PR Disaster For Fulham Great Win For Hammers

Yesterday's friendly 1-0 victory against Fulham played at Craven Cottage should have been a 'football festival of fun', indeed the West Ham players will be happy with their performances and by how many Hammers fans turned out to see their team. The balmy atmosphere of early on in the week had dissipated and was replaced with good old British thunderstorms and the occasional torrential downpour, never the less there were officially just over 2,500 Hammers fans in attendance, unofficially the figure was more like 4,000 given the fact that tickets were available on the door.

What could possibly go wrong? Two London teams with similar traditions and back ground, enjoying a pleasant pre-season game in convivial surroundings with relatively like minded souls. Someone somewhere underestimated the amount of interest there would be in the match, the stewarding was woeful mainly because there weren't enough stewards and those that were available looked as if they were totally new to the job. It did give visitors a sort of London Stadium deja vu from the Hammers first season where the lack of training of match day staff was similarly inept.

Fulham had taken the decision not to stream the game, as is their right, apparently they were worried about ticket sales for the game and wanted to ensure a full ground, they needn't have worried. As Fulham now play in the 2nd tier, namely the EFL, foreign broadcasters showed little or no desire to cover the match and it was too late in the day to do a rush installation of the hardware to broadcast by West Ham.

While Fulham's stance regarding the broadcasting of the match is understandable, the heavy handed way in which stewards tried to stop people using their mobile phones to cover parts of the game was totally unacceptable, as was some of the language used by fans who were sanctioned by the stewards. This left a very negative taste of what should have been a very enjoyable day out, why on earth prevent people from showing the game via their phones to people who could not be there in person? There was no financial gain in banning the use of phones because there were no broadcasters!

To make matters worse several, West Ham fans were 'evicted' by over zealous staff who were probably reacting to some rather nasty and unacceptable racial abuse. Shame on those fans, no matter how upset they were they had no right to overstep the mark, their actions besmirch the good name of Hammers travelling fans.

As a foot note, the recently opened Taco Bell Mexican take away just of the Fulham Road is inundated on match days when Chelsea play, and to a lesser extent when Fulham play. The staff who work there told us "The Chelsea fans are like animals, they throw their rubbish on the floor and don't give a damn, the Fulham fans are more considerate, but the best fans they have had there were West Ham fans, apparently Hammers fans were the only ones who asked where the bins were to put their rubbish in! - Ed