The owners are out of their depth but need help, not civil war
WHEN Sir Trevor Brooking is left looking sad and alone in the directors’ box after shocking events on a day set aside to celebrate the life of Sir Bobby Moore, it is time for West Ham to look at itself.
When a 69-year-old has been hit in the face with a coin and kids have been put into the dugout for their own protection, it is time for West Ham to look at itself.
“This is not the club we want,” spit snarling diehards. Frankly, after the sickening scenes witnessed on Saturday, this West Ham is not a club anybody wants.
David Sullivan was the 69-year-old and co-owner David Gold was also reported to be in tears as he was ushered out of his seat for his own protection.
The hard-hearted may see this as some sort of gruesome collateral damage, but please then don’t say the West Ham owners don’t care.
All they are seeking for the rest of the season is a truce, not recrimination. Obviously criminal acts have been committed and they will have to be dealt with appropriately.
These days, allowing any angry stranger to encroach so far into an open public arena unchallenged has malignant overtones that should worry anybody in the stadium, such is the world of hatred in which we now live. Sadly, the question “what if” is no longer such an alarmist one. No wonder Mark Noble took matters into his own hands.
A meeting of various “stakeholders” will take place today to look at practical ways of improving policing and stewarding of West Ham games but a lot of the work was already taking place over the phone with all sides keen to make sure change is as prompt as it is necessary.
In due course a punishment will also be considered for West Ham by the FA – after all, they cannot be exonerated from allowing the game to be dragged through such dirt on their watch.
But perhaps, given the uncertainty of a groundoperation scheme the Premier League signed off on, it will be a suspended sentence.
The onus then will be on all parties moving forward. But can they? The reason that the protesters deserve no sympathy is that they have been given every opportunity to have their voices heard.
When a march was planned ahead of the kick-off, Karren Brady opened the doors to 16 fans groups, including those with associations to the notorious Inter City Firm which first gave the club the violent reputation it can never quite shrug off.
A three-and-a-half-hour meeting led to a nine-page open letter in which Brady wrote that the board would “acknowledge that not everything has been perfect” and a list of changes that would be pursued to help make the match-day experience more “West Ham” again.
David Gold, born on Green Street, over 70 years a West Ham fan, fulfilled that pledge in a long interview to one of the more visible websites and
the march was stopped. But not the ill-feeling. And in many ways the most disenchanted fans are like the person who walks into the bar and says, “The trouble is my wife understands me.”
Throughout the process, the club have gone out of their way to canvass opinion on every minor detail. In some ways, though, the London Stadium is not quite so homely.
The board actually want to do more in that regard but that is the price of giving up your own bricks and mortar for a tenancy agreement. Rightly or wrongly, the club decided that was a cost they were prepared to pay to improve themselves in life.
One thing is for sure, there is no going back.
That leaves just one other way forward: turn the London Stadium into a home even the most disgruntled fan would relish going back to.
That side of things is very much down to the players: in particular the ones that must surely arrive in the summer if things are to improve.
Numbers such as £50million to spend in the summer are being dangled tantalisingly by the board; sadly these days that doesn’t even buy you a top-class right-back. Clearly the owners are out of their depth.
They have tried to seize an opportunity to fly so high and all they have seen so far is their dreams slowly fade.
And die? That is up to the players here right now.
David Moyes and the squad jetted out to Miami yesterday for warm-weather training and there is arguably no better time for them to put themselves at some distance from E20. Because if things are bad now, what will be the state of the club if they get pulled fully into the relegation battle? If their disintegration against Burnley after the trouble started is anything to go by, they need the full support of the fans for the remaining eight league games.
Get relegated and the bubble really will have burst. Does any true fan want that?