Not all clubs are run badly, look at WestHam! Four weeks to the end of the season and we are second in the league with Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelski all in a relegation scrap.
Yes it's true.
The season is only 4 weeks from finished and we sit proudly in second place in the league. If you don't believe me then here go and check for yourselves, it's ok I will wait
http://www.fairpaynetwork.org/football/
Ok, are you back? I never said it was the Premier League but it is something that should make us proud as Hammers fans. The Fair Pay Network aim to improve the working pay and conditions of non footballing staff at clubs in England and a lot of credit goes to the club for providing a decent standard of living and good working conditions for its employees.
In a way it kind of sums up this board and the club's owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson who has show the type of patience that makes Ghandi look prone to flying of the handle. He has been slated by the fans, who lack the knowledge or understanding of what has happened to the guy or his business empire. He has been made into some Bond-esque super villain plotting the destruction of the civilised world from a secret head quarters in a hollowed out volcano in Iceland by the media.
He bought the club from Terry Brown and for about a week he was hailed a saviour, we didn't care if he had hooves, a tail and always carried his lucky pitch fork to games, he had saved us from that caravan salesman, promised to spend money and appointed a luvable elf like fella with the catchy nickname of The Egg to run the club.
However within weeks we were not hurtling up the table and no one had spotted Ronaldo at Chadwell Heath for his medical. The fans got restless, Pardew got sacked and Curbs got the job and with it the keys to the cash box. He went on a spending spree that the average Hammers fan could only dream of emulating if he won a trolley dash through LakeSide. Of course none of the signings worked out (although this was not Curbs' fault as he has pointed out since while taking credit for their revival after he had left the club) and relegation looked on the cards. Luckily Carlos Tevez saved us all on his own from this fate by playing every minute of every game in every position, at least that's what Kevin McCabe reckons and we all lived to fight
another day.
Having watched Curbs blow a wad of his cash on some very suspect signings, BG promptly stumped up more money in the summer to make sure we would not have to worry about relegation ever again and even sanctioned the big name signing of Freddie Lunchbox to make sure we felt like a big club and give the girls something to swoon over. Unfortunately, apart from a brisk trade in camera batteries for the ladies Freddie failed to live up to his billing (now that said I would have loved to see how the guy would have done in Zola's team). On top of this the rest of the big money boys keel over like the henchmen in an old Batman episode and again the fans get upset. Needless to say Curbs' backroom team's magic sponge and shoulder shrugging method of treating injuries means we are consigned to a mediocre season of awful football and cringe worthy excuses.
The fans are not happy that the Egg allowed these players be signed for silly money and laughable wages so BG packs him off back to his igloo and brings Scott "its still the 1980s to me" Duxbury, promoting him from his position of legal advisor where he had covered himself in glory in the handle of the Tevez saga. Duxbury asks Curbs if he knows how to sign players who don't cost a fortune and who don't own their own treatment table and when Curbs admits that his only experience of looking around Europe came from a school trip to Grenoble in the 70s, BG brings in Gianluca Nani from Italy, who was signed with the full endorsement and input of Curbs to help out with the scounting and signing of players.
No sooner has Nani polished off his first plate of spag bol, Curbs declares that he cannot work with the guy who he whole heartedly endorsed as the right guy to work alongside him and sods off, leaving the club managerless after the transfer window has closed. Needless to say this had the remaining fans up in arms. BG and Dux draw up a shortlist of top quality potential managers, making sure to publicly rule Big Sam out before they start, and set about interviewing for the job. They get Zola (my thoughts on this have been made clear before) and then BG and Dux go toe to toe with Roman and Kenyon to get Zola the man he wants for an assistant.
Then comes Black September and the world economy takes a nose dive, dragging Iceland with it. Fans immediately blame BG for this, although most of them know nothing of Iceland other than Kerry Katona does the adverts for the place. BG hits some serious financial trouble and the media vultures begin to circle. Talk of administraion, fire sales, knock down buy outs and impending doom dominate the papers. BG comes out and says the club is safe, it is protected and it is self financing and not in any trouble. The red tops refuse to believes this, or simply don't want the truth spoiling a good story and continue to hype the demise of the club.
With the transfer window approaching we are led to believe that all our games in January will be televised on QVC and we fans will be lucky if the seats we are sitting on are not sold out from under us. BG remains firm, Dux does his job, Zola and Nani agree on who stays and who goes and all we end up losing is an upity Welsh prat who we manage to con Citeh into paying £14M for and some of the dross that Curbs signed (Hayden Mullins apart). We even pick up a talented young player who is considered one of the best prospects in Europe, and a decent loan signing to bolster our upturn in form. The injuries keep mounting but the league position keeps climbing, the team keeps getting reshuffled but the football is still good to watch and we are watching some of the most promising youngsters in years coming through into the team
None of this would have happened without BG. He could have chosen to saddle the club with massive debt like Hicks and Gillette did at Liverpool, or Glazier did at Man U.
He could have pressed ahead with a new stadium and mortgaged the club to the hilt like Arsenal did, but instead he ordered plans to be drawn up to increase the capacity to almost 50,000 by redeveloping Upton Park so we could keep our spiritual home.
He has overseen virtually all the clubs best players sign long term deals and Zola and Clarke are about to do the same. Zola himself has come out and said we will be in the market for some big signings in the summer, and you can believe anything that he says. He has reduced the cost of season tickets to help the fans out when Man U are upping their prices again next season to force the fans to shoulder the burden of the clubs debt. And as we have all just seen, he has refused to get involved in penny pinching and using the economy to force the club's non-footballing staff to take pay cuts.
For fans who are so well known for their fierce loyalty to their club, they have shown little to the owner. Do we want to become some Arab's plaything like Citeh, where the manager is in charge of little but laying out the cones for the 5 a side, or leveraged to our eyes with debt, chasing titles like Man U, Arsenal and Liverpool?
BG has turned the club into a financially stable, self financing outfit who can compete for Europe. He deserves out thanks and our respect and whatever happens with his ownership of the club he is by far the best Chairman we have ever had.
Hail to the Chief!
By Celtic Hammer
23 comments:
This site just gets worse. what a pointless and crap story.
Celtic hammer - sounds like you live in a fairytale world... I'll give you this, the comment about duxbury stuck in '1980's' made me chuckle... But, curbs laid the foundation along with BG, much like hoddle did at Chelsea.. And I do have alot of time for BG bringing in nani, but 1980's style duxburry also takes some credit, for buying/selling players since... Overall let's not be idealistic about it all, everyone's looking out for their own backside (like any other job or business), the club may yet be owned by banks - not ideal to say the least... Who's gonna take the credit for this in your nevernever land? :-) Dux or Curbs I suppose?
Hotshot C I do give Duxbury a lot of credit, I think he has done an excellent job since taking over from the Egg. Personally I would have thrown him to the lions over the tevez affair, giving him a nice fat cheque and made him sign a confidentiality agreement. I will never give curbs credit for anything apart from leaving the club. I think he gives Roeder and Macari a run for worst ever Hammers manager.
oh no, another terrible pointless story, wasting a good 3mins of my day
LOL Anon, you are a slow learner aren't you? Why read on? A newspaper must take you a week to read! "An article on cork tiles in the 1960s. How pointless! I've wasted 3 minutes reading that! Now then, next column. An article on worming dogs. I haven't got a dog so I bet when I've finished reading that I will find it was a waste of time. Here goes, "The first rule of worming a dog is..."
this is a pointless argument, and west ham are far from a financially stable club, in fact west ham have not got a pot to piss in, and that will be highlighted in the summer transfer window....where does this celtichammer get all this shit from? he sounds like an out patient running low on his anti-delusional meds.
The first paragraph just about wrapped up this blog for me - crap!!!
Well I though it was a good post, I really want BG to get himself back financially stable somehow. I know its not likely but I really dont want him to leave he seems to be pushing all the right buttons at the moment.Duxbury too with his no spurs deals policy.
New owners appears to be the only threat to west ham at the moment.
(P.S I also thought the 80s duxbury joke was funny)
Why do people think this story is crap? He do have an infrastructure now. We have good coaching staff and not all of Curbs buys were poor. Double your money on Bellamy, Upson playing for England, Parker one of the players of the season. Everything that you are saying about BG is paper talk. We have no idea if it is true or not. Remember he paid cash for us and hasn't put us in debt. Tevez was not his fault. An excellent post - TrevorH
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I think this article makes a good point. Too many so called fans are too quick to predict the club is in dire straits and that Gudmudssun is the root of all evil. I've been a West Ham fan for 40years and I dont remember us ever having a chairman who has tried to do more for the club.
Have enjoyed your posts -Colin (Bobby Moore Upper)
He won't be the owner for very much longer!
Not sure where Spurs comes in to all this, except we are (financially) in a lot better position that you. FYI Freddie was a bad buy full stop, he would be no better under Zola, he barely is up to the MLS.
Dave 19.55 this article has nothing to do with spurs, its about WestHam and an element of the fans who are intent on seeing the club in the worst possible light. If you look at the fairpay league you will see that spurs are 3rd which is enough to say that ye treat your employees well. It's also just another table that ye cant manage to get above us in!
With respect Sue, this is a football blog and you are called Sue so...well enough said. Cosmopolitan comes out in a couple of days!!!!
The author forgot to mention that BG has a criminal record for bankrupting companies and misleading his shareholders that goes back to the mid-80s. He's been sued by Curbs, Eggy and Kia Joorabchian for breach of contract. He was chairman while we got caught cheating and lying to the Prem League. He bought West Ham with borrowed money he didn't repay and frankly, he probably never was a billionaire, although Forbes ranked him as $1.1billion but most of his assets are now being found as having been borrowed against. He gave Eggy a free hand with money until he blew it all away and got fired. BG gave guarantees to XL.com (our sponsore) when they borrowed £163m 3 days before going bust and lost millions of British rate payers and pension funds when Landsbanki folded. It will also enhance West Ham's reputation when he gets arrested by the Icelandic authorities which he probably will in the fulness of time. In the meantime West Ham is running fine under Scott Duxbury and BG has only been to the ground once this year while he hides away from his creditors. In the meantime fans discuss signings and always say - If only we could afford him... Thoroughly nice man who was unfortunate with the credit crunch? Maybe but I don't think so.
anon 21.47 BG was convicted of booking irregularities along with a number of other executives of bookeeping irregularities not bankrupting companies which I dont actually think is an offence as such! Quick question though, are you saying we would have been better off if he had never bought the club and we were still owned by Terry Brown?
The owner of this blog wishes to disassociate himself from the above post. Anonymous, I do not wish to censor you but for that to remain up, you must give a name. If BG wants to sue somebody's backside, he can sue yours not mine. I have copied and saved your post. I will put it back up if you give me a name and an authentic email address.
(This is an edited form of the deleted post above!) Yes I am. Terry Brown was a terrible chairman but he never let us get into debt except for around £25m for the West Stand construction which was indeed a sound investment. As for BG, well somehow I think you are barking up the wrong tree. This man is not the kindly 70 year old benefactor he appears. He is no different than all the other owners of clubs you slag off and only when he's gone will we ever find out the truth.
Obviously written by a fan who is new to the ranks of the Hammers or someone who is very young and immature. A shame that four of the clubs you compare to regularly play Champions League football and have some of the best players in the world. Even the "other" team played in Europe and have played in a cup final. Best chairman ever? Ignorant fool.
Ok - I'm just catching up. Going back to 18:05 last night Hammersfan; I have to ask why you feel that you would want to worm BG's tranny?
LOL. An Orger calling me Hammersfan and not Fanno! Is this you Pete? It's your humour!
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