captain learnt his trade biking across on the ferry to The Valley.

PragueAddick said:

I'm not terribly impressed by the slightly excessive empathy for their fans shown by some of you. This bears repeating: they are the least organised fanbase in London, the only one without a Supporters Trust. This means they have credulously lapped up what a succession of owners have fed them since 1990, and never organised themselves to question anything they were told, still less asked to cough up for. Older Lifers will remember the Valley Investment Plan, which started when we were at Upton Park, raising the final million to get us back to the Valley. At first a bond was discussed, but it was dropped because West Ham had tainted the word, offering a so-called bond which was in fact something you had to buy for the privilege of being able to then buy a season ticket. (The VIP was effectively bulk forward purchase of your season ticket for years ahead at good prices - a tangible benefit). You'd think that would have prompted some of them to get organised, but no, just a load of random gobbing off and abusive chants, while they revelled in the good old dodgy dealings of 'Arry.

When the Dildo Bros unveiled their plans, not only did most of them fall for it, but those few brave souls who dared to ask questions were harassed, sometimes physically, for their troubles. And to make it a bit personal, when our Olympic Campaign was in full swing, and the thread was running on here, some of theirs (remember "gavros"?) came on CL, and were welcomed as much as our regular Spanners and and Operation Pig. Then somebody tipped me off to have a look at KUMB. On the thread about the Stadium, they (I think gavros, who some say is an EDL twat) had identified me as an OSC ringleader, and were freely using my real name. Whatever. But when I tried to sign up on KUMB, so I could go on and put a few things straight, they blocked me. And it wasn't an oversight, as I nudged them about it. They just ignored my application. Wankers.

Eventually other members of the Coalition, notably the Spurs people, identified WHUISA as reasonable people trying to raise issues around the stadium, and tried to reach out to them. It would of course have been great to be able to say that many West Ham fans agreed that our concerns about the contract were legitimate. But basically, the answer came back that while they thought we were right, they did not dare say so. They were intimidated both by other West Ham fans and by Brady.

So you'll excuse me if I am not going to shed too many tears for that lot. 

Sounds like you’ve had a rough experience there @PragueAddick.
As the old cliche goes, I’ve got a few mates who support West Ham and they, and the other Hammers I’ve met over the years, have always been decent.
Personally I’m not going to judge them because they’re disorganised. Charlton fans lead the way when it comes to fighting for our club.