Premier League Hall of Shame: West Ham

Daniel Storey

We’re at the end of the run. We have done ArsenalBournemouthBurnleyChelseaCrystal PalaceEverton, Hull City, Leicester City Liverpool, Manchester CityManchester UnitedMiddlesbrough, Southampton, Stoke City, Sunderland, Swansea CityTottenham and Watford and West BromGo read about 25,000 words of stuff…

 

Worst thing that other fans think about them?
For a long time, West Ham were actually a very well-liked club. Their hooligan contingent of the 1970s and 1980s gave them a bad name, but they were only one of the worst of a bad lot in that regard. As they regrouped and improved around the turn of the century under Harry Redknapp (before his own reputation soured), West Ham became one of the neutral’s favourite teams. They had young or likeable players in Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Trevor Sinclair, Paolo di Canio, Joe Cole and Eyal Berkovic combined with lingering old school footballers in Julian Dicks, Neil Ruddock, John Moncur and Steve Lomas, and the combination was appealing.

Yet somewhere along the line, West Ham lost all that. They are not hated per se – at least not outside of London – but are seen as worthy of ridicule. That’s a lot worse, because crucially it intimates a lack of any jealousy.

Much of this scorn is associated with the club’s owners, the Davids Gold and Sullivan. One wears a Russian hat and coat and has the demeanour of a particularly unpleasant gnome, while the other looks like a an extra in a pub scene in Only Fools and Horses. Their first joint partnership was in selling softcore pornographic photos, before moving to adult shops and naughty movies. It made them rich and made them hungry for more success.

There’s nothing wrong with ambition, but Gold and Sullivan emit an air that sits somewhere between Mr Bean and Ray Winstone: there’s an awful lot of bravado and bluster but very little action other than ludicrous incompetence. West Ham’s owners want the club to be part of the established London football elite, but everything is merely metal painted gold. Go after Alexandre Lacazette, Carlos Bacca and Theo Walcott; end up with Simone Zaza and Carlton Cole back for his 18th spell. They have turned West Ham into the ‘fur coat but no knickers’ club.

The issue that leaves the sourest taste is just how many toes Gold and Sullivan are prepared to tread on to realise their own ambitions, including those of their own fans. The stadium move is one thing, but it’s the little things too. Like West Ham charging £600 for its mascot packages, comfortably the highest in the country. And the owners’ effective abandonment of the process of academy graduates reaching the first-team squad; that’s how you alienate a fan base.

West Ham’s online club store sells one board game, ‘Football Billionaire’, where the aim of the game is to ‘become the wealthiest, most successful football club owner ever’. It’s like Gold and Sullivan are both playing that game live, but badly.

The other accusations against West Ham involve their alleged over-inflation of the club’s prominence within the game, including the ‘West Ham Way’ and references to them winning the World Cup for England. The ‘Academy of Football’ stuff can grate a little, but from experience these are mostly false memories on behalf of the accusers. The people talking about West Ham supporters saying they won the World Cup far outnumber the West Ham supporters who actually believe or say that.

The exception to my generosity here was the embarrassing farewell to the Boleyn Ground – as we all had to call it for the final months – at the end of last season, in which West Ham produced a version of the London 2012 opening ceremony but with a budget of around £250. Do we want to see Matthew Etherington getting out of a black cab on the pitch? Yes we do. Did most West Ham supporters’ faces turn a shade of claret? Yes again.

 

Worst thing about the ground?
That it was given to them essentially for free and run at the cost of the taxpayer, meaning that we can all share a part of the joy in West Ham’s success? Of course. Yet that is an argument for another time. Instead let’s focus solely on the stadium itself.

Upton Park was not perfect, far from it, but it was at least a football stadium built for football and used to hosting football. It was not an athletics stadium crowbarred into a football ground in double-speed. Away (and home) supporters initially moaned about a view that required binoculars, and there were significant problems with crowd trouble and seating in the early games, but people are getting used to the view and the other problems have largely been ironed out. The suspicion is that the team’s inability to perform adequately in the stadium led to an over-exaggeration of its problems. If Slaven Bilic improves upon those results, the London Stadium will feel more like home. And we all have a little, paid-for piece of it.

 

Worst signing
Any of the band of unhappy brothers who joined last summer could be included (I’m looking at you, Gokhan Tore and Zaza), but sadly it has to be Savio Nzereko. Signed for a club-record £9m fee in January 2009, Savio started one Premier League game and played 253 minutes in total in England. After leaving for Fiorentina and seeing his career hopes slide, Savio was twice reported missing and was last season playing for FC Pipinsreid in Germany’s fifth tier at the age of 27.

 

Worst kit
Really easy this week, because I always hated this bloody shirt. It’s the colour of those non-branded cricket whites you had at the age of ten that all the cooler kids with Slazenger gear took the p*ss out of.

Then you had the manufacturer, and I’m sure Pony has gone and got cool again without me noticing but it just looks naff. Add in the club badge front and centre which gives every shirt the look of a Pro Evo team without the licensing and the large label in the collar that would wear away at the skin on your neck until it was covered in blood by half-time and you have a rotten shirt. Yes, I know, West Ham fans probably love it. I’m sorry.

 

That’s the important stuff done. Now, how creepy is the mascot?
The weirdest of them all. Mascots are supposed to be cuddly, with soft edges. That’s their thing. West Ham’s Hammerhead isn’t quite up to the nightmarish standards of the Partick Thistle monstrosity, but it is still not right. Seeing a mascot with sharp edges is like seeing a child forced to wear a waistcoat, shirt and tie. It just doesn’t look natural.

If cuddliness is one prerequisite of being a mascot, the other is to be approachable by children. The only child brave enough to wander up to Hammerhead and ask for a cuddle will be heavily armed or holding the hand of his Marine father. West Ham’s mascot looks like a Steroid addict German techno fan. Weirdly, kids aren’t into that, or at least they shouldn’t be.

Honestly, look at that visage, with the piercing yellow eyes and black mouth opening that looks as if it goes on forever. Hammerhead’s face looks like Kaa from the Jungle Book dressed in a suit of armour.

 

Worst celebrity fan – James Corden
I don’t know if hating James Corden is justified or just became the thing to do as a reaction to his extraordinary success, in the same way that James Blunt faced a backlash before becoming officially Good At Twitter. But there are numerous reports that Corden ‘embraced’ his rapid rise to fame a little too smugly for the liking of those around him, and thus became that most unpleasant entity: the over-hyped Saturday night comedian.

Watching Corden now (yeah, research and everything), he strikes as someone trying to imitate the wondrous comedy of Ricky Gervais’ The Office character, but succeeding only in becoming David Brent. For a period of at least 18 months, Corden’s best trick seemed to be getting his large belly out for mild laughs. Somehow, that was enough for him to break America.

Horne and Corden, the follow-up to the wonderful Gavin and Stacey, was painful to watch, but the only other thing I’ve seen Corden in was James Corden’s World Cup Live. It was a comedy chat show set around the 2010 World Cup, featuring Abbey Clancy and with features such as ‘Heston Blumen-Cool or Heston Blumem-Fool?’. I cannot urge you strongly enough to watch it, if only to witness the true desecration of John Logie Baird’s wonderful invention.

NB – I was close to picking Jack Sullivan here, although he’s hardly a celebrity fan. Still, can we have a moment for the son of the co-owner who thinks it is a good idea to spout on social media about potential transfers rather than allowing the club to get on with business and announce it when it is done? It is small-time and embarrassing, and I can’t believe that West Ham haven’t put a stop to it.

 

Greatest own goal
It is that great staple of top ten lists, the Iain Dowie header. The magic lies not in the complexity or even humour of Dowie’s own goal against Stockport County but the fact that, were you to remove the kit colours, you would swear that he was a striker jumping to nod home a fine header. A true pillar of the art form.

 

Weirdest club shop item
I’ll be honest, I was worried. Having reached the end of this series, I was concerned that West Ham’s club store would have nothing new to give. Sure there’s the garter, described as ‘Perfect for Hen partys! (sic)’, but Tottenham had one of those. Yes there’s the mug that screams unhelpful patriotism, but it probably sells well. But did West Ham have a hidden treat?

Yes they f*cking well did. It’s not until you see a URL like ‘officialwesthamstore.com/home-accessories/bathroom/2408_12-PACK-NAPPIES.html’ that you truly understand what it is to laugh alone, sat at a desk. Oh yes, West Ham sell nappies. They sell nappies alright.

The first thing to say here is ‘What in holy hell?’ but once that rhetorical blasphemy has been dealt with, two things stick out. The first is that charging £10 (plus delivery) for 12 disposable nappies really is the most sensational work of this series. For those interested, you can buy 80 Pampers nappies for £11 in Sainsburys.

And then there’s the metaphor, because there is something deeply joyful about a club taking its product marketing so far that you can have an item branded in club colours and badge which has the literal use of being filled with sh*t and p*ss before being thrown into a bin to fester. Sometimes the punchlines aren’t needed.

Yet the best treat is saved for the product photo on the website. Because, and I cannot explain this on the club’s behalf, West Ham appear to have used a baby to advertise this product who simultaneously looks both four months and 42 years old. Honestly, it’s Phil Mitchell crossed with Nottingham Forest era Steve Stone.

 

Daniel Storey – This is the last one is this series, so thank you for reading. The supporters I made the most angry were from Middlesbrough, which is a shame because I really like Middlesbrough. Sorry about that. Mostly it was taken in good spirits.