Late David Gold, Sullivan and Brady

[WHU_Del]

The more I think about it, the biggest issue is the way the club is organised.
We seem to have a mish-mash of different setups, and it means that at the end of it we are neither fish nor fowl.

In the 'traditional' English model, the manager has overall control of team matters, including style, formations, tactics, who to buy and who to sell, and how much they should be paid. The board then negotiate with the selling (or buying) club, then with the player (with the manager involved), and a deal is done.

In the Continental model, the Director of Football has overall control of all the teams in the club, their playing style and so on. The coaches identify where they feel they need strengthening, and then in discussion with the DoF identify targets that fulfill that need, and then the negotiations take place.

We appear to have a bit of both, with the manager identifying targets and the Board conducting the deal, but also the Board seem to buy players off their own back and the manager has to shoehorn them into a squad and a system that they might not be suited to.

This is, of course, because (one of?) our Joint-Chairmen are frustrated players/managers and want to play real-life Championship Manager.
It's unsustainable and has to change. Pick a stool and sit on it and that needs a manager strong enough to tell them that.

[mushy]

I don't really feel like answering you but since I might as well finish. Chances are, however, it is a great many more than you. I started going with my old dad in the 1957)58 season, when we were still in the old second division. I went to every single home match in our promotion year the following year and quite a few away as well and I kept up this tradition, pretty much up until I moved down to the south coast, the year Roeder became our manager, but even then, I still went to a few home games, but I had to pick the matches I thought appeared on paper anyhow, most winnable. I even kept this up through the Pardew, Curbishley, Zola and Grant years, increasing my attendance once Big Sam took over at the helm. Since then, I have moved half way back again and now only go once or twice a year and never to away matches.

You will. I am sure gather, I am not in my first flushes of youth, so it is a big effort for me now to go to matches and admit I am now, more if an armchair fan, but that does not make me any less of a fan than anybody else, including you . Quite how many matches I have seen, I haven't a scooby , but I should imagine it is a hell of a lot. I think I would prefer not start calculating just how much of my money I have shelled out following this great club down the years. Was it money well spent ? Hell yes, some great memories, especially the 1964 FA Cup final win over Preston North End, the European Cup Winners Cup final win over TSV Munchen 1860 the following year and the 1975 FA Cup final win over Bobby Moore's Fulham.I wonder how many others on here, possibly including you, can share some of those memoirs with me ?

Puff, I was giving you the opportunity to answer a previous poster who suggested you never went to matches, thats all it was, stop being so b****dy prickly all the time!
And as for someone that didnt feel like answering , well you could have fooled me.
You started going 8 years before me but seemed to more or less stop in the 2,000's, so that gives me a good 12 or so years the other way, so dont assume you have been more than me and am not sure what thats got to do with the price of eggs anyway.
Am guessing you are around 70 years old, its no age puff, get your arse up to the new dump.
i have plenty of memories to share, including two FA Cup finals and one ECWC final (1976), sadly I was too young for 65.
BTW wasnt 57/58 our promotion year?
Edit: actually make that three FA Cup finals, forgot the scousers.

[Kialos]

Swear to god I had Puff down as 40s. Young of heart like many of our posters

[Doc H Ball]

1958 was the most important year in our history. Far more so than 2016.

[Kialos]

I wasn't around then but am guessing Moore or Greenwood related?

[sanchoz]

WHUFC 2nd division winning season I'm guessing

[Puff Daddy]

1958 was the most important year in our history. Far more so than 2016.

It was. You should have seen some of our spectacular results that year. Here are just a few of them:-

West Ham 7 Aston Villa 2
West Ham 4 Chelsea 2
West Ham 6 Arsenal 0
Sheffield Wednesday 7 West Ham 0

[hammerdivone]

Pitch invasion, 10th minute

Three times you've suggested this now.

Assuming you'll be at the game, I also assume you will be first on the pitch, right?

[Kialos]

Most of us would collapse in a heap exhausted before even making the pitch

[e-20]

The more I think about it, the biggest issue is the way the club is organised.
We seem to have a mish-mash of different setups, and it means that at the end of it we are neither fish nor fowl.

We appear to have a bit of both, with the manager identifying targets and the Board conducting the deal, but also the Board seem to buy players off their own back and the manager has to shoehorn them into a squad and a system that they might not be suited to.

This is, of course, because (one of?) our Joint-Chairmen are frustrated players/managers and want to play real-life Championship Manager.
It's unsustainable and has to change. Pick a stool and sit on it and that needs a manager strong enough to tell them that.

I do have the perception that even though it's something of a waveform with our owners whatever club they are at there is a gradual overall decline in the clubs circumstances as time flows by, even if, like with a new manager, a bit of an initial bump may occur. Certainly no expected overall improvement occurs that's for sure. We were in a terrible mess when they arrived and for me I thought at last some stability after the 'hanging on by our coat tails' final years of the poorest billionaires in the world, yet they soon led us to relegation. Then Allardyce seemed to at least instil come self belief in the players (indeed rebuilt the team) and turn things round in confidence if not spectacular improvement we wanted and then one year of success after that mostly based it seems on the motivation and flush of excitement of that last Boleyn year and now the decline returns back to mediocrity and fears of relegation, confusion and incompetence on and off the pitch. Yes there sure looks like a theme of negativity around these guys, where little changes whoever the manager, players, the prospects, opportunities or other contributing factors may be. It really has to be them or more precisely Sullivan, doesn't it.

[mushy]

1958 was the most important year in our history. Far more so than 2016.

Quite a profound post for your 8,000th Doc.
Are you saying that because
a) promotion after a very long time.
b) purchase of the ground(and surrounding area)
or
c) Bobby Moores debut (Man Utd home)?

[Doc H Ball]

Quite a profound post for your 8,000th Doc.
Are you saying that because
a) promotion after a very long time.
b) purchase of the ground(and surrounding area)
or
c) Bobby Moores debut (Man Utd home)?

My dad started going in 1946 (still does...) and he reminds me regularly that for more than 60 years we were a lower league Club.

Then in '58 all the years Fenton spent building came together with great underrated players like Cantwell, Allison, Malcolm, Dick, Keeble, Bond and Brown and our style of play was forged. It wasn't just the promotion after so long, but the finding of our modern identity.

As you say, promotion meant buying the ground off the church. I think I read that with the promotion they could afford to build the wall (that still stands) beside the vestry and the original gates. In a couple of years the Boleyn was fully roofed and had a 40,000 capacity.

Moore in '58, Hurst and Peters following the next. Our golden years in the mid 60's came about because of that start.

Makes me laugh mushy when I hear about taking West Ham to the 'next level'. In reality that means going back another 60 years (and counting...)

Good on you Puff, it must have been a sight

[Samba]

1958 was the most important year in our history. Far more so than 2016.

& why 1978 was so bloody painful.

[LincolnshireHammer]

My dad started going in 1946 (still does...) and he reminds me regularly that for more than 60 years we were a lower league Club.

I don't know if I would call us a lower league club though - am I right in thinking we've never been outside the top 2 leagues?

[gazzaA2]

Moose seems to have escaped...

By the time he is sacked we'll have missed out on potential managers to Leicester and Everton.

[chalks]

Most of us would collapse in a heap exhausted before even making the pitch

aint that the truth

I'm half dead by the time i get to my seat !!

[the pink palermo]

aint that the truth

I'm half dead by the time i get to my seat !!

We've gone from singing "you'll never make the station" to visiting supporters to "we'll never make the station" .

To be fair it's the only exercise I get

[hammers92]

Three times you've suggested this now.

Assuming you'll be at the game, I also assume you will be first on the pitch, right?

I see a lot of people unhappy, a lot of complaints but what are people going to do about it? Our next home game is on a Saturday evening on t.v against one of the best supported teams in the world. A pitch invasion en masse and chanting at the director’s box literally grabs the world’s attention, not just the Sunday papers. Everyone stands up, takes notice and asks the question “why are West Ham fans so angry?”

Now you can obviously nit pick at that and ask if I’ll be the first one on and the answer is that I’m not gonna solve the whole problem by myself am I? But if this idea gets shared on social media, if people actually pick it up, you watch the line of stewards come round in the 10th minute. Watch them freak out about it. Quite a few stewards lined up at full time against Brighton because they got worried.

Now if someone has a better idea to make the god damn point that we don’t want this lot at our club anymore by all means I’ll jump on board. But if you don’t, my idea when you think about, will do a lot of damage to them.

[Diogenes]

I wasn't around then but am guessing Moore or Greenwood related?

It was actually the Ted Fenton era, the precursor to Greenwood. Fenton made the breakthrough and established us as a Division One football club. Greenwood built on what Fenton achieved and made us an 'attractive' footballing team. When people talk about the 'West Ham Way' you have to go back to probably 1955 to 1987. My first game was 1963.

[Humbug]

So is what I've just heard probably the way things will pan out?

1. Gold and Sullivan knew that there was a good chance that they could pay peanuts rent for Olympic Stadium before they bid for WHU
2. That they thought that it would only cost £350k for retractable seating which could transform the stadium seating from an Athletic championship style to a football style venue (and vice versa).
3. That the firm that was responsible for installing that seating went bust half way through the installation.
4. That we have got a form of retractable seating in place but it costs £8m to do the transformation each time and every time (ie. for every won bid to hold a championship event at the stadium)
5. That the owners still pay £2m pa but don't have to stump up any more for that £8m cost . That the tax payers have to subsidise it.
6.So Gold and Sullivan know that this situation about tax payers subsidising the cost of seating transformation will become untenable and it will end up costing them more money than they make at the stadium.
7. That because of point 6 above, GS are playing a waiting game hoping that Bilic will keep us up before selling up , pocketing all the interest on the £100m debt that they shifted to themselves, plus pocketing over £1 billion for UP land.

If all the above true , then they will have virtually killed us off as a football club.