In Bobby's name, it's time to go!
PITCH INVASIONS, COINS THROWN, CHILDREN COWERING IN A DUGOUT...
GIVEN David Sullivan and David Gold’s colourful business backgrounds, it’s hard to imagine them feeling too much shame at the shambolic state of affairs at West Ham.
The horrendous events at the London Stadium on Saturday were difficult to watch, for any football fan. And let’s be clear, Sullivan being struck in the face with a coin thrown by one of the angry fans that gathered in front of the directors’ box is clearly unacceptable. So were the four separate incidents of supporters being able to invade the pitch and threaten the well-being of those on it. It’s also unacceptable how small children were made to feel so vulnerable that Burnley players had to let them shelter in the away dugout for safety.
West Ham supporters are irate and disillusioned with the way Sullivan and Gold run their beloved club. How did it come to this?
What happened at the London Stadium was akin to the perfect storm. But Gold, Sullivan and chief executive Karren Brady should have seen it coming.
Blame
The undercurrent of ill-feeling has been brewing for a long time.
Captain Mark Noble, whose behaviour on and off the pitch this weekend means he emerges with great credit from one of the club’s darkest days, reckons it has been two years in the making.
The architects of it only have themselves to blame.
Selling Upton Park and then securing the deal of a lifetime to become anchor tenants of the former Olympic Stadium on a peppercorn rent might have seemed sensible to Sullivan and Gold – but it also destroyed the club’s identity.
Problems with policing, running and stewarding the stadium piled on the pain for suffering supporters, who have also seen bosses renege on promises to invest properly in the squad.
A net spend of around £30m on players is peanuts in Premier League terms.
A planned protest before the game failed to materialise when Brady met representatives of fans’ groups last week.
The diversion tactic, that involved a lot of bargaining on Brady’s behalf and the promise of a donation to a cause involving a sick child, backfired when supporters decided enough was enough during the game.
Sullivan and Gold are like the male equivalent of ‘Hinge and Bracket’ – two pensioners stuck in a time warp unable to acknowledge their shortcomings.
Gold once accidentally re-tweeted a message from a fuming fan on social media calling for Sam Allardyce to be
sacked. The furore that followed that went straight over his head, just like the recent warning of what was to come when supporters stopped his Rolls-Royce following the recent 4-1 defeat at Swansea and told him to ‘f***ing leave the club’.
Poison continues to stream through this once proud club.
The tipping point just happened to arrive on the 25th anniversary of the death of the greatest Hammer of all – Bobby Moore. Deary me.
His daughter attended the game and saw the shambles unfold alongside another club legend – Sir Trevor Brooking.
Those pictures of Brooking sitting in stunned silence alone in the directors’ box said it all.
But the real ghosts haunting the Hammers have reached the end game, because there can be no future under their stewardship.
Gold and Sullivan are not running the Hammers, they’re ruining them. Until someone else takes over, the situation will get worse – if that’s possible.