Just to establish my position on the new owners. Am I pleased they came in when they did? You bet I am! If we get to end of January with Upson, Cole, Behrami and Parker on our books, and with two or three players added to the squad, then short term it has to be great news. If C&B Holdings had been left in charge, we were going down in my opinion - a view I blogged often enough!
Does that mean I will give Gold and Sullivan my total trust? Does it hell as like! I will be watching very closely and listening very closely too. And so should you! This idiotic attitude that criticism and scepticism are disloyal is bloody crazy. I know they are supposed to be West Ham fans but that didn't stop them owning a rival club did it? We needed to win our last game of the season in 2002-03 to stand any chance of staying up. Who were we playing? Gold and Sullivan's Birmingham City in what, for them, was a dead rubber. I might have encouraged the manager to pick the kids if I was in their position but that didn't happen. Birmingham battled all the way and we drew 2-2. I seem to remember noises from the Birmingham owners that West Ham were to blame for their own position and shouldn't look for outside help. Ferguson helped out his old mate Curbishley in the Great Escape year by picking half a reserve team but G&S offered no help in the equivalent position to the club they are supposed to love.
At the moment there appears to be a lot of kite flying going on and a lot of contradictory statements coming from the triumvirate of Gold, Sullivan and Brady. Brady flies the kite of a name change and Gold comes out a day later and says over my dead body. One moment we hear we are massively in debt, the next we are offering £100k a week to Van Nistelrooy. Or was that just PR? Did Sullivan and Gold perhaps know that we didn't stand a chance of landing him (I knew!)so were seeking to win support from the fans by playing Billy Big Boots? That has to be the most likely explanation surely. If we end up not signing anybody by the end of January, then we will know that G & S have been taking the piss completely - bidding below market price for McCarthy and others to suggest that they are trying to bolster the squad. I don't think that is the case but I don't know - and nor do you. Remember, actions speak louder than words!
Long term, I fear for the club under the G&S stewardship. If they sell the ground and use the money to pay off debts and reward investors, then we will have nothing to borrow against in the future. We were shafted by the Icelandic owners but I don't think they did it deliberately: they ballsed up and the banking collapse did for them. Gold and Sullivan are PLANNING to sell off the family home from the outset. Tell me, if your parents were in their 70s and were talking about selling your family inheritance to fund five years of round the world cruises, would you be happy? S&G have a 5 year plan because in 5 years they may be dead. Will they care then if the club goes to the grave with them?
I don't want to appear a doom monger here. I don't want to suggest that disaster is definitely around the corner. All I am saying is that we are not out of the woods yet. I've seen horror films where people have escaped from the house of a psychotic murderer and accepted a lift from a passing car, only to find that the driver is ten times worse that the guy they are fleeing!
I'm not condemning them but I don't trust them either. So, this blog will offer a cautious interpretation of what is going on and being said UNTIL the new owners prove that they are in it for the long run and the good of the club.
24 comments:
Wait for it hammersfan, no doubt someone will stumble on this soon and say how wrong you are and a scare mongerer.
Some very good and fair points made tho and some i had not thought of. personally i wanted these two from the start. Out of staying with the icelandics or being sold i thought these two did were the best of a bad situation. My hope is that if they really are west ham fans that they behave a bit different to how they did at brum and invest more etc.I also like the fact they stay faithful to there managers and think they have good track record of appointments (steve bruce and alex mcgleish) With regards to that tho i love zola to bits but i do have 2 major concerns with him tactically.
1)there never seems a plan b. if we go a goal down teams change the way they play but we dont seem to adjust
2)why does he persist in playing left footers on the right and right footers on the left?
sorry to of gone off on a tangent there lol. I do hope the davids are not going to tell too many lies and west ham is going to be run properly for the first time in ages. would the club be in a worse position without them?
AppyAmmer
I'm amused by the fact you decide to moan about them having owned another club and that club having drawn with us.
Very funny.
You really are a tiring, boring prat. Did you stump up the cash? NO. Did you start a fan's buyout? NO. Did you propose other alternatives? NO. Did you want the previous owners out? YES. Who cares if you trust them, I'm sure they don't. The reality is we are where we are as Hammers fans, fingers crossed, hoping for better second half of the season, lets get behind the owners like a true fan would, the only way we get any new players in January is via the Davids own cash so why criticise now? So shut the F##K up and say something positive and in May when it all goes wrong lets hope the David's don't treat the "fans" like the likes of you deserve and bleed the club dry. Get behind the Hammers and lets see if you for once in yur life you write five positive blogs in a row like a proper fan might!!
Why can't you just give them a chance I think anyone who buys our club saving us from absolute disaster and willingly accepts our £110million debt deserves a few weeks until we start sharpening our Knives.. I know its been doom and gloom for so long now but how about writing something positive for a change? Let's get behind the club and stop writing such rubbish!
These concerns about the Gold's are valid. It's refreshing to read, and have a blog that is not afraid to go against the grain. Your views seem to really get under some people's skin. Why? because we as West Ham Utd fans just want some good news for once. Not since 86 has it felt good to be a hammer. The truth has to be heard and you are the voice of reason if we like it or not.
Bollocks to this mug being the voice of reason he is a boring old prat and struggles to understand the term SUPPORT.
As a loyal Millwall fan may i say that Tescos is better than Sainsburys
Lets hope that John Cena wins nthe WWE title next week the guy is amazing. Go John Cena
Im waiting to see what happens to Valon Behrammi,remember our 'saviours' said no one had to go &we would keep our best players,by anybody's reckoning Behrammi is one of our best players !.Im afraid...i think he will get sold &we might get a striker on loan.Van Nislteroy ?,spin.Telling everybody about the debt was done on purpose a)so that they had ready made excuses when fans question why they don't invest in the team b)Making Duxsbury's position at the club unattenable ,so that he leaves on his own accord,saving the need to pay the pathological liar (Scott Duxsbury) a £2million payout.By selling Upton Park and renting the Olympic Stadium ,is the proceeds of the sale inadvertly paying for their 50% share in the club ?.Yes im happy our great club has been saved ...Messrs Gold &Sullivan we are watching carefully ...very carefully .
The worst thing is no matter how good or how shit they prove to be there is absolutely nothing we can do about it
A bit better HF, but as West Ham fans, DS/DG are more likely "to do the right thing" than anyone else.
As you say they have given us new hope so have some faith.
Sure, it would be a very sad day if Upton Park becomes "Boleyn Mansions". However, with a new state of the art stadium being built up the Road then, in the name of progress, the possibilities should be considered. Any final decision must however, be with the long term future in mind. Perhaps DS/DG would prefer to leave behind a lasting legacy rather than an even bigger pile of money?
In the short term it is going to be tough so expect plenty more of the "pie and eels" before we are led to the land of "milk and honey".
Hope and faith. They still have to earn the right to be loved.
Regardless of what the Davids say, they're in it for the money! They're business men after all..
I think the main way they're going to earn cash /get debts down is through selling upton park - must be worth 80 million to development company?
They re shrewd though and great at publicity, i mean 'Gold' saying we'll pay £100,000 a week for a strikers wages, and then 'Brady' calling the club 'Olympic' - they're both international news... Not a bad free publicity stunt..
You're a first class moron
Well as someone who's not a west ham fan but does enjoy reading this blog I'd say being wary of any football club owner is a sensible decision, ultimately for the most part their main interest is cash and just because the old owners were bad does not guarantee that the new ones will be good for West Ham, I found the horseface stuff odd, usually when you have publicly declared your 100m in debt the first thing you do is not try and sign a player on 100k a week. Yes you need a goalscorer but surely someone (for example James Beattie off the top of my head) can do a job for you at a much lower price
West Ham Olympic sounds like a super name to me. New owners, new ground, new beginning, new outlook; why not a new name. We could rid ourselves of all things distasteful about our club and move forward towards our new riches filled horizon. In one fell swoop we could be rid of all the fat old winkers seen in the stands and on the pitch during the Millwall game and all the Dave F Kings as well.
Must start a new facebook page Come On You Olympic Irons - has a nice ring to it; don't you think?
Keep up the good work!
Ignore the idiots shouting abuse, obviously they don't understand humour, irony or creative thinking. It's a blog not a factual news site, these idiots seem to forget this crucial point! What's more, I bet most are on newsnow.co.uk and if they don't like your blogs they can hide you.
Usually I find your articles to be well balanced, but this time I think you are being too sceptical. Perhaps you are aiming to inspire comment. Perhaps you should give the D's a chance to prove themselves. At least they seem prepared to listen to the supporters and keep us informed which makes a pleasant change. With regard to the olympic stadium with cheaper seats more people could obviously afford to watch which of cours would increas the support. The only point I can't understand is renting the ground why not offer to pay for it on yearly instalments! Mind you I am not a multi millionaire so obviously probably are unaware of the benefits of renting. John
The benefit may be pocketing the dosh from the sale of the ground John. Sceptical perhaps but plausible too.
As it happens I actually suggested to my mum and da that they should sell the home and enjoy the rest of their lives. They worked hard enough for it so why shouldn't I be happy? You? well you're a Jew aintcha?
Me? I could retire now and tour the world for the rest of my life if I didn't give a toss about my children. Sadly, I do. I will inherit little from my parents. East End born, they grafted for not much money. Good on you if you don't expect anything by way of a legacy. But, in my opinion, that will represent failure for your parents. Each generation should help the next to improve their lot. My great grandparents were paupers, my grandparents were poor, my parents battled their way into the lower echelons of the middle classes, I am university educated and am comfortably middle class - it is an escalator. My parents' gift to me was moving the family to Somerset when I was five. Had I stayed in the East End, I doubt that I would be where I am now in terms of monetary security. And my great grandfather? He made a reverse journey, moving from rural Norfolk to the East End to find work; where yes he met and married a Jewess.
You seem to think that the term Jew is insulting. I am not a Jew by religion or by culture and I side with the Palestinians against the Israelis, but yes I have Jewish blood; so what? Your racism is regretable.
By the way, Mr Gold is probably Jewish. Anybody know for sure? Wouldn't that be ironic for all the anti semitic Hammers out there?
I think it goes without saying that someone with the name 'goldberg' (and a big nose) is Jewish :-)
He's definitely Jewish, this is from his article in the NOTW last Sunday...
"If being poor wasn't enough I had to put up with all the taunts of being a Jewish boy.
"As kids we were spat at because our name was Gold. That's short for Goldstein. The perception was, from the kids via their parents, that it was the Jews' fault for this, the Jews' fault for that. The Jews had taken jobs, the Jews were misers."
"Kids in school were cruel. But after the war when people started to realise about the Holocaust perception started to change."
Thanks for that SLF. That will feature in a main article!
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