Forum | General Discussion

Tomorrow's match is obviously a keenly anticipated event, despite the 'Sword of Damocles' 2-1 negative aggregate score against NK Domzale, defeat would see Hammers fail at their first hurdle of European footballing competition, not something the co-owners, players or fans would wish. To Thursday's game, there will be a huge amount of media attention, disproportionate to the importance of actual match itself, a loss would be damaging but not necessarily catastrophic and the match is a sell out . Which leads us to a slightly unsavory topic, much credit should be given to the owners for having managed to make many seats available at a very low cost to supporters to see the match, however the need to 'earn a buck' on every occasion denigrates and devalues the core values of the club, and the needless and it is hard to say 'false' promotion of the bar facilities at the match is essentially just cheap!
In Case you are in any doubt, alcoholic beverages are FORBIDDEN by UEFA for their competitions and as such the wonderful bars being punted, are actually 'mocktail' locations.
Whilst we acknowledge that the official ticket/season holder pack (available online) does refer to the lack of alcohol availability on the night, the information doesn't appear to be that obvious for people who aren't particularly 'in the loop'. It is to be hoped that this lack of information is not the result of some pernicious desire to 'lure' punters into a bar thinking that they could by an alcoholic drink only to find that this was not possible, by this time of course they would be unable to leave the ground to seek refreshment elsewhere.
We are not advocating the need to drink before a match as a compulsory act, however we do believe fans should be sufficiently notified in advance of the prevailing circumstances. - Ed

There is plenty of interest around the Globe, and closer to home, in West Ham United's inaugural match at the London Olympic Stadium on Thursday evening, the 2nd leg of their UEFA Europa League cup tie against NK Domzale. Media coverage of the event is bound to be wide spread given the magnitude of the event and the timing being so close to the 50th anniversary of England's 1966 World Cup victory, famously engineered by the Hammer's triumvirate of Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters.
London Weekend Television have contacted us about getting some Orgers together ahead of Thursday's match around 6pm for a live transmission from outside the Stadium, the remit is to try and get fathers and sons, or fathers sons and grandsons together to talk about their general feelings, hopes and fears about the match and about moving in to the new stadium. Thames TV are waiting to be told where they are allowed to film by the club, so the exact location of where to meet up is yet to be confirmed but anyone who is interested contact us at admin@westhamfans.org leaving your details, we will get in touch as soon as we know the final details, but please note that in our experience these things have the potential to be a bit chaotic - Ed
PS: They are aware there will about to be a match starting that everyone will want to be in attendance of on time!

Jealousy and inaccuracy seem to be behind the City AM article that has been published referring to possible sell on revenues of the Olympic stadium. Someone spent a lot of time adding 2+2 and getting 5! The poorly researched misinformation spouted by Frank Dalleres and Oliver Gill bears all the hallmarks of 'space filling', probably to offset the lack of a 'proper' lead story. The Olympic stadium anchor tenant deal struck by West Ham will always be subject to scrutiny because there are those who are basically jealous, they should remember that West Ham did not ask for the Stadium to be built on there door step, the Olympic site was chosen for a whole host of reasons, but providing a new venue for West Ham United was not in the remit. More is the pity, because IF the Stadium had been constructed with West Ham in mind to take over once the Olympic games had finished, the entire construction process of converting the Stadium would have been different and incredibly less expensive! The fact is that virtually all other main stadium constructed for the Olympic games elsewhere in the World have become costly white elephants, at least the Queen Elizabeth Stadium will start to return money to the tax payer, and that is how it should be.
The misjudged article in City AM assumes that co-owners of West Ham United, David Sullivan and David Gold, are in the market to sell the club. The premise for the writing is based on an old throw away comment made by both David's at different times similar to "if a super rich person were willing to invest in the club then we would have to look at the proposal" David Gold has often said that he owns 500 Ann Summers shops not 500 oil wells, but at no time has there ever been an outline or time frame. The article further infers that David Sullivan made his fortune by selling pornography, his men's magazines were indeed 'near the mark' however at no time were they legally deemed as Porn! We at the Org know this because one of our team actually worked in the same business environment at the time Mr Sullivan started out, the legal frame work at the time meant that printers and distributors would not sanction the production of a magazine or any other item that had not first been given legal clearance. Although we are not sure if he worked for David Sullivan or David Gold at the time, the late John Mortimer based at Lincoln's Inn definitely used to do the legal clearance for Knave and Fiesta which were two prominent men's magazines at the time.
So apart form trying to besmirch David Sullivan's character (many have done so in the past) the City AM article goes on to quote 'figures' plucked from the air and closes with one final piece of inaccuracy..........

{Manchester City, Crystal Palace, Swansea and Everton have all seen full or partial buyouts in the last year alone, and analysts predict demand for English clubs will continue to grow.}

Who ever took over Manchester City this year must really have done so on the quiet! - Ed