[Football] West Ham situation. Is it the same?

[ozzygull]

The issue to me is more like the one that some of our fans had when we first moved to the Amex, it felt it's too different to what they knew before and there were many who complained it was all too corporate and all too sterile but, after several seasons here now, it feels like home (granted having a running track there is far from ideal)

West ham fans have moved from somewhere they really liked and had fond memories of to somewhere that doesn't feel like home (yet)

Did some of our fans not like the Amex when we moved in? Not saying your wrong, just very surprised. I have loved the Amex from the very first game, and it felt like home very quickly. The years of protesting, marching and letter writing, ment that it felt like ours, it had a history before it was built. Those Friday updates when it was being built were the highlight of my week. To me it’s perfect. Now if we had been lucky to go from the goldstone to the Amex I may have felt different, not for long.

As for the Westham I was amazed that their fans were happy to move there. Upton Park was a great football stadium, been in the away end a few times, ok it didn’t have the facilities of a new stadium, but the atmosphere was one the best and close to the pitch.
Moving to the Olympic stadium, was always going to be so different, anyone could see that. When we went there this season the view was rubbish, there was a massive gap between the away fans in the upper tier and those in the lower section and then a massive gap in front of them. They should have knocked it down and built a football stadium as currently it not one thing or another, the whole thing was a cock up. If I was a Westham fan I would struggle to ever feel like home in that place, but their protests are too late.

 

[bhaseeer]

It's too late for west ham fans to moan.

Their time to moan was when it was mentioned they might leave their old ground which was great and on top of the pitch.......they didn't moan - they took in the sales pitch - so from that moment the time to moan had gone.

Can really see them going down........

All sound like a bunch of moody Essex gangsters who've had too many lines of coke to be honest....this massive sense of entitlement probably comes from the coke.

They have good players - it's not the owners fault they are not playing well - and the fans should have said a massive no to Moyes.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Did some of our fans not like the Amex when we moved in? Not saying your wrong, just very surprised. I have loved the Amex from the very first game, and it felt like home very quickly. The years of protesting, marching and letter writing, ment that it felt like ours, it had a history before it was built. Those Friday updates when it was being built were the highlight of my week. To me it’s perfect. Now if we had been lucky to go from the goldstone to the Amex I may have felt different, not for long.

As for the Westham I was amazed that their fans were happy to move there. Upton Park was a great football stadium, been in the away end a few times, ok it didn’t have the facilities of a new stadium, but the atmosphere was one the best and close to the pitch.
Moving to the Olympic stadium, was always going to be so different, anyone could see that. When we went there this season the view was rubbish, there was a massive gap between the away fans in the upper tier and those in the lower section and then a massive gap in front of them. They should have knocked it down and built a football stadium as currently it not one thing or another, the whole thing was a cock up. If I was a Westham fan I would struggle to ever feel like home in that place, but their protests are too late.

There were threads on here but i cant find them because the search function doesn't go back far enough and it's probably due to the issues with sponsors or google or someone (can't recall exactly who) that led to most of the site being removed so that it didn't break their rules over which sites they allow to use their services to raise revenue but there were a lot of threads about how it didn't seem like home or that the club was detached from the fans and had become too corporate and so on......

Had we been relegated in our first season, had we struggled and failed to get our first win here for several months or if we were always fighting against relegation in the Championship rather than the seasons fighting for promotion, do you think some would still have the same fondness and enthusiasm for the stadium that they may have now?

We had moans about the singing areas in the North stand, the 2 groups that hadn't been singing as one or there was the complaining about fans not being able to move and sit with other like-minded fans (eg. noisy or quite) because of the high number of season tickets making it impossible for people to naturally gravitate towards one area of the ground which would be possible in a much older ground where this has already happened - so like with any move there will be teething problems and West Ham fans are now experiencing the same.

The difference is that they are struggling on the pitch too which makes these smaller issues appear much worse and add in a lot of people's natural tendency to be negative and moany (we have plenty of them on here) it doesn't take much to create a vicious cycle which will only make things worse the longer it continues (look at Arsenal and the Wenger situation)

 

[Weststander]

WHU collectively sold its sole to the Devil. The directors and fans arrogantly loved:

1. Beating Spuds to the site; and
2. Gaining a £100m's cost venue for relative pocket change, with a relatively minute rent.

The reality is an awful hybrid stadium, fans further from the action than a proper football venue. It will never have the intimidating atmosphere of a WHL, Anfield, etc.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Funny you should say that. I contribute to [MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION]'s Price Of Football finance site, and here's a couple of stories on the Hammers

http://priceoffootball.com/west-ham-united-2017-financial-results-fools-gold/

http://priceoffootball.com/west-ham-and-the-london-stadium-flares-n-slippers/

Thank you, really interesting read. I’m not sure I understand the financial flows following the sale of the Boleyn but perhaps I am not alone. The other issue seems to be these interest payments. As you mention, Mr Bloom does not charge interest on loans which is in contrast to Gold/Sullivan and leaves them open to the displeasure of the fans.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

WHU collectively sold its sole to the Devil. The directors and fans arrogantly loved:

1. Beating Spuds to the site; and
2. Gaining a £100m's cost venue for relative pocket change, with a relatively minute rent.

The reality is an awful hybrid stadium, fans further from the action from a proper football venue. It will never have the intimidating atmosphere of a WHL, Anfield, etc.

Levy absolutely played them and the local Government.

He was also right in everything he said about the site needed to be knocked down and re-built.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

It's too late for west ham fans to moan.

Their time to moan was when it was mentioned they might leave their old ground which was great and on top of the pitch.......they didn't moan - they took in the sales pitch - so from that moment the time to moan had gone.

Can really see them going down........

All sound like a bunch of moody Essex gangsters who've had too many lines of coke to be honest....this massive sense of entitlement probably comes from the coke.

They have good players - it's not the owners fault they are not playing well - and the fans should have said a massive no to Moyes.

I’ve read a number of times about the sense of entitlement of West Ham fans (not going to post all the links as some posters insist upon when having a chat). I think it a little unfair. Living in this region and previously living and working in London I have known plenty of their supporters and have never encountered an Arsenal/Man U type attitude. They are a lot more mindful of history and their place in it than you suggest although it is possible that the younger ‘Premier League generation’ are different.

 

[Saladpack Seagull]

Nothing like the situation we were in. They're not homeless, they are not forced to play miles away from their home area, they are not even in the PL drop zone, and some fans don't like the new badge. Hardly a crisis of Albion proportions, but few if any have gone through what we did. That said, and perhaps because of the Albion "journey" to where we are now, I do have sympathy with fans who genuinely feel that something fundamental is going wrong with their club and that direct action is a final and desperate reaction.

 

[ozzygull]

There were threads on here but i cant find them because the search function doesn't go back far enough and it's probably due to the issues with sponsors or google or someone (can't recall exactly who) that led to most of the site being removed so that it didn't break their rules over which sites they allow to use their services to raise revenue but there were a lot of threads about how it didn't seem like home or that the club was detached from the fans and had become too corporate and so on......

Had we been relegated in our first season, had we struggled and failed to get our first win here for several months or if we were always fighting against relegation in the Championship rather than the seasons fighting for promotion, do you think some would still have the same fondness and enthusiasm for the stadium that they may have now?

We had moans about the singing areas in the North stand, the 2 groups that hadn't been singing as one or there was the complaining about fans not being able to move and sit with other like-minded fans (eg. noisy or quite) because of the high number of season tickets making it impossible for people to naturally gravitate towards one area of the ground which would be possible in a much older ground where this has already happened - so like with any move there will be teething problems and West Ham fans are now experiencing the same.

The difference is that they are struggling on the pitch too which makes these smaller issues appear much worse and add in a lot of people's natural tendency to be negative and moany (we have plenty of them on here) it doesn't take much to create a vicious cycle which will only make things worse the longer it continues (look at Arsenal and the Wenger situation)

I agree the pitch struggles will have only made a bad situation worse. It’s difficult for me to answer how I would felt, if we struggled on the pitch, but it was not something I was not used to, until Gus came a long there was many seasons at Withdean that did not go our way, but at least in the Amex there is a roof and I don’t get wet, so would still have been an improvement.

Even if we had been relegated in the first season at the Amex, some of the new fans would have left, but the die hards would not have been protesting against Tony Bloom, that would have been nuts.

I can understand why Westham fans are upset, but it’s too late. They should have made their feeling known before the sell of Upton Park. Yes they want their board out, but they can never go back. The one option would be to get new owners who give up the Olympic stadium and build them a new one. Who the hell is going to do that? Or they get a super super rich owner who buys a championship league winning team, and maybe some of their woes will dissolve.

I am not saying people didn’t moan on here about things they did not like, but then some people always find something to complain about, so I probably ignored them.

 

[Baldseagull]

They had 10 managers in a hundred years before Pardew, now had 10 managers in the last ten years, I would be pissed at the change to my club.

 

[El Presidente]

Thank you, really interesting read. I’m not sure I understand the financial flows following the sale of the Boleyn but perhaps I am not alone. The other issue seems to be these interest payments. As you mention, Mr Bloom does not charge interest on loans which is in contrast to Gold/Sullivan and leaves them open to the displeasure of the fans.

I can’t work out what happened with the sale of the Boleyn either, and have spent ages trying to get to the bottom of things. Perhaps those involved want it to be as foggy as possible?

 

[Weststander]

I can’t work out what happened with the sale of the Boleyn either, and have spent ages trying to get to the bottom of things. Perhaps those involved want it to be as foggy as possible?

Thanks for your efforts. I see both Land Reg and Cos House provided a mine of information. Your reports still made interesting reading. Obscuring the huge gains and ultimate beneficiaries, overrode the paying of avoidable extra slugs of SDLT each time the property changed hands.

 

[amexer]

Anybody know how much Upton Park sold for and where proceeds went.
Understand when they took over club it had loan about 10m from bank at 10% Sullivan and Gold took over loan and charge 4% Cant see whats wrong with that and must be better for club

Sorry loan from bank was 80/90 m

 

[Perkino]

I don't want them to get relegated, they have been an easy 6 points this season as most of their players just watch us pass it around at will and score for fun

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

I don't want them to get relegated, they have been an easy 6 points this season as most of their players just watch us pass it around at will and score for fun

Not do I, for the reason you mention added to the fact that it is my closest/easiest Premier League away trip and I am reasonably confident we will survive.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Endless waffle about the situation on R5 now. Some absurd callers. One or two sensible ones, like the one on now. On another thread someone posted salaries there - top ten spend. The stadium is leased at such a low cost its arguably unfair to the rest of us.

My guess is that too many deluded local nobs have taken advantage of the cheap season tickets, and can't cope with poor performances. It isn't as if they haven't been out of the PL for the last 50 years.....FFS.

 

[Weststander]

Endless waffle about the situation on R5 now. Some absurd callers. One or two sensible ones, like the one on now. On another thread someone posted salaries there - top ten spend. The stadium is leased at such a low cost its arguably unfair to the rest of us.

My guess is that too many deluded local nobs have taken advantage of the cheap season tickets, and can't cope with poor performances. It isn't as if they haven't been out of the PL for the last 50 years.....FFS.

There've been plenty of poor WHU teams in the last 50 years, as well as others which played unattractive to average football. Yet many WHU fans, including some football writers, live in a parallel universe where they've consistently showed the rest of us how the game should be played. The one season wonders Lanzini-Payet team was the only one that comes to mind in recent seasons as winning quite a few games and having style. Before that, plenty of Andy Carroll, Carlton Cole, Kevin Nolan, Dowie, Ben Haim, Quashie ... effective, but hardly Bobby Moore.

 

[Sirnormangall]

I’ve always had a soft spot for West Ham and the Boleyn. Selling the ground was never going to be enough to deliver a team to compete with the “top six”. The fans have been mis-sold a glorious future by a Board that’s out of touch with them (familiar story) and created unrealistic expectations - so it’s no great surprise to see a fans revolt.

 

[Weststander]

I’ve always had a soft spot for West Ham and the Boleyn. Selling the ground was never going to be enough to deliver a team to compete with the “top six”. The fans have been mis-sold a glorious future by a Board that’s out of touch with them (familiar story) and created unrealistic expectations - so it’s no great surprise to see a fans revolt.

Out of touch, or they saw a way to personally gain by the back door, whilst getting a large capacity stadium on the cheap (unlike Arsenal, Spuds, Liverpool, Chelsea who are spending £100m's on creating great stadia)? Cheap and nasty.

 

[Bwian]

I’ve always had a soft spot for West Ham and the Boleyn. Selling the ground was never going to be enough to deliver a team to compete with the “top six”. The fans have been mis-sold a glorious future by a Board that’s out of touch with them (familiar story) and created unrealistic expectations - so it’s no great surprise to see a fans revolt.

I think most 'Appy 'Ammers were quite happy to move into their shiny new stadium at very little cost to their club or themselves. They may have been sold a pup by their board but loads were very vocal about what a great deal it was at taxpayers expense and how they were about to become a regular top 6 club. Didn't go to the promised plan so now they're revolting.

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