Daily WHUFC News - 9th September 2013

On this day - 9 September
WHUFC.com
West Ham enjoyed a memorable trip to Aston Villa 52 years ago today
09.09.2013

Classic match
Aston Villa 2-4 West Ham United
Division One
9 September 1961

The Hammers travelled to Birmingham to take on Aston Villa 52 years ago
today, having won two, drawn two and lost two in a solid start to the new
campaign. Their record would be improved with a strong display at Villa
Park, which saw them run in four goals to collect both points. Villa were on
target twice themselves, but it would be to no avail as the Hammers
responded in kind. John Dick scored twice, while Tony Scott and Alan Sealey
were also on target on a successful afternoon for the Londoners. Villa and
the Hammers would be locked together for much of the season, with the two
claret and blue clubs finishing in seventh and eighth place respectively.

Complete record - 9 September
1998 West Ham United 3-4 Wimbledon (Premier League)
1989 West Ham United 1-1 Swindon Town (Division Two)
1978 Burnley 3-2 West Ham United (Division Two)
1972 Chelsea 1-3 West Ham United (Division One)
1967 Sunderland 1-5 West Ham United (Division One)
1963 Nottingham Forest 2-0 West Ham United (Division One)
1961 Aston Villa 2-4 West Ham United (Division One)
1959 Tottenham Hotspur 2-2 West Ham United (Division One)
1957 West Ham United 0-3 Sheffield United (Division Two)
1950 Blackburn Rovers 1-3 West Ham United (Division Two)
1946 Fulham 3-2 West Ham United (Division Two)
1936 Newcastle United 5-3 West Ham United (Division Two)
1935 West Ham United 1-0 Bradford Park Avenue (Division Two)
1933 West Ham United 1-2 Burnley (Division Two)
1929 West Ham United 5-1 Newcastle United (Division One)
1922 West Ham United 4-0 Rotherham County (Division Two)
Played 16, Won 7, Drawn 2, Lost 7, Scored 39, Conceded 31

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David Sullivan: Part Three
Filed: Sunday, 8th September 2013
By: Graeme Howlett
KUMB.com

Shortly before the closure of the summer transfer window KUMB had the
opportunity to sit down with David Sullivan, the co-owner of West Ham
United, for a lengthy one-to-one ahead of the 2013/14 Premier League season.

In what proved to be a frank, honest and open discussion, the Chairman
answered questions on subjects as varied as his son's involvement with
Twitter, the Club's summer transfer policy, his relationship with Sam
Allardyce and the imminent move to the Olympic Stadium.

Quizzing Mr Sullivan on behalf of KUMB.com was Graeme Howlett.


KUMB: After we were relegated in 2011 you mentioned in an interview that
some fans had accused you of "wrecking" the Club. One would like to think
that your relationship with the supporters has improved now you've overseen
a return to the Premier League coupled with a top ten finish; is that your
experience?

DS: Overall I think we've got fantastic supporters and they're incredibly
supportive of the team. You get a few people, but I could understand their
frustration when we got relegated - we picked a bad manager. I don't want to
say nasty things about Avram [Grant] but it was a bad selection, a mistake.

KUMB: But that's life, we all make mistakes.

DS: We sign a new manager every 'x' years and it's a hell of a gamble. A
manager can sign 20 players and he might sign ten good ones and ten bad
ones. It's a lot easier than when you sign only one and you've got to stake
your entire reputation [on it]!

We should have probably have changed managers in January but as is well
reported, we tried to get Martin O'Neill and it went on all through January.
He kept on saying: "I'll be the next manager of West Ham" - and we'd say:
"When Martin, when?" to which he'd reply: "Soon". He wouldn't commit.

We were very aware of people's perception of Sam at the time. Even to this
day, I get so annoyed when you turn on the radio and they say to the fans:
"What's it like going to West Ham and watching no football anymore? Isn't
that terrible?"

Well they can't have been there. There's been plenty of good games where
we've played plenty of good football. We don't play 100 per cent possession
football like Swansea or Wigan and teams like that, but you don't judge
football on the number of passes you make - you judge it on the number of
goals you score and concede.

I've got to say, Wigan are a very pretty side to watch. Swansea against
Malmo last month were like Real Madrid, they were incredible! At the same
time, we don't hump the ball all the time and there are games where you're
[constantly] shut down and the players have no choice but to bang it. But
where possible they put the ball on the floor and they pass it.

But going back to the fans, I don't think our relationship was too bad
anyway. It's just a few supporters that get upset, but most supporters
accept that if you're trying your best and digging deep in your pocket - as
best you can - they respect you for it. I think the supporters accept we are
also supporters, real supporters and they recognise and respect that.

We had a manager who'd probably lost the team. There were certain players
who didn't want to be there, there were players who thought "if we get
relegated I'll get a nice transfer and I'll be out of it". Players who
wouldn't play in the last game as we were relegated by then - they actually
told the stand-in manager: "We'd prefer not to play as we don't want to risk
injury." It's not very nice.

KUMB: When the subject of direct football arises, I often refer to the final
goal of the 1966 World Cup Final when Bobby Moore banged the ball 60 yards
to Geoff Hurst! But do you feel vindicated now that Sam has achieved every
target you've set of him, and that you went for him over an O'Neill who is
perhaps more known for playing football with flair?

DS:. Martin had a terrific record until he went to Sunderland - and even in
his first ten, 15 games there he had a terrific record. For some reason, it
went wrong. Whether he'd have turned it around, I don't know.

We went for somebody... A bit like Sam signing English players, we went for
safety - a man with a proven track record. We went for a manager who'd got
promotion from that division before, who knew the division and who we
thought was the right man at the time. We had to make a lot of changes; get
people in, get people out.

I'm not proud of it because I hate being relegated, but myself and David had
been relegated twice before and we got automatic promotion both times. To be
honest with you, I was disappointed at finishing third as I thought we'd win
the division. But ultimately the most important thing was that we got
promotion and to go up at Wembley was an incredible experience. Then to
finish tenth in the Premier League was a great achievement.

With the exception of the play-off Final where for some reason we didn't
play but froze - and there were a few players who had terrible games and you
don't know why - at the end of the season, we were the best team in the
division. We battered Brighton who were play-off contenders 6-0 and bashed
Cardiff 5-0 over two legs.

So at the end we came good, but it took time to come good. We had a sticky
spell around Christmas. Normally with the points we got we would have
finished second, so we would have got automatic promotion. All's well that
ends well but I actually expected us to do better.

We lost £30million the year we went down; we had to put 30 million of cash
in. I wish it hadn't happened as relegation certainly wasn't in the
masterplan!

KUMB: Not exactly top of the list!

DS: No! If we'd stayed up we would have spent it on players. But we've got
very good fans. You've always got some who aren't happy and you've always
got fans who don't fully understand the facts, which is why the guts of my
programme notes from Cardiff explained the wage cap. Even if you want to
spend the money, you can't spend the money.

I did not explain this as some sort of defence mechanism, or to hide behind
it. The wage cap is £52million and you simply cannot go above it, whether
you want to or not.

KUMB: I'm trying to put myself in your situation as Chairman. If all these
people were saying, "you're doing a crap job", do you not ever think, "sod
it, I'm going to walk away and leave it"?

DS: Well we haven't had too much of that [at West Ham], but when you do, it
does get you down.

KUMB: You had it at Birmingham towards the end?

DS: The second time we got relegated was terrible, yeah. But we went
straight back up again. That was horrendous, My eldest son is still
traumatised as a result of that - people going like this to him [waves
imaginary knife across his throat] and all that. It was very disturbing for
me and my whole family.

Only now do I realise the impact it's had on him because he's told me and
I've seen pictures of him on the day. As adults we can say "stick and stones
will break my bones..." although it does hurt, it hurts inside. As a kid he
was very frightened, and I thought to myself, "Why have we got it when
Reading and Derby also went down?" They didn't have any trouble, we did.

I think part of the problem was that we were outsiders at Birmingham. I was
always very honest with the people there, I said: "Look, we're here to do a
job and we'll do a good job as long as we're here but one day we'll return
to London as my heart is there".

That's not what football fans want to hear, really - I should have said I'd
loved Birmingham since I was a kid and that we'd be there forever! I'd be
fibbing and it's not in my nature to fib, but honesty doesn't always pay.

Before we ever bought Birmingham we owned 27 per cent of West Ham. We owned
27 per cent of West Ham 25, 26 years ago; Terry Brown [who subsequently
became Chairman] bought the shares we bought from Jack Petchey.

The reason we sold them - we had them for about nine months - was because
the Hills and the Cearns owned about 70 per cent between them and they were
very close, they weren't going to let anybody new in. They weren't going to
give us a seat on the Board, they weren't going to give us anything for our
27 per cent.

Jack Petchey was a very shrewd man and he couldn't get any more shares so we
took the view - wrongly - that we didn't think we were going to get any more
shares. The reality is, if you hang on for a couple of years, people's
circumstances change. We saw the Hills and the Cearns as one unit - and they
weren't.

In the Hills there were five members of the family and gradually we could
have grown our share. We should have stayed; it was a mistake not to stay 25
years ago.

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David Sullivan: Part Four
Filed: Sunday, 8th September 2013
By: Graeme Howlett
KUMb.com

Shortly before the close of the summer transfer window KUMB had the
opportunity to sit down with David Sullivan, the co-owner of West Ham
United, for a lengthy one-to-one ahead of the 2013/14 Premier League season.

In what proved to be a frank, honest and open discussion, the Chairman
answered questions on subjects as varied as his son's involvement with
Twitter, the Club's summer transfer policy, his relationship with Sam
Allardyce and the imminent move to the Olympic Stadium.

Quizzing Mr Sullivan on behalf of KUMB.com was Graeme Howlett.


KUMB: You think now, in retrospect, you could have had the Club then?

DS: I think we should have stayed. We would have had control within ten
years - or at least been given some sort of say in how things were run. But
we took a view and moved on.

When Terry Brown sold up to the Icelandics I even owned three or four per
cent of the Club then, because you're allowed under Football League rules to
own ten per cent of another club and I was gradually picking up shares
thinking, "well, it'd be a nice thing for my kids one day to have ten per
cent of West Ham." Or if I decided to make a move on West Ham I've already
got ten per cent.

So I was looking at my escape route and then Terry Brown sold to the
Icelandics, so you have to sell with him.

KUMB: There was a compulsory sale clause in the takeover, if I recall
correctly - once the purchasing party take 80, 90 per cent?

DS: After 90 per cent it's obligatory.

KUMB: I lost my one single share too, by the way. We're all victims...

DS: It was a terrific deal! But I was just picking them up over 18 months; I
thought I'd build up to ten per cent as they come along. The year I bought
most of my shares, West Ham had been relegated - but then they got back up.
But we've always wanted to own West Ham.

KUMB: What do you think was the main problem with the Hills and the Cearns?
Was it purely the fact that you were involved in the sex industry?

DS: I think it was that, I think it was because someone had painted a
terrible picture of us. When we got to Birmingham I bet they thought, "why
didn't we meet them, they're not bad people!" Them old boys, they were like
the old brigade of football. They stuck together, it was another world. I
think they feared anybody who was going to come in and just get rid of them.

Even at Birmingham, the old Chairman Jack Wiseman was always there until he
died. We respect the past. It's where you draw the line with the old,
because sometimes hundreds of people come in for the boxes and you can't
have hundreds of seats not being paid for. If I do deals with people, I
honour them.

KUMB: It's 20 years now since you took over Birmingham - 1993?

DS: I was 44, so 20 years.

KUMB: So you'll have seen most things you're going to see as a Chairman of a
football club?

DS: I haven't seen the good times as yet, but I am hopeful that we will get
them at West Ham United.

KUMB: We'll wait for those to come!

DS: When we were at Birmingham they got beaten in a penalty shootout in the
Carling Cup Final when we were in the Championship, funnily enough.

KUMB: And the Carling Cup semi-final under Avram when we lost to Birmingham?


DS: I hope we can deliver far more [for West Ham] because the aspirations
are far higher - and quite rightly so. We want to build the Club so it's
financially independent, solvent, with money in the bank and is challenging
for Europe every year. That's our ambition.

KUMB: My question was going to be, are you still enjoying it?

DS: Yeah, I didn't enjoy relegation and the Championship is very stressful.
I enjoyed all of last season except that one sticky spell where you just
started to think, "could we [get dragged into the mire]?" Avram at the end
got one point from eight games and you know if you hit form like that,
you're going to go down.

We had a sticky spot around Christmas and January and I got nervous for the
first time. The minute we were safe was terrific. But I enjoy it; I do it
because it's my hobby, my life. It's unfortunate in football that it's more
fun winning than losing and what was nice about last year compared to the
previous year we actually only got beaten at home four times by very good
teams.

The previous year was incredibly frustrating. We had terrific away form and
yet we drew with Watford, Crystal Palace, Middlesbrough and Doncaster - and
against Doncaster we were hanging on at the end! The first
quarter-of-an-hour we were one up - we should have been two up, but had a
good goal disallowed.

Then suddenly they got back into the game, I couldn't work out what
happened. We were hanging on at the end. I think they got relegated in the
end?

KUMB: They did, they went down!

DS: I could see it was very, very frustrating for the supporters and I think
you have a completely different atmosphere at the ground in the
Championship. The supporters were expecting us to pulverise everybody. Other
than the key games at the end they couldn't get behind the team.

KUMB: It's a vicious circle, isn't it? The opposing team up their game
because they're playing one of the leading teams in the division, the fans
are expectant because it's a supposedly inferior team and then the players
feel that. Sam referred to this a lot in his press conferences [that
season].

DS: A lot of them came for a point. Bristol City put ten men behind the ball
and nearly nicked it in the last minute.

KUMB: Crystal Palace as well, when Sam Baldock had our only real chance of
the game with a one-on-one? But it was so frustrating as a supporter.

DS: Yeah.

KUMB: It reminded me of when we were relegated last time and in the first
game back in the Premiership we beat Blackburn 3-1 under Alan Pardew. It was
like walking into a different ground, and it was the same last season.

DS: And I can understand it completely because in the Championship, we were
expected to do it. When you're playing Doncaster and you can't beat them it
is frustrating.

You can't just say that's football because Man United beat everyone at Old
Trafford - and I expected to be the Man United of the Championship. I
expected us to run over everybody. But last year the fans got behind their
team. I hope they do again this season; l I think they will.

KUMB: One thing that I did want to ask you about was the Club's financial
position. You inherited a complete mess from the previous administration and
Karren Brady stated recently that we were looking to clear the debt prior to
moving to the Olympic Stadium?

DS: Yes, we're looking to clear the external debt.

KUMB: Our obligations to the banks? Isn't that based upon us being at the
Boleyn Ground and that being our main asset?

DS: Yes, we have a lot of financial commitments but we have paid a lot of
them down. David Gold and I also put money in so all that's happened is that
we now hold some of the debt ourselves instead of the external companies,
like the banks holding it. We're not threatening debtors, that's the
difference - we don't get the interest rate, which helps pay down the club's
debt as we're not paying interest at a time when it needs all its resources
to be re-invested.

KUMB: Does that mean you've given interest-free loans to the Club?

DS: No, it's not interest free - we're not allowed to, but it's rolled-up
interest and there's no pressure to pay. The banks have to be paid down,
Sheffield United had to be paid - someone had to pay the money. Plus we lost
£30million in the Championship.

KUMB: What figure are we talking? £70million or so?

DS: No; it's gone up if you include that we've just signed Andy Carroll and
you pay only so much down pay over three years, we've taken on more debt
there. But we are solid, trading well and the business is now on a firm
footing.

KUMB: But it's clearly a debt you view as manageable, given that you've gone
out and broken the Club's transfer record twice in successive seasons?

DS: I think you have to; you've got to try. Cardiff recently spent
£27million on three players in a week. They didn't have the wage overhead
that we inherited. We inherited a lot of bad players on very high wages and
other things like the Sheffield United debt.

KUMB: Is that done now, David? Has the last payment gone out?

DS: The last payment's gone out now. That debt was back-ended; I think the
club's attitude at the time was, "If I can push this far into the future
then it's someone else's problem!"

KUMB: It was recently announced that you had purchased a further 25 per cent
of shares from CB Holdings which I think leaves only ten per cent or so of
the Club in Icelandic hands now. Can you explain the rationale behind you
doing that personally rather than with DG?

Also, do you envisage taking control of that remaining ten per cent at some
stage? As I understand it, there is a deadline?

DS: There was a deadline for buying another 25 per cent, that's why I bought
it. I've got a further deadline for the ten per cent, of two-and-a-half to
three years.

KUMB: That's from now?

DS: From now, yes. It was all to do with restructuring the bank debt. If I
bought these shares they would take over the bank debt which ran out in
December. It's been renewed for another three years and I've put a bit of
money into the bank debt as well. It's complicated really.

It bleeds you dry and both David Gold and I are just British citizens who
pay taxes. I had the option and it had to be paid there and then. It wasn't
on the drip, I had to pay a big lump of money - tens of millions. I had to
put money towards the loan as well. It's just the way it fell, just the way
it worked.

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David Sullivan: Part Five
Filed: Sunday, 8th September 2013
By: Graeme Howlett
KUMB.com

Shortly before the close of the summer transfer window KUMB had the
opportunity to sit down with David Sullivan, the co-owner of West Ham
United, for a lengthy one-to-one ahead of the 2013/14 Premier League season.

In what proved to be a frank, honest and open discussion, the Chairman
answered questions on subjects as varied as his son's involvement with
Twitter, the Club's summer transfer policy, his relationship with Sam
Allardyce and the imminent move to the Olympic Stadium.

Quizzing Mr Sullivan on behalf of KUMB.com was Graeme Howlett.


KUMB: Do you have a limit on what you would spend on the Club?

DS: Now! But every year we find a little bit more.

KUMB: It must be a constant drain though? Ever since you've come in... You
had to pay off Gianfranco Zola; you had to pay another manager; you went
down and had to find another £30million for that. You've come back up and
had to buy a new squad; you must wonder when you're going to see a return on
all this?

DS: Long-term I expect the Club to break even, but we've been quite
ambitious, we're not running it like an administrator. We could have run it
just to be financially better but been relegated and not got promotion. So
we've chased football success within restraints. I hope within a year we'll
be self-funded.

KUMB: AS soon as that?

DS: Yeah, I hope within a year. I hope by then it can pay down its own debt,
it'll be solvent. Sheffield United's gone, so that's a big one gone. For
that we paid down £18million in two-and-a-half years. There was more before
that, a little bit paid before us.

We have a good team, a good manager and fantastic people working behind the
scenes at the club, all of whom have shown great loyalty and ambitions to
make West Ham United great. We have the Olympic Stadium so I feel very
positive about things at the moment.

KUMB: I wanted to ask you about Ravel Morrison. One of your picks?

DS: No, it was a joint pick. I've never picked a player... Sam saw Alex
Ferguson at a dinner and Alex talked him into taking the player. He said:
"I've got this fantastic player" - and I thought we'd just take a chance
really. Within your portfolio of players you can have safe ones and some
more risky ones so we took a chance.

KUMB: Was it a risk worth taking because of the low fee involved?

DS: He wasn't low cost, by the time we paid the club and the agent it was a
lot of money. The agent got a huge fee out of it. It was a lot of money,
well into seven figures. It wasn't a couple of hundred grand. We've just
bought a lad from Arsenal - Jordan brown - who's 16 for £220,000. You might
say that was low cost, but Ravel wasn't.

Ravel, with one thing or another cost around £1.6million. The danger was he
could have gone to a foreign club so we took a chance and we hope it comes
right.

KUMB: Given his form already this season, it seems to be paying off?

DS: It shows great potential, I think you can say no more than that at the
moment. He is still a very young man. He's shown great potential and he
could be anything. He could be an England international in two seasons, he
could be one of the best players in the Premier League or he may not achieve
that, time will tell.

Within a portfolio of players you have your risk players who could be
anything and he's at the high end of risk but with a massive upturn and we
hope we see that this season.

KUMB: Are you generally pleased with the way he's progressing so far?

DS: Fantastic. I watched him in a couple of pre-season games and he's been
fantastic. All you hear now is that he's a model professional. When he
arrived at the Club he didn't quite know what was expected of him and he
seems to have put his head down. So I'm very pleased.

KUMB: How much do you think has the year at Birmingham helped him?

DS: I think it must be a factor. I think when you play a lot of games in the
Championship it teaches you what football's all about, it puts your feet
back on the ground and you're not playing boys every week. I think you only
learn so much in the Development Squad and you need to play games.

We're going to have to put out some others from the Development Squad this
year for exactly the same reason. If they're good enough they should be able
to do it in League One or the Championship.

KUMB: Do you see any of the Academy youngsters making the breakthrough to
the first team squad this year? I know Danny Potts is someone you think
particularly highly of.

DS: There's a few players and I think it's unfair to name them, as sometimes
it's not the ones you think are going to do it. If you asked Sam six weeks
ago who the best young player was, he wouldn't have said Ravel Morrison.
He'd say it now. We've got a few young ones who could shoot forward, there's
three or four who could be quite good. But the level of the Premier League
is so high now it's one hell of a jump.

KUMB: And the gap's getting wider?

DS: What we've got to do is put a few of them out [on loan], hopefully at
the highest level we can - Championship level - and see if they're up to it.

KUMB: Throw them in at the deep end and see if they can swim?

DS: Yeah. If they're good enough they'll do alright in the Championship and
in a year's time come back and do it in the Premier League.

At Birmingham we had three players on loan from Arsenal - Nicklas Bendtner,
Fabrice Muamba and Seb Larsson. They all made a fantastic contribution and
got us promotion as a Championship side. Two of them we signed who did well
in the Premier League, one Arsenal wouldn't sell and he went back.

I just think you've got to put them out on loan. We've got a couple of
15-year-olds who are fantastic and I hope within three years they'll make a
contribution. As I said, we've just signed Jordan Brown from Arsenal who
could be anything.

There's a set fee; if you take a 16-year-old, that's the fee you pay.
There's another £1million on games, but the basic up front money is
£220,000. He thought he'd have a better chance of making it as a footballer
at West Ham rather than Arsenal because we've got a better record of
bringing players through so he chose to come to us. Hopefully he turns out
to be a very good player.

KUMB: In terms of the Academy, how integral do you see that to West Ham?

DS: Absolutely integral. It's at the heart of West Ham's ethos and we
respect that but I've got to be honest with you, it currently costs
£3.8million to run.

KUMB: It's that much?

DS: So it has to produce talent. We could just run an Academy for
15[-and-overs], go and sign 10-15 Jordan Browns every year and just have the
staff and 15 up. It wouldn't go down well - but is it a better route? I
don't know, it's a very difficult one.

KUMB: Has the cost increased greatly because of our involvement with the
Elite Performance Plan [EPP]?

DS: That has put the cost up. The problem is you've got the big clubs
signing players from all over the world. You've also got agents offering
their mums houses for them to sign, even though they shouldn't. So it's not
so easy to unearth a Bobby Moore on our doorstep any more.

Unfortunately many English kids are playing with computers, they're not
playing football anymore. So we need to bring through a few players every
year. The other problem is, if they don't quite make it there's no clubs
with any money to buy your lesser players. It's a difficult one.

We're looking to buy more 15-year-olds to try and help the Academy that way.
Like everybody else, it's a high-pressure business and they've got to
deliver end products.

KUMB: But I suppose Tony Carr and his staff can only work with what they've
got?

DS: Yes, but they've got to go out there and get them - and Tony will tell
you it's getting harder, he'll be the first person to admit to you that it's
harder to unearth the gems because there are more clubs chasing players and
more agents giving the parents things. It's very difficult.

KUMB: There used to be a rule in place where the youth players had to live
within a certain distance of the ground?

DS: 50 miles.

KUMB: Chelsea, for one, seem to be quite proactive throughout Essex.

DS: Well Chelsea set up sub-Academies. They've got one in Southampton so
they can be within 50 miles of Southampton, and can get players from that
area. What's come out of Southampton in recent years is just incredible,
from Gareth Bale through to Theo Walcott. It's incredible. You hope one year
we throw up two or three superstars.

KUMB: Admittedly, since the golden generation we've had very few come
through; Mark Noble..?

DS: James Tomkins, Jack Collison...

KUMB: And Jack wasn't originally one of ours, he came from Cambridge - but
fits into your 15, 16-year-old bracket?

DS: I think James Tomkins might have come at 14, 15 too - he didn't come as
a 10, 11-year-old.

I'm a great believer in going out and buying some talent as well. It's
finding the person who's got the ability. I said to the new guys in
recruitment: "We'll buy a couple, if half of them turn out any good we'll go
and buy ten!" But you could do £2-3million on 16-year-olds and if none of
them make it you've got to spend another two or three million. Of course the
manager wants to spend that money on the team, on a first team player. What
a decision, when you've got a limited amount of money.

We took a few from non-league and they haven't really made the jump, whether
any of them will make it I don't know. We took Danny Whitehead, a young kid
from Stockport this summer, as they fancied giving him a try. But it chips
away all the time at your budget. you put the wages in, transfer fees - even
if it's a nominal transfer fee it's 30 or 50 grand and you give them £700 a
week or something.

KUMB: It's eroding what you can spend elsewhere?

DS: Even that £700 comes out of the £52million wage bill limit and if you
have 20 of them, you've done £700-800,000.

KUMB: Which could almost fund a new first team player?

DS: Well, half of one! It's difficult, but I do believe in the policy of
signing 15 and 16 year olds and I think we might just sign five and see what
happens, take a punt. We did that at Birmingham in the end and some very
good players came through.

There's a kid called Jordan Mutch, who's in the Cardiff team - they sold him
for £1.5million. There's Redmond... We went out and bought some of those
players. When we left Birmingham, the Director of Football - who's been
there for three years - said you'll see what a job we've done in three
years' time because it takes that long for them to come through and he's
been proved right.

KUMB: Finally David, I wanted to ask you about our South American links as
we've seen a few players from that part of the world arrive. You had Mauro
Zarate at Birmingham and we've had the likes of Ilan and Wellington Paulista
at West Ham? Is there a particular link you have down there?

DS: There is an agent who does supply [players] and Martyn Glover [Head of
Recruitment] has been down there two or three times on scouting missions.
Most clubs do have South American players. We nearly signed Duvan Zapata, a
striker who may end up at Queens Park Rangers but we didn't think we could
get a work permit.

KUMB: Can you explain what exactly happened there and why we pulled out?

DS: Well he's not played a single international and our problem is that we
couldn't wait a month so see if we could get a work permit. There is a small
chance he could get a work permit but it's very difficult for a 22-year-old.


He's not 18, he's 22 without a single full international and it's hard to
see how you could bring him under the special talent rule. There's two
fantastic players ahead of him [in the national team]. But it all just went
on too long and Sam wanted to use the money elsewhere.

KUMB: David, thank you on behalf of the KUMB.com readers for taking the time
to do this.

DS: You're welcome.

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England awaits for Morrison, says Sullivan
KUMb.com
Filed: Monday, 9th September 2013
By: Staff Writer

West Ham United co-owner David Sullivan believes that Ravel Morrison has the
potential to become one of the best players in the Premier League. Sullivan,
speaking to KUMB.com in the final part of our exclusive interview added that
the Hammers midfielder had become a force to be reckoned with since putting
his errant ways behind him. " He is still a very young man. He's shown great
potential and he could be anything," enthused Sullivan. "He could be an
England international in two seasons, he could be one of the best players in
the Premier League or he may not achieve that, time will tell. "He's been
fantastic; all you hear now is that he's a model professional. When he
arrived at the Club he didn't quite know what was expected of him and he
seems to have put his head down. So I'm very pleased." Sullivan, who paid
Manchester United £1.6million for the emerging young star 18 months ago -
also believed that a year on loan at Birmingham was a major factor in
Morrison's newly-found professional attitude. "It must be a factor," he
said. "When you play a lot of games in the Championship it teaches you what
football's all about, it puts your feet back on the ground and you're not
playing boys every week. You only learn so much in the Development Squad."

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