WHUFC.com
Ian Hendon's West Ham United XI will face Blue Square North side Bishop's
Stortford on Tuesday
18.02.2012
A West Ham United XI will travel to Woodside Park to face Blue Square North
side Bishop's Stortford on the evening of Tuesday 21 February. With the
first team in npower Championship action at Blackpool, Ian Hendon will take
a squad containing a mixture of youth and experience, with the likes of
Frederic Piquionne, Marek Stech and Frank Nouble (pictured) all likely to be
on duty. Alongside them, Hendon will be able to call upon the services of
young professional Eoin Wearen and a number of the club's promising Academy
prospects, many of whom appeared in Wednesday's FA Youth Cup fifth-round
penalty shootout defeat at Chelsea. Bishop's Stortford are battling to avoid
relegation from Blue Square North. Manager Rod Stringer's squad contains
Hammers Academy graduates Paco Craig and Daniel Subuola. Woodside Park is
also a familiar venue, as the stadium has played host to West Ham's reserve
team in recent seasons. A West Ham XI travelled to face Bishop's Stortford
for a pre-season match on 16 July 2011 in Hendon's first match after joining
the coaching staff. Junior Stanislas, Nouble and Jack Collison were on
target in a 3-0 victory.
Kick-off on Tuesday evening will be at 7.45pm, with admission prices set at
£8 for Adults, £5 for Concessions and £2 for Under-16s.
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Ravel delighted to make debut
WHUFC.com
Ravel Morrison was happy to have his first run out for West Ham United on
Friday
18.02.2012
Ravel Morrison enjoyed his first appearance in a West Ham United shirt on
Friday and is looking forward to getting started for real now. The
nineteen-year-old played 90 minutes as he captained the West Ham United
Development squad to a 2-1 victory over Queens Park Rangers at Chadwell
Heath. Playing in a central midfield role alongside Gary O'Neil, the
deadline-day signing from Manchester United showed good composure throughout
and came close to scoring on three occasions, only to be denied by the
Hoops' goalkeeper on each occasion. "I really enjoyed it. I think I played
OK but I think I can do better as it was my first game for a long while,"
Morrison told whufc.com. "I nearly scored a couple of goals. I think my best
effort was the one the keeper managed to parry out or the chip right at the
end."
Morrison has been gradually building up his fitness in training and this was
his first match in claret and blue since signing on 31 January. After a
cautious start from both sides, the Hammers' new No23 grew into the game and
looked confident in possession with a couple of superbly executed
cross-field-balls really catching the eye. "I can feel myself getting
sharper and stronger with each training session. I'm not sure how long it'll
be until I'm ready for the first team but I'm looking forward to it when it
happens."
Morrison was at the Boleyn Ground to take in all of the drama of West Ham's
1-1 draw with second-placed Southampton on Tuesday night. The match served
as a good example of the power and passion of the Boleyn Ground crowd and
the 2011 FA Youth Cup winner cannot wait to play in front of them. "I was at
the Southampton match the other night and it was a great game. Robert Green
was superb and pulled off some world-class saves. The atmosphere was
electric and I'm really looking forward to playing in front of the crowd
even more now."
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O'Brien gives back
WHUFC.com
Joey O'Brien attended the recent Canary Wharf Sports Awards
18.02.2012
Effort and determination were the order of the evening as West Ham United
defender Joey O'Brien helped to recognise sporting achievements from young
and old in the local community at the Canary Wharf Sports Awards. The event,
held at the East Wintergarden Hotel in the Docklands, was organised to mark
the performances of people who excel in different sports, either on their
own or from help and support they offer to the community where they live.
O'Brien, along with Newham international athlete Christine Ohuruogu, met and
presented awards with those who live and play sport across east London.
There were several awards handed out during the evening, including a special
recognition award given to young Hammers fan and charity fundraiser Jonjo
Heuerman. The night though belonged to Ashley Facey-Thompson, who was
awarded the Canary Wharf Sports Personality of the Year and has just been
picked to represent Great Britain in this year's Paralympic Games in London.
The 16-year-old, is the number one ranked disabled table tennis player for
his age and has been a member of the senior men's team for the last two
years. He was praised for his "courage and determination" to become one of
the best in his field. This is the 11th year of the awards, which was set up
by the business group to encourage sporting excellence in the local
community and Hammers defender O'Brien said he was impressed by the
achievements of those winning awards "It was good to be here and for those
who won, it is a great thing for them to be rewarded for what they have done
in whatever sport they do," he said. "All of those I met here have obviously
worked hard to do well and so they deserve their awards. "I was only too
happy to come down here and present them, I think if youngsters can see that
they can get recognition for trying their best, doing well and working hard,
then it will give encouragement to others as well. "It was also nice to see
so many people that are supporting these youngsters, by either running the
clubs they belong to or just offering their help, it is good to see and they
deserve awards too."
Other winners included Senrab Football Club who has produced several players
who have gone to play at the top of their game professionally, such as
former Hammers Bobby Zamora and Paul Konchesky. Cambridge Heath Cricket Club
were presented with a Team of the Year award and female boxer Ruqsana Begum
won a special achievement award. John Garwood, Canary Wharf Group company
secretary said: "If people have drive and focus, then remarkable things can
happen. There is no doubt east London will have some of the best athletes at
London 2012."
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Loanee round-up
WHUFC.com
Five young Hammers were in action for their respective loan clubs on
Saturday afternoon
18.02.2012
Five West Ham United youngsters turned out for their respective loan clubs
in the npower Football League on Saturday. Freddie Sears, Peter Kurucz,
Cristian Montano (pictured), George Moncur and Callum Driver were all in
action, with differing fortunes.
In npower League One, Sears made his debut for Colchester United, but his
assist for Steven Gillespie's opening goal could not prevent the U's from
falling to a 3-2 defeat at Yeovil Town. Colchester are 12th in the table,
nine points adrift of the Play-Off places
Montano was booked after being introduced as a 59th-minute substitute as
Martin Allen's Notts County fell to a 3-0 defeat at Hartlepool United. The
loss saw the Magpies drop to eleventh in the table.
Elsewhere in the same division, Peter Kurucz had a better day, keeping a
clean sheet as Rochdale beat Bournemouth 1-0 at Spotland. The Hungarian's
performance helped his club leapfrog Wycombe Wanderers and climb off the
bottom of the table.
In npower League Two, George Moncur played the full 90 minutes as AFC
Wimbledon drew 1-1 with Morecambe, with the point leaving the Dons 17th in
the standings. Callum Driver also completed a full match as Burton Albion
drew 1-1 at home with Rotherham, leaving the Brewers eleventh in the table.
Jordan Spence was not involved as Bristol City lost 3-0 at Peterborough
United in the npower Championship, while Olly Lee was an unused substitute
for Gillingham in their 2-1 npower League Two defeat at Port Vale. Pablo
Barrera's Real Zaragoza host Real Betis in Spain's Primera Division on
Monday evening.
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U18s edged out by Pompey
WHUFC.com
The youth team fell to a 1-0 FA Premier Academy League defeat at Portsmouth
on Saturday
18.02.2012
West Ham United Under-18s fell to a 1-0 FA Premier Academy League defeat by
Portsmouth on Saturday. The Hammers were beaten by a solitary goal scored by
the home side ten minutes after half-time at Little Heath. The loss came
just three days after the U18s were beaten in heartbreaking circumstances at
Chelsea on the FA Youth Cup fifth round, where the Hammers conceded a
last-minute equaliser before being defeated 5-4 on penalties. Academy
Director Tony Carr MBE said West Ham had again had enough chances be
victorious, only to come up short against Pompey. "We had enough
opportunities to have won it, funnily enough," said Carr. "It was a tired
performance, as you might have expected after the boys played 120 minutes at
Chelsea in midweek. "It was one of those games and we had the chances to win
it but didn't take them. They scored the only goal of the game when they
broke away from our corner on the counter-attack. "After they had gone
ahead, Portsmouth defended for their lives for the rest of the game and we
couldn't find our way through."
The U18s return to action at Ipswich Town on Saturday 25 February.
West Ham United U18s: Wootton, Hurley, Shaw, Young, Siafa, Powell (Miles),
Vose, Ruddock, Turgott, Sadlier (Fanimo), E.Lee
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Lee loaned to Gills
WHUFC.com
Olly Lee has joined npower League Two club Gillingham until 18 March
18.02.2012
Olly Lee has joined npower League Two club Gillingham on loan until 18 March
2012. The 20-year-old has already enjoyed a productive loan spell at
Dagenham and Redbridge earlier this season, making 17 appearances and
scoring three goals in all competitions. Lee, who has been with West Ham
United since he was a schoolboy, has also scored five goals in just
appearances for the Development Squad this term. The midfielder could make
his debut for the Kent club at Port Vale on Saturday and could make as many
as eight league appearances for the Gills.
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Gillingham snap up West Ham United's Oliver Lee
BBC.co.uk
Gilingham have signed West Ham United midfielder Oliver Lee on loan until 18
March following a trial. The 20-year-old, who is the son of former England
and Newcastle midfielder Robert Lee, has previously had two loan spells at
Dagenham & Redbridge. Boss Andy Hessenthaler told the club website: "He
gets up and down, he's a threat going forward. "He gets goals, he's
all-action, a bit like his dad. If he turns out anything like his dad, we've
got a good player."
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In Conversation With David Sullivan (Part 1): Demba Ba – "One of the Biggest
Mistake of My Life"
February 18th, 2012 - 2:39 pm by Iain Dale
West Ham Till I Die
This is the first part of the interview I conducted with David Sullivan
yesterday. There will be around 8 parts in all.
ID: David, you've had two years at the club now. If you knew then, what you
know now, would you still have done it?
DS: Just. Just, I think. It's been a harder time than we imagined. Both from
a financial point of view and a football point of view. We shouldn't have
got relegated last year with the team we had. That was a major setback from
a financial and a football point of view. We never came in thinking we would
be relegated, but there was a lot of dissent in the camp, a lot of
infighting, and we picked a bad manager [Avram Grant]. Simple as that. On
paper you could make a very strong case for him, but I don't want to say any
more because I think it's wrong to keep hitting somebody over the head. We
are as much to blame as the manager.
ID: How near was he to going in the January 2010 transfer window?
DS: It's very hard to talk about third parties, but we were very close to
having another manager come, who I can't name for obvious reasons. We had 25
hours of meetings with that manager. Twenty-five hours! At every meeting,
that manager said to us: "I will be the next manager of West Ham United".
And we kept saying: "When?" Had he come, we would have changed manager. The
problem came when he finally said he wasn't going to come until the summer,
and only if we stayed up. At that point, we thought, probably wrongly, it
was too late to bring somebody else in. The obvious alternative was Sam at
the point, but I think that would have been unacceptable to the supporters
last January. Whilst it was acceptable in May, Sam wasn't the first choice
in January. He was the backup choice. David [Gold] would have changed for
the first choice manager, but he was unhappy to change for the second choice
manager, and I didn't feel strong enough to have a row about it. It was a
very marginal decision. Whether Sam would have kept us up, who knows? To me
there were enough good players to keep us up. Just with Demba Ba and Scott
Parker – those two alone should have kept us up.
ID: But Avram didn't even play Demba Ba all the time, did he? A lot of us
couldn't understand that.
DS: He wasn't fit when he arrived. He came on against Birmingham and hit the
post in his first 20 minutes. But then Scott got injured at a vital time.
With 8 games to go, I think we had 32 points off 30 games. We got 1 point
from the last 8 games. And that's when Scott got injured.
ID: When did it dawn on you that it wasn't going to work and that we would
be relegated?
DS: Before the Wigan game. And then at half time, I thought, wow, maybe I'm
wrong. Because I thought we could beat Sunderland the next week and that
could be enough. But we couldn't defend, you see. Under Avram, we couldn't
defend, and that was our problem. It wasn't a problem scoring any, we just
couldn't defend. But I suppose in all honesty I thought we were going down
over the last 5 or 6 games. In January we had a little run, and that made us
think perhaps we should hang on to the summer. Whatever happened we would
have changed manager in the summer. We got lucky at Fulham. We got
annihilated and went in 2-0 up at half time. It was like a real fluke
performance. We won that game and picked up points here and there.
ID: You talked about dissent. Was that between the players and the manager
or within the squad.
DS: I'm on the outside looking in, so I really don't know, but I think there
was a foreign group and an English group. I think the English group were
plotting against the manager. Everything was wrong at the club last year and
by way of contrast, everything is right this year. Everyone's together.
ID: Is that Sam Allardyce's influence pure and simple, or are there other
factors?
DS: Several disruptive players have left and I think Sam is a different
breed of manager. He wouldn't have stood for it. Had he come in last January
I'm not saying we would have stayed up, but I think there's a greater
likelihood we would have stayed up. But as I say, I don't think it would
have been acceptable to the supporters then. It's been very costly from a
football and a financial point of view being relegated and we have lost key
players. Scott Parker just didn't want to stay. Demba Ba had a get out if we
were relegated.
ID: How did that work? Did we pay money to Hoffenheim?
DS: I'll tell you exactly what happened. We wanted to loan him, but
Hoffenheim said they wouldn't loan him as they could get 6 million euros for
him from Stoke. He then failed the medical at Stoke. I went back and asked
to loan him again. Again they said no, but they would sell him to us. So we
paid 500,000 euros down, which was almost like a loan fee, and then we'd pay
5 ½ million euros starting the next season depending on how many games he
played – one level of payment in the Championship, one level of payment on
the Premier League. I'll have to make the figures up because I can't
remember, but something like 25,000 euros a game in the Premier League and
10,000 euros in the Championship. Demba Ba signed a three and a half year
contract with us. We had a deal where his salary would be halved if we were
relegated. He said, "Well on that basis, I have got to be allowed to walk if
we get relegated". What we should have said in retrospect – but none of us
thought he would score so many goals – is that we'd be happy to give him £40
grand a week in the Championship. In the end I offered him £45 grand a week
to stay but he wouldn't take it. What we should have said was that if we
don't halve your salary, you haven't got a get-out. The failure to put that
one line in the contract cost us very, very dearly. As I say, he was on £35
grand a week and I offered him £45 grand a week to stay, but he went to
Newcastle. His agent got £2 million to take him to Newcastle.
ID: So do Newcastle now have to pay to Hoffenheim the money you would have
had to pay?
DS: No. That's why Newcastle could always outbid us. It was our deal with
Hoffenheim.
ID: So Hoffenheim got stuffed, then.
DS: Yup, they got half a million for him. This didn't work for anyone except
Demba Ba… and Newcastle. I'm told he's got a £7 million get-out at Newcastle
and he gets half the money over that. They keep denying it but I think
you'll see in the summer he will leave Newcastle or he'll get a monstrous
rise to stay there. If they get about four million, half will go to him, so
if they sell him for £7 million they'll only net about three because they
paid his agent £2 million to get him out of here. Getting £3 million is not
bad, but for a player of his quality it's not fantastic. It's one of those
mistakes that happen, but it's probably one of the worst mistakes I have
ever made in my life. It just didn't enter our heads. it didn't enter
anybody's head that he'd score enough goals that we'd want to give him £40k
a week and his old club £15/20k an appearance and we'd still be relegated.
In reality that's exactly what happened. The agent just threw it in at the
last minute. He said "Obviously if his salary is cut by 50% you've got to
let him walk". We thought, OK, if we get relegated, do we really want a £40k
a week striker in the Championship? Well, we would have because he was
devastating. If he was with us now and his knee had held up, because
remember, he did have a very very bad knee, I think we'd be 15 points clear,
I really do. He'd be cutting through those defences. You live and you learn.
ID: You can say that again.
In part two… How we came to saign Ravel Morrison, and how Matthew Upson let
us down.
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RAVEL MORRISON IS RAVING ABOUT WEST HAM
Daily Star
19th February 2012 By Adrian Stiles
RAVEL MORRISON admits he can't wait to make his debut for West Ham.
Morrison, 19, has been forced to wait patiently for his breakthrough into
the first team following his move from Manchester United last month. The
teenage star is regarded as the best young talent to have come through the
ranks at Old Trafford since Paul Scholes but he failed to agree a new
contract with the Premier League champions. West Ham boss Sam Allardyce is
unsure if Morrison will play any part this season as he waits to assess his
physical and mental state since making the move to London. But after playing
his first game in a behind-closed-doors friendly against QPR on Friday when
he was made captain and played 90 minutes, Morrison does not feel he is too
far away. "I really enjoyed it," he said. "I think I played okay but I think
I can do better as it was my first game for a long while. "I nearly scored a
couple of goals. I think my best effort was the one the keeper managed to
parry out or the chip right at the end. "I can feel myself getting sharper
and stronger with each training session. "I'm not sure how long it'll be
until I'm ready for the first team but I'm looking forward to it when it
happens. "I was at the Southampton match the other night and it was a great
game. "Robert Green was superb and pulled off some world-class saves. "The
atmosphere was electric and I'm looking forward to playing in front of the
crowd even more now."
Morrison is no stranger to controversy and that was one of the reasons he
was allowed to go by Manchester United. He has already got into trouble at
West Ham after he admitted a Football Association charge of "using abusive
and/or insulting words" after a homophobic remark on Twitter.
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Forest Gate pupils make horror film at West Ham FC
Newham Recorder
Melissa York, Reporter
Saturday, February 18, 2012
3:55 PM
Budding filmmakers from a primary school in Forest Gate were awarded a
£5,000 lottery grant to make their own horror film in the grounds of West
Ham United Football Club. A group of 16 pupils from Sandringham Primary
School in Sandringham Road travelled to West Ham United's Boleyn ground to
shoot a comic horror film set in the 1960s. The film, created entirely by
the eight to 11 year olds, was a mixture of drama and stop frame animation.
The pupils were involved with every aspect of the production process from
drawing storyboards and writing the scripts to lighting the films alongside
industry professionals. West Ham United inspire co-ordinated the programme,
allowing the children to film in their Upton Park grounds. Some of the
pupils were part of a group which watches and reviews films but none had
worked with professionals before. The older pupils, who had a greater
knowledge of filmmaking, led the projects and helped the younger students
with their jobs to encourage communication across year groups. First Light,
an organisation providing opportunities for young people in digital media,
organised the trip and distributes £1.1 million a year nationally through
the British Film Institute each year as part of the "Young Film Fund."
First Light CEO, Leigh Thomas, was impressed by the quality of the students'
latest film ideas. He said: "First Light gives young people, from all over
the UK, the opportunity to tell their stories on film. "The fantastic ideas
we receive are grown from the young filmmakers own imagination and
innovation and tackle some very important issues relevant to them." Based in
Birmingham, the organisation encourages young people from all background to
develop their filmmaking skills, talent and creativity, emphasising the need
for pupils from low income families and ethnic minority groups to use film
as a way of expressing themselves, improve their language skills and boost
self confidence.
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Model Hayley Mac gets £2k from West Ham fans for Richard House hospice
East London Advertiser
Mike Brooke
Saturday, February 18, 2012
7:00 AM
Fans showed their loving side at West Ham when they donated £2,000 in loose
change to a children's hospice during a Valentine's night top-of-the-table
match. They filled the buckets brought round by an army of volunteers from
Richard House Hospice at Beckton in east London before and after Tuesday's
home game at Upton Park when they drew 1-1 against Southampton. Many donated
by text at half time after an appeal by Miss Commonwealth International,
model Hayley Mac, who was accompanied by Miss Essex Syndey Fennings and Miss
Teen Essex Sasha Wright. Top scorer Mark Noble, who got West Ham's only goal
on the night and is also a Richard House patron, said afterwards: "We are a
family club and do what we can for the hospice." The seventh annual 'charity
awareness' match raised enough for two children to stay a full weekend at
the hospice, which supports 270 families with youngsters, many with
life-threatening conditions.
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