Jack Jeffery is making the short trip to Leyton Orient for a one-month loan
with the League One outfit
12.09.2008
West Ham United have agreed to let striker Jack Jeffery join League One club
Leyton Orient on a one-month loan.
The 19-year-old Academy product has enjoyed a promising start to the 2008/09
season, including two goals in this week's 4-0 reserve-team friendly win
against Norwich City. It will not be the first time Jeffery has left the
Boleyn Ground to gain experience elsewhere as he spent three months with
Cambridge United in the final three months of the last campaign. He also had
a successful spell at Hampton and Richmond Borough at the end of 2007.
Jeffery could make his Orient debut at home to Stockport County on Saturday.
The club, unbeaten in their last four matches in all competitions, are going
well this season with eight points from their first five fixtures and sit
ninth in the table. Speaking to the club's official website, manager Martin
Ling said: "He's a player that we've watched an awful lot of and he will be
a good addition to the squad."
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West Ham face sponsor cash blow - BBC
By Simon Austin
West Ham could face a £5m shortfall after their shirt sponsor went into
administration on Friday. The Hammers have only received £2.5m from a
three-year deal with travel company XL, BBC Sport understands. A £7.5m deal,
worth £2.5m a year, was signed with the Sussex-based company in February
2007 but only one year of the contract has been paid so far. Hammers
chairman Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson is also one of the guarantors of a 207
million Euros bank loan given to XL. Gudmundsson and his son Bjorgolfur Thor
Bjorgolfsson, who is also a billionaire, became guarantors of the bank loan
on Wednesday. The guarantee was originally provided by Icelandic shipping
company Eimskip, in which Gudmundsson has an interest. West Ham will now
start the search for another shirt sponsor and wait, along with XL's other
creditors, to see what administrator Kroll does with the company. A
contingency plan had been built into the deal in the event of the club being
relegated, with the annual payment being reduced from £2.5m if the Hammers
did drop down a division. A West Ham statement said: "XL Holidays remains
the club's principal partner and we await further information from the
administrator before ascertaining the impact of these events. "We are of
course saddened for the customers of XL Holidays that they have been
affected and hope that a speedy and satisfactory solution is found." XL
Leisure Group, which is based in Crawley, is Britain's third largest package
holiday group.
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Newcastle ticket latest - WHUFC
Fans wanting to see Gianfranco Zola's first game in charge need to hurry
fast or face missing out
12.09.2008
Time is running out if you want to join Gianfranco Zola and see West Ham
United in action against Newcastle United on Saturday 20 September. Only a
limited number of tickets are still available on general sale for the
Barclays Premier League encounter for what promises to be an entertaining
afternoon in east London. The new manager will be looking to build on the
best start the club has had for nine years against the visitors from the
north-east. Prices start from £35 for adults and £17 for Under-16s with
further discounts available for Young Adult and Youth Academy members. Any
remaining tickets can be purchased either in person from the Dr Martens
ticket office, by calling 0871 222 2700 via option 1 or online by clicking
here.
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Chelsea Could Rival Arsenal & West Ham For Appiah & Mineiro As Scolari Eyes
Essien Cover? - premiershiplatest.com
Submitted by Niraj Prabhu on Fri, 2008-09-12 16:04.
Chelsea boss Luiz Felipe Scolari has hinted at the possible signing of a
free agent to cover for the loss of midfielder Michael Essien, who is out
for six months with a serious knee injury. The Ghana star has ruptured an
anterior cruciate ligament to add to the Blues' injury list and with the
25-year-old, who can also play in defence, set to be out for most part of
the season, Scolari is keen to bring in an instant reinforcement without
waiting for the winter transfer window. "I have some idea about how to fill
Michael's position and I told Peter Kenyon (chief executive) about them. He
will try to do something today, tomorrow or next week," Scolari is quoted as
saying in Mail Online. Essien's national team-mate and the Black Stars
captain Stephen Appiah could be a readymade replacement. The 27-year-old
former Juventus player is a free agent after having left Turkish club
Fenerbahce. He is linked with Chelsea's fellow Londoners Arsenal and West
Ham. The Gunners have since ruled out being on the trail of Appiah, with
manager Arsene Wenger saying yesterday: "No, we are not on the case."
Portsmouth were also linked with Appiah, who however has shown an
inclination to move to a London club. "Yes, I'm moving to London, I have two
offers from Arsenal and West Ham and I will choose the better offer," the
former Udinese and Parma man had said on Wednesday. In the meanwhile,
reports have suggested that Arsenal are considering a move for Brazilian
international Mineiro, who is a free agent after leaving Bundesliga team
Hertha Berlin this summer. 33-year-old Mineiro has played 25 times for
Brazil, and is believed to have attracted the attention of Wenger, who
failed to bring a defensive midfielder to the Emirates Stadium before the
transfer window closed. Mineiro could be tempted if his compatriot Scolari
identifies the former Sao Paulo man as the ideal cover for defensive
midfield position at Stamford Bridge with the respective department having
become shallow after the summer departures of Claude Makelele and Steve
Sidwell.
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Tomkins fit for Baggies trip - Echo
3:30pm Friday 12th September 2008
By Rob Pritchard »
BASILDON-based defender James Tomkins will return to the West Ham United
squad for tomorrow's Premier League trip to West Bromwich Albion. The
19-year-old former Chalvedon School pupil has recovered from a calf injury
suffered during this summer's UEFA European Under-19 Championship in the
Czech Republic. And Tomkins is set to be named among the substitutes at The
Hawthorns on Saturday. Team-mate Valon Behrami is also set to be fit after
missing Switzerland's shock mid-week 2010 World Cup qualifying defeat to
Luxembourg through injury. Striker Craig Bellamy is also in the Irons' squad
after missing Wales' qualifiers against Azerbaijan and Russia with a
hamstring injury. Meanwhile, new signings Herita Ilunga, Walter Lopez and
David Di Michele are all available for selection for the first time.
Caretaker manager Kevin Keen is looking forward to taking charge of
first-team affairs before new manager Gianfranco Zola arrives on Monday. And
the 41-year-old is expecting an entertaining tussle with Tony Mowbray's
newly-promoted side. "I want us to play attacking football, quick passing,
one-or-two touch, and West Brom are similar in that they play an exciting
brand of football," he said. "So I think the game will be good one for the
supporters to watch and I'm pretty sure that our supporters will really be
behind us and, hopefully, the result and the performance will be as good as
some of the training I've seen this week."
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Put your shirt on West Ham to find a new sponsor - footballfans.com
Posted By stantheman on September 12th, 2008 (23 Mins ago)
The collapse of holiday package firm XL this morning put more than a few
noses out of joint this morning. There's the people that will lose their
jobs, the thousands of people stranded when they thought they'd be jetting
off to sunnier climes (mind you, with the weather the way it is, they'd get
better weather in the Arctic Circle), and for one particularly unfortunate
plane-load, the humiliation of being made to disembark as their plane was on
the runway.
And of course, there's West Ham United. For just over a season now, the team
have walked out in the Premier League with a huge chunky XL logo, which for
most players is just a sponsor but for Dean Ashton, more of a measurement
guide. That'll have to go. What's worse, the club had a three-year deal with
XL, meaning they've only been paid last season's money, which amounts to
£2.5 million but also means they're missing out on a further five million.
It's no shame to walk out without a sponsor. West Brom have been doing it,
which seems weird when you think they managed to obtain one while in the
Championship, but not in the Premier. West Brom's merchandise division (run
from a garden shed, trust me) have promised to add their logo free of charge
when they finally get one.
It does make you think just a little harder about what exactly makes a
football shirt look normal these days. Time was, before the ubiquitous
sponsor, that a football shirt was seen as classic and timeless, that would
see you through almost a decade of faithful service. Now, no kid is going to
be seen dead in a top with a bare chest. It just won't do.
In a perfect world a football sponsor would be related entirely to that
sport, so most teams would run around in kits made and sponsored by Adidas,
Nike or Diadora. But that can't happen, since those manufacturers make
multiple teams' kits and can't show an obvious favouritism. So teams have
had to go the far trickier route and take the money where they can get it.
This has led over the past two decades to some proper howlers. Who can
forget Arsenal's away shirt at the turn of the Millennium – Sega were fine
until the club played in Italy, where they automatically turned into a bunch
of tossers thanks to a peculiar quirk of semantics and Italian slang. Aston
Villa's DWS investments turned their supporters into a bunch of cattle by
looking like "Cows Investments". The less said about Crystal Palace's
'Virgin' motif the better.
But like most things in life, football is about finance and shirt
sponsorship never really follows the trends of fashion. I'm fairly sure
Middlesbrough's fans wouldn't choose to go around advertising sat-navs, or
even Manchester United's advertising an investment group their fans would
never be rich enough to use, but that's where one of the many fan paradoxes
comes into play: they advertise products or services they would never use,
but their shirt purchase leads indirectly to keeping those companies going.
Lately there's been a conversation going around fan circles as to the most
apposite sponsors for Premier League teams, like having Firstplus Loans
sponsor Everton or The Samaritans sponsor Newcastle. And it does seem
genuinely amazing that what was once a financial imperative for clubs is now
something fans would be happy to pick and choose. We're at the stage now
where a club really has to have a sponsor, because otherwise they look odd.
West Ham and West Brom will find sponsors soon enough because playing in a
league that's a massive worldwide draw is too much of a decent opportunity
to pass up. But they may not necessarily make their fans look cutting edge.
Money will always win, but you can console yourself in the knowledge if you
follow the Hammers or the Baggies that your new shirt might become a cult
classic in years to come, like the Barca Unicef shirt or the Atletico Madrid
ones that advertised the latest film releases. Just hope the clubs show a
bit of discretion: there's a national company just propped up by a
government desperate for some global prestige, and it's just possible
Gianfranco Zola could be leading out his men announcing to the world they're
sponsored by Fannie Mae.
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