Hammers (Un)united Folly
At the Org we are split into two 'friendly' factions as to the stewardship of West Ham United since Gold & Sullivan took over the club from those venerable 'families' who had previously 'looked after the club, the Cairns and latterly the Brown's dynasties. For the term 'looked after', you can legitimately substitute the words 'didn't invest and took all the cash', so just remember how easy it is to 'vision', with claret & blue spectacles, how perfec' everything was back at the jolly old' Boleyn Ground.
Believe it or not, a thousand years ago our founder was employed by Galaxy Publications who produced such high brow periodicals as Knave and Fiesta to sell 'legitimate' advertising to the booze and cigarette agencies in the hope that the smut on offer would be accepted for distribution in mainstream media outlets like WH Smith and Menzies if it had a lot of high profile 'respectable' advertising, and it worked!
Amusingly, the person that Nev replaced in the role of director of advertising was none other than....Mr David Sullivan, who quickly saw the opportunities on offer and set up his own organisation called PRIVATE to sell border line' content and products, to achieve this he used a venerable advertising man named Mike Milne through his company Adaction to place adverts that no one would have accepted if they had known they were coming from Sullivan, particularly Russell Gay at Galaxy who had originally employed Sullivan to take the company's advertising to a different level, perversely Sullivan just did that by taking a great chunk of the smut market away!
Sullivan is the chief protagonist now that David Gold is getting increasingly senile, and yes Sullivan has made plenty of errors, especially when he repeatedly tried to use his 'barrow boy' negotiating 'skills' for player acquisitions, with ultimately only a ONE in TEN success rate!
So the Org should be jumping on the GSB out bandwagon and should be firmly behind the Hammers United 'protest' planned to coincide with the home game against Barclays Premier League newcomers Brentford shouldn't we? Well the answer to that one is a big fat NO, YES they have been embarrassing and have generally been stingy with their expenditure, but it is what it is and any remonstrations, in our opinion, should be made when the season is over. Of course feelings run high and we understand fans' frustration, but there IS a time and a place to make representations, during what could be yet another landmark season, we see no reason to do anything that will have a negative effect on the club's current incredible upward trajectory.
Or do fans really want to shoot the club in it's own foot? If that's what you want, please demonstrate with gusto! However remember that despite earning vast amounts, some say obscene amounts of money, players are only human and anyone who thinks the players are unaffected by demonstrations before, during or even after a game are ill-informed or deluded or both.
Like we say, Gold Sullivan and even that other one are not the most popular people here at the Org, but to demonstrate when the club is enjoying it's best spell for at least 15 years is absolutely ludicrous, there IS a time and a place for everything, however this is neither the time, nor London Bowl the place, to offer constructive criticism only negative pessimism, there is plenty of time off season to protest, or do Hammers United want to wreck the club's tenuous progress merely to perpetuate their own existence and follow their own agenda?- LN
