WHUFC.com
Sam Allardyce was almost lost for words after witnessing a legendary night
at Blackpool
22.02.2012
Sam Allardyce could not hide his delight after West Ham United secured one
of their greatest-ever away results with a 4-1 npower Championship win at
Blackpool on Tuesday. The Hammers were leading 2-1 when goalkeeper Robert
Green was sent off in the 54th minute and, with no substitute goalkeeper on
the bench, midfielder Henri Lansbury had to go in goal. But rather than
resting on their laurels, the Hammers went on to attack the home side and
were rewarded with maiden goals from Gary O'Neil and Ricardo Vaz Te. "I
can't imagine how the lads feel as they're so excited about the result and
what they've achieved," Big Sam said. "The thousands of West Ham fans who
were here must have seen one of the finest West Ham performances they've
ever seen in the entire time they've been watching West Ham United.
"To win as we did and the way we played against all the odds was
magnificent. To score even more goals when we went down to ten men to go
from 2-1 to 4-1 was amazing. "Nicky Maynard might have made it even more so
we didn't just defend correctly with ten men we just took them apart when we
had the opportunity with some fantastic finishing."
Lansbury's clean-sheet performance is likely to go down in West Ham folklore
as he showed some assured handling and solid command of his area during his
36 minutes in goal - plus six minutes of added-time. "He's an outfield
player who had a very accomplished game in goal today. There weren't many
good chances created by Blackpool because of the quality of our defending
but he did the basics brilliantly - the kicking and the handling - and he
got a great reception from the fans."
Green's sending-off meant the Hammers had to finish a game with ten men for
the third consecutive fixture. But just as they did against Millwall and
Southampton, the Hammers stuck together and made it seven points from nine.
"We'd been threatening to do this for a long time when we had ten against
11. It really is a fantastic result. We got three points when we were
fighting against the elements from having Robert sent off. "I thought it was
a bad decision as we had players covering and it should be a yellow card
maximum but of we've managed to overcome that and it's not cost us."
Big Sam felt that the superb sequence of results in tricky circumstances has
helped to show the character of his team. That togetherness will again be
tested when Crystal Palace visit the Boleyn Ground on Saturday, when the
Hammers will look to maintain top spot in the npower Championship. "We're
doing it the hard way, that's what it's telling us. Every player is doing
his bit when we get something that is going against us and we seem to find
the resilience and the ability and skill to overcome it. In my time I've
never seen anything like it. "We've picked up three results - two wins and a
draw - after going down to ten men. Once after eight minutes, once after 20
minutes and against Blackpool after 54 minutes. It's great credit to the
lads and their ability and the desire that they wanted to achieve promotion
automatically if we can. "This was a catch-up game and I've talked about
getting the points in the bag and we've done that with great style and great
ability."
Maynard and Vaz Te added to the feelgood factor of the night with their
first goals in claret and blue. Their manager has expressed the need for
more clinical finishing in recent weeks and he certainly got his wish with
two superbly taken goals, which complemented a header from James Tomkins and
a first goal from Gary O'Neil.
"I was very pleased to see the new boys get some goals. We wasted some
chances early on. Nicky Maynard had one that got a touch on someone, Faye
had a header from four yards out and that was before we got the two goals so
we were on really top form before that. "The only disappointing thing was
Kevin Phillips scoring on the stroke of half time."
The result was all the more impressive as Blackpool had not lost in the
league this calendar year and came into the game on the back of an
impressive home run of form. "We cherish the three points and the way that
we've got them. It was an outstanding performance from every individual. The
quality that they showed today was of a great standard, especially as
Blackpool have only lost two at home all season and won nine - we really
took them apart."
The West Ham fans were in superb voice all night and led with some strong
backing for their new stand-in goalkeeper. Big Sam was delighted that they
were rewarded with a win worthy of such vociferous travelling support.
"They've spent their well-earned money and would have to have left work
early but we have paid them back handsomely. "To see your team win 4-1 with
ten men must please them and I think you can remember this result for a
long, long time as it's a brilliant result under the circumstances."
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West Ham's Ravel Morrison fined for Twitter comments
BBC.co.uk
West Ham midfielder Ravel Morrison has been fined £7,000 by the FA and
warned as to his future conduct following comments made on Twitter. The
punishment comes after he admitted a charge of using abusive and/or
insulting words, including a reference to a person's sexual orientation.
After joining West Ham on deadline day, Morrison is yet to make his debut.
The midfielder made two Carling Cup appearances for his former club
Manchester United earlier this season.
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Morrison fined
KUMB.com
Filed: Wednesday, 22nd February 2012
By: Staff Writer
Ravel Morrison has been fined by the FA after admitting a charge relating to
a comment he made on Twitter. The new Hammer - who is yet to make his first
team debut for the Hammers, who he joined on transfer deadline day - was
fined £7,000 for referring to an anonymous poster who had abused him via his
Twitter account as a 'faggot'. "Ravel Morrison has been fined and warned as
to his future conduct after he admitted a charge of using abusive and/or
insulting words including a reference to a person's sexual orientation," a
brief statement on the FA's website said this afternoon.
Money for old rope: Hammers fined by the FA
Danny Gabbidon
May 2011: £6,000
The Welsh international waas fined for a tirade against supoprters who had
criticised his performance in the wake of a 2-1 home defeat against Aston
Villa. Gabbidon, now at QPR threw his toys out of his pram when he Tweeted:
"U know what f*** the lot of you u will never get another tweet from me
again u just don't get it do you . Bye bye ."
Carlton Cole
April 2011: £20,000
The current Hammers striker, whose Twitter account has proved enormously
popular with supporters closed his original account with the social network
after being fined the huge sum for comments he made following England's
friendly with Ghana. "Immigration has surrounded the Wembley premises! I
knew it was a trap! Hahahaha," wrote our Carlton - whose mother hails from
Sierra Leone and father from Nigeria. The FA failed to see the funny side.
Avram Grant
April 2011: £6,000
Sam Allardyce's predecessor was hit with a fine for 'improper conduct' after
criticising referee Mike Jones for an appalling performance during West
Ham's FA Cup quarter final defeat at Stoke. Referee Jones recently redeemed
himself by sending off Kevin Nolan against Millwall a fortnight ago.
John Hartson
November 1997: £1,000
The former Hammers striker was penalised by the old farts at the FA for
rightly referring to match official Mike Reed as both a 'sh*thouse' and a
'homer' after an inept display during a home match with Leicester. Then-boss
Harry Redknapp, who insisted that, "the slightest touch on one of their
players and he was blowing up; he gave them foul after foul," escaped
censure.
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Morrison fined over slur
Hammers youngster fined following Twitter comment
Last Updated: February 22, 2012 5:34pm
SSN
West Ham midfielder Ravel Morrison has been fined £7,000 by the Football
Association for using a gay slur on Twitter. The 19-year-old was "warned as
to his future conduct after he admitted a charge of using abusive and/or
insulting words including a reference to a person's sexual orientation." The
teenager posted the tweet shortly after joining West Ham from Manchester
United last month. "West Ham United's Ravel Morrison has been fined £7,000
and warned as to his future conduct after he admitted a charge of using
abusive and/or insulting words including a reference to a person's sexual
orientation," read a statement on the club's official website. "The charge
was in relation to comments Morrison made on Twitter."
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You Know You've Done A Good Interview When…
February 22nd, 2012 - 10:50 am by Iain Dale
West Ham Till I Die
I am actually quite stunned by the reaction to the David Sullivan interview.
Today Forbes Magazine has covered it, and the Daily Telegraph will be
runningn the whole thing online from lunchtime today.
When you do an interview like this you feel you're damned if you do and
damned if you don't. You're normally accused of either asking softball
questions or not asking the right questions. But here, most of you seem to
think I got the balance about right. That's not to say that reading it back
I wish had asked some more follow up questions. But one thing I have learned
as an interviewer over the years is that if you treat the whole thing as a
conversation, rather than an interview, you get more out of the interviewee.
I don't make any notes, I don't go in with reams of paper. My aim is to get
the interviewee to relax right from the start. It's the same approach I take
on my radio show. Trying to be a Paxman is totally counterproductive. If you
put someone on the defensive from the first question, human nature dictates
that they will probably clam up.
So what did I make of David Sullivan? If you've been a regular reader, you
will know that I was very sceptical about the owners. I was very unimpressed
with the way that they would talk to the media, even when there was no
advantage in doing so. It's rarely a good idea in PR terms to provide a
running commentary. When an owner or chairman speaks it should have a sense
of occasion. It's a bit like in politics, when you're Prime Minister you
should ration your speeches and big interviews. It's a talent David Cameron
doesn't seem to have learned. But after a sticky start, David Sullivan has
learnt exactly that lesson and appears now to understand that sometimes less
can be more.
To be honest I arrived at his home on the edge of Epping Forest with some
degree of trepidation. I like to like the people I am interviewing, and I
was't sure that I would like David Sullivan. As I walked up to the door I
smiled at the three little garden gnomes which welcomed you. All of them
were wearing West Ham shirts. It sounds a silly thing to say but the gnomes
immediately put me at my ease. After a few minutes David appeared, wearing a
tracksuit, and showed me into his magnificent office. He works from home
mostly and his office was just the sort of office I'd like myself if I had a
house that size. Lots of dark wood pannelling, lots of books and lots of
mementos collected over the years. More of a den than an office in some
ways. His desk is huge. I sat one side, he sat the other. And off we went.
And you know what? it took me two minutes to decide I liked the guy. I often
get Stockholm Syndrome with people I interview. but I could tell right from
the start that David had no agenda with me apart from being as honest as he
could be. Apart from having to be careful about the Olympic Stadium bid, I
can't think of any question that he ducked. Yes, there were a couple of
occasions where we went 'off the record', and a couple of things he said
where he later asked me to save his blushes in case it risked a deal in the
future, and I was happy to comply. After all, I didn't want anything he said
to damage the club either. So I came away thinking that we were actually
quite lucky to have two people in charge who had basically rescued us from
possible extinction, people who were willing to own up to prevous mistakes
and who were committed to doing their best for the club. I dont know what
more a fan can ask for, to be honest.
The reaction from you all on here has been superb and I thank you for the
nice things you have said. If only the same could be said of other so-called
fan sites. I was horrified to be told that the OLAS fanpage had copied and
pasted the whole of Part 1 of the interview without so much as a by your
leave. There was no link back to the site and they said the interview was by
Ian Drury. Essentially they were making out they had done the interview. A
site called West Ham Online then copied and pasted that from OLAS. I decided
I had to put a stop to it. By day. I'm a publisher and in my industry we
respect the laws of copyright. There's something called Fair Use, which
means you can quote 400 words as long as you quote or link back to the
source. These people were lifting the interview hook line and sinker. I
asked them both to take them down and in the end they did. But the personal
abuse I have got for that has on West Ham Online has to be seen to be
believed. Apparently it's OK to use my sexuality against me and worse. I'd
never visited that site before and if the threads I have read represent the
general content, it makes me very glad I won't allow such disgusting ranting
on this site. They even thought I had no right to restrict the content to my
own site, can you believe. Apparently I am using my site for my own
journalistic ends and to make money. Seeing as I am a political journalist
rather than a sports journalist and I make no money from the site, I had to
laugh at that line. In fact, it costs me money to host.
And then the national press decided to disgrace themselves. The Mail,
Guardian and Sun all carried articles lifting quotes from the interview with
no attribution at all. All three then had the good grace to apologise and
add the links into their online articles, but you'd like to think that
should have happened from the beginning.
Anyway, they are minor carps compared to the only reaction that counts.
Yours. I really am heartened by your comments and it mas spurred me to think
about how to develop WHTID in the future. More on that later.
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Hammers consider signing new keeper after Robert Green's sending-off
Ken Dyer
22 Feb 2012
Evening Standard
West Ham were today considering using the emergency loan system to sign a
goalkeeper following Rob Green's red card in the 4-1 win at Blackpool. Green
faces a three-match automatic ban after bringing down Blackpool striker
Roman Bednar early in the second half, a decision manager Sam Allardyce felt
was harsh and is likely to appeal. "It was a bad decision," said the West
Ham manager, "because we had players covering and it should have been a
yellow card maximum."
Allardyce has other goalkeeping options but Ruud Boffin has failed to
impress in two cup appearances this season while the club will have to pay
Sparta Prague £700,000 if second choice Marek Stech plays two more games.
Allardyce may instead decide to try to loan an emergency replacement, as
they did earlier this season when Arsenal's Manuel Almunia joined West Ham
whilst Green was recovering from injury. West Ham, who went back to the top
of the Championship table as a result of last night 's win, have had a
player sent off in their last three matches but still managed seven points.
Without a goalkeeper amongst his names substitutes, Allardyce brought on
midfield player Henri Lansbury to replace Green. Lansbury, on loan from
Arsenal, had previously seen emergency 'keeper duty for England Under 21's
and looked relatively unruffled for the rest of the match as West Ham, who
were leading 2-1 at the time through James Tomkins and Nicky Maynard on his
debut, doubled their tally with goals from Gary O'Neil and Ricardo Vaz Te.
"We're doing it the hard way," said Allardyce. "Every player is doing his
bit when we get something that is going against us and we seem to find the
resilience and the ability and skill to overcome it. In my time I've never
seen anything like it. "We've picked up three results - two wins and a draw
- after going down to ten men, once after eight minutes, once after 12
minutes and against Blackpool after 54 minutes."
"I enjoy playing in goal," said Lansbury. "I had a muck-about with our
goalkeeping coach Martyn Margetson recently and he told me to watch the ball
into my hands."
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West Ham United co-chairman David Sullivan opens up on the club he supports
and now part-owns
West Ham co-chairman David Sullivan gives a remarkably frank and in-depth
insight in to the workings of the club, from trying to sign Fernando Torres
on loan, how he deals with Sam Allardyce and Scott Parker's change in style
when Tottenham came calling.
By Iain Dale3:11PM GMT 22 Feb 2012 15 Comments
Telegraph.co.uk
Political journalist Iain Dale has supported West Ham for close on 40 years.
A few days ago he travelled to deepest Epping Forest to interview the
flamboyant co-chairman of the Hammers, David Sullivan. In what turned out to
be one of the most remarkable interviews ever conducted with a football club
chairman, Sullivan reveals the secrets behind his two year old reign at the
helm of West Ham United.
The interview was originally published on the West Ham Till I Die blog.
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?
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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 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 and a half 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.
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. 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. Who's the best player you've signed? The deal
you've done and thought, yup, we did well there.
DS: I can't think of one [roars with laughter]. I think Taylor is a very
good signing from Bolton. But again we've been unfortunate. He's had an
injury he has never had in his life and then he gets sent off the other
night. He's the most educated and articulate fellow you could ever come
across and he does something like that! I can't understand it. I'm hoping
it's Ravel Morrison, but time will tell.
ID: How did that come about? It seemed to come completely out of the blue.
There was no gossip about it at all.
DS: It had been going on for a few weeks. His contract was up with Man
United, and under European rules he could go to a foreign club for half a
million pounds we took the gamble of offering Man U a package which comes to
a couple of million quid to take him now and we offered the player a
fantastic deal that builds on Premier League games, so if he is a very
successful Premier League player, he becomes exceptionally highly paid. It
was through contacts. There were five Premier League clubs in for him but we
persuaded his people to bring him to us. He could be the worst signing we've
made or the best signing we've made. Time will tell.
ID: When I first heard about this deal I was convinced Harry Redknapp would
hijack it, as he specialises in rescuing difficult players. But I suppose he
was in court at the time and couldn't pick up the phone to Sir Alex!
DS: Ravel is a young man. It might be that Man U let him go because we
weren't in the Premier League. We have always got on well with Man United.
Newcastle were in strongly for him, we were told. I really think he will be
in our first team before the end of the season. He wants first team football
so that appealed to him. I met him, and I think he had never met the owners
of Man United. Maybe that persuaded him to come. Time will tell if it was a
good signing or a bad signing. But I can't say any signing we've done up to
now is a fantastic signing. Actually, to get James Tomkins to renew was a
good development – not a new signing, but nevertheless.
ID: Were there clubs on for him?
DS: Newcastle bid £4 million for him.
ID: Because that's the trouble at West Ham – just when you get the nucleus
of a good side we get relegated or two or three of the leading players go.
If we get back into the Premier League you've got the spine of a top class
side. Green in goal, Tomkins, Noble in the middle …
DS: But as contracts run down you have a problem. Green's contract is up
this summer. We have made him a fantastic offer, subject to us staying in
the Premier League. But if we don't stay in the Premier League a) we won't
be able to afford him and b) he won't want to stay. So we have to go up.
ID: So if we go up, he will stay …
DS: It's his decision, but I think we have made him a great offer. I think
he likes the club, he likes the manager, but it's his decision.
ID: He's been in great form this season.
DS: Yes, he has been in brilliant form, but it's like with all players, as
they move towards the end of their contracts. But there is a wind of change
coming through in football, and it's a cold wind. Some players are not
getting quite what they want. I'll give you an example. Sunderland, a year
last summer, wanted Matthew Upson, and they offered us £6 million for him. I
accepted it because there was a year left on his contract. He was the second
highest paid player at the club. It would be wrong to say what he was on,
but he was the second highest paid player at the club. Sunderland offered
him a four year contract on the same money and a little bit more. He said:
"I'm too good for Sunderland". [ID laughs]. A year later he's got a two-year
contract off Stoke on under half the money that Sunderland offered him, so
perhaps he should have gone to Sunderland It would have definitely helped
the club, because I don't think his contribution in our relegation season
was fantastic. And it would have got us £6 million pounds in.
ID: I think that's what's called choosing your words carefully. [laughs]
DS: Yeah, you know of all the players, I think he let the club down. He let
me down personally, because I fell out terribly with the manager when I was
at Birmingham when I let him come to West Ham in the first place. I thought
he wasn't doing it at Birmingham. It was a fantastic offer from West Ham –
it amounted to a package of 8.5 million, all of which we got. He rung me up
on holiday and begged me to allow him to come to West Ham. He was on £12k a
week at Birmingham and he was offered more than quadruple that to come to
West Ham. He begged me to let him go and I went against the manager to let
him go, which I had never done before. We needed the money and I don't think
he was trying at Birmingham. That's my opinion. I think his mind was
elsewhere. But despite selling Upson to West Ham in the January window,
Birmingham still got automatic promotion that year, so selling him didn't
actually damage Birmingham.
ID: Do you find that a lot? There's all sorts of paper speculation, and if a
player makes up his mind he wants out, there's nothing you can do?
DS: This might not please many people, but if you look at Scott Parker's
performance in the first five games of this season. To me, it didn't look
like he was doing the tackling you'd normally expect him to do. He was
running about, he was doing OK but he wasn't doing the tackling we know he
can do, because he knew that the one thing that would stop a move for him
would be an injury. To me it looked like he didn't want to be there. He told
us he didn't want to be there. He didn't want to play for the club. In the
nicest possible way, he said "I've given you my all for the last 3, 4, 5
years, you owe it to me to let me go". Now there is an argument that he's
right. There's no player who has given more for the club in recent years, so
to make him stay against his wishes … He was protecting himself either
consciously or subconsciously. If you want to be kind, it was subconscious.
If you want to be unkind, he was consciously protecting himself. His
performances in those games were not the Scott Parker we know and I think
most supporters could see that. He's gone to Spurs and he is back to his old
self. That's football, unfortunately. I'll be honest with you, in his
defence he didn't go to Spurs for any more money. He was the highest paid
player at West Ham. All they did was add a year to his contract, so it
wasn't a financial thing with him, it was a football thing.
ID: You said the last transfer window was the most difficult you've ever
been through. Take us through from the start to the finish. What was it like
for you as the chairman, trying to find a player, then you'd see it in the
papers …
DS: We chased about 20 players. At the end, I think we bought very well.
Only time will tell. Take Vaz Te. We got him for what we wanted to pay, but
at the start of January they wanted double. Even though his contract was up
this summer, they were gung ho, but by the end of the transfer window it's
either getting money off us or getting nothing in the summer. Maynard was
exactly the same. They'd have got 6.5 million from Leicester last summer,
but he wouldn't go to Leicester.
ID: You tried to get him last summer, didn't you?
DS: Yes. We offered £4 million. We've ended up getting him for what will
amount to a couple of million quid, which is not a lot of money for a payer
who … I mean the other night against Southampton he could have won the game
for us with one touch. He smashed one in and the guy made a great save. He's
a decent player. I think we bought well at the end.
ID: What happened with Jordan Rhodes?
DS: We bid £4 million. They said he's not for sale at any price in this
transfer window and in fact it turned out to be the case. We were buying a
young talent who may not have made the jump. It's not guaranteed, but he's a
prolific goalscorer. To get 27 in 25 or something was incredible, and he's
an improving talent because each year he's getting more.
ID: And then they sack the manager instead! Bizarre. There must be more to
that than meets the eye.
DS: Strange.
ID: What about Jelavic from Rangers?
DS: Jelavic we weren't sure about. We thought it was an awful lots of money,
five or six million pounds and he wanted double the wages he was on at
Rangers. We thought the whole package was …
ID: So you didn't actually make a formal bid?
DS: Yes we did. We made two or three formal bids for him. We bid £5 million,
but they wanted six or seven. They wanted more on knock ons. They wanted
quick payment, and we now know why. I wasn't prepared, and Sam wasn't
prepared, to bid a penny more than £5 million. And we both had reservations
about it. It is a real gamble when you sign any player. What you are trying
to do is buy value for money. Maynard was £1,650,000 and £350,000 based on
promotion or staying up. They get nothing for promotion this year, but next
year if we stay up or get promotion it gets £2 million. So that's better
value. Also his wages are high but not as high as we would have had to pay
the Rangers player. So we think that was better value for the club than the
Rangers deal. Whether it turns out to be, only time will tell.
ID: Was there ever anything in the Tévez rumours?
DS: Three times we asked. Three times they said "no chance". And how that
Twitter thing got going on the Saturday afternoon … You'd have thought he
was on the plane back from Buenos Aires. He's also very unfit. He was in a
Marbella hotel sunning himself for a couple of weeks, so I think he'd need a
month to get fit anyway. I've got to say I'd have taken him because he'd
have got the whole crowd going and I think perhaps within a month he'd have
been fit anyway. Demba Ba wasn't fit for a month but he had a fantastic
impact. I'd love Tévez to be coming out for us Tuesday night at Blackpool.
I'd just love it. But each time we went back they said 'no chance
whatsoever'. So we did try three times but each time it was a no. I'm not
sure Tévez would have come. We spoke to his agent but the dispute with Man
City was so nasty he maybe didn't want to give them an escape route, who
knows? It was never really a runner.
ID: How damaging is it when rumours appear in papers or on Twitter or on the
internet generally? Have they ever scuppered a deal?
DS: Yeah … They scuppered the manager coming to West Ham a year ago. When
that got out in the press … Bearing in mind we'd been having meetings for a
month … I won't say who the manger was, because I think it would be unfair …
ID: I think we all know …
DS: It only got out when he appointed two agents to negotiate his contract
with us.
ID: How can you do that? How can two different people negotiate?
DS: I don't know. Then overnight his betting went down to 6-4 on to come,
and you have to think one of those two agents has told somebody. We kept it
secret for a month, then Bingo, it's in the press, and he says "Oh, it's all
in the press now, I won't come". We didn't particularly want the guy from
Rangers [Jelavic] but we made our bid. Everton only came on the scene
because they then knew he was available. They might not have known that
before us. We didn't go in for Maynard early. We went in overnight on the
transfer deadline. We did it very quickly. Wolves were desperately trying to
get him as well. Had they known of our interest they might have ramped their
bid up a bit more.
ID: There was a rumour that Wigan had signed him for £2.5 million at one
point.
DS: All these deals were close but we just snuck in and took him. The more
you can keep it quiet the better. I mean, we tried to get Torres from
Chelsea.
ID: Get out of here! Did you really?
DS: Well if he couldn't score in the Premier League, come along with us for
a month. We might fire him up!
ID: And how many words did their response consist of?
DS: They just said: "Not at this moment in time". The best one was
Blackpool. We went in for Phillips there, a very good young player.
Blackpool came back and said we made £30 million last year, because they
didn't spend any money, we've got £40 million in the bank, I think you're
approaching the wrong club to buy a player off [laughs]. It was a very nice
reply!
ID: What happened with the bloke from Watford, Sordell?
DS: We watched him, and we thought he was a rising star, maybe one for the
future, but we're not sure about now. And we wanted somebody for now. He
ended up at Bolton, didn't he? If he gets 8 goals for Bolton this season we
made a bad decision, if he gets two, we made the right decision. He doesn't
score that many goals when you analyse it. Martin, our head of recruitment,
went to watch him several times and really liked him, but said if you want
somebody for now, he may not be it, And his personal demands were pretty
high – Premier League wages. We talked to Watford about him. We could have
lived with the fee Watford wanted, although Bolton paid more than we could
have got him for. The player wanted plenty of money and we thought the
overall package for what he was going to deliver, short term was too much.
Long term, who knows?
ID: Is it important to plan for the future and make sure that any player you
sign now is capable of hacking it in the Premier League?
DS: Yes, absolutely. We did look at another striker, but decided he might
not make it in the Premier League. He wanted to come. We could have had him
for £1.75 million but Sam just thought he might not make the jump. I didn't
have an opinion to be honest. Let me tell you something, I believe in
coincidence. Get this. Carlos Tévez. Born, 5 February. Cristiano Ronaldo.
Born 5 February. Neymar. Born 5 February. All born on the same day as me.
Jordan Rhodes, also born 5 February. And you know what, this other player
that we didn't sign, also born 5 February. When I saw the Huddersfield guy
was the same date as me and the same date as those players, I thought it was
written in the stars. Just incredible. An incredible coincidence, isn't it?
ID: I reckon we should get the Rothmans Yearbook out and look up every
footballer born on 5 February.
DS: There aren't many. If you take the best ten strikers in the world,
there's three of them born on 5 February.
ID: Did you tell Sam Allardyce?
DS: Yes!
ID: What did he say?
DS: He didn't think much of it [laughs].
ID: I can imagine him now. "Typical bloody chairman". [laughs]. If England
came knocking for Sam Allardyce, what would your reaction be?
DS: I don't think England are going to come knocking. He has a specific
clause in his contract which says he can leave for England. It's the one job
he can leave for. This time next year maybe, but I think they will stick
with their manager. In three or four years' time if we have had a good run
in the Premier league he would be an obvious candidate.
ID: How do you think the fans have taken to him? I can remember when you
were looking to appoint a manager and we had an exchange of emails and I
said 'whatever you do, don't appoint Allardyce.' You replied that he had a
great record and that I should look it up on Google. I admit I was wrong.
DS: He's actually a very nice person. The mistake we probably all made, was
that we had never met him. We imagine he's a gruff, thick northerner
[laughs], do you know what I mean? But that's the image he's got! He is the
most thinking, intelligent man. He analyses everything. He's into stats,
which I am too. Very experienced, and if you look at his track record he
hasn't had a failure anywhere. When Newcastle sacked him, they were half way
up the table and he was only three months into the job. I think he's done a
decent job. I've got to tell you, the other night against Southampton, we
were playing fantastic football, we were attacking, we should have scored a
couple, at least one of them should have gone in. We were looking good,
playing really attractive stuff, just what the supporters wanted. Then a
disaster, and a player does something stupid. And then of course, ten
against eleven, you've got to change the whole formation. You've only got
two in midfield, both your wingers are having to defend, and it's been tough
again. There have been games where we've played football and games where we
haven't, but I have got to tell you, under Zola and Avram I was surprised
how little football we played. Under Zola we didn't play attractive football
the last six months of the year. When we took over there was nothing
attractive about the football.
ID: Do you think in retrospect you should have given Zola another chance?
DS: Possibly. Possibly.
ID: I was gutted when he went. He was the one manager who got the best out
of Carlton Cole.
DS: Maybe, but the one player he wanted was Benni McCarthy.
ID: I take back everything I just said … [laughs].
DS: Seriously, he said "You get me Benni McCarthy and I will keep you up."
He would have loved a more expensive player, but if we had two or three
million to spend he said get McCarthy and he'll keep us up. Well, he should
have taken one look at him when he arrived and saw that he was two stone
overweight and not signed him. Benni McCarthy probably cost us four or five
million quid. We had to pay him off. We wrote off a £2 1/4 million transfer
fee. And I thought, well if that's his judgment on transfers, I'm seriously
worried. If you include the transfer fee, wages, NI, payoff, agents' fees
and everything, McCarthy cost us £7 million! But yes, half of me says yes,
we should have given him more time, but really, we should have been
relegated under him because 34 or 35 points doesn't keep you up most
seasons. It was a bad year with Portsmouth, Burnley and I can't remember the
other one. There were some bad teams in that division who shouldn't have
been in the Premier League. We stayed up by default really. Against that, he
didn't have much ammunition. He had to sell his side. It's also very
difficult when people aren't fluent in English, but then we picked another
one [Avram Grant] who also wasn't fluent in English. I really do like
English managers and I really don't think I would ever appoint a non English
manager ever again. I find Scottish people hard enough to understand to be
honest! I keep having to ask Alex [McLeish] to slow down a bit. I can't
follow what you're saying!
ID: Would you have looked at bringing Alan Pardew back? He has always said
he has got unfinished business at West Ham, hasn't he?
DS: We thought about it. But remember, at the time he had failed to get
Southampton promotion for two or three seasons despite spending a pile of
money. He had flopped at Charlton, so it was hard to make a case. I liked
Pardew. The press all liked him.
ID: I did. He seemed to kick every ball. I loved his emotion on the
touchline. He really built up quite a rapport with the fan.
DS: It was, just to me … We looked at Avram. With a team that's been ripped
to pieces he got them to the FA Cup Final. He got Chelsea to within a kick
of winning the Champions League, albeit he had inherited the team, although
it wasn't doing well when he took over. At Portsmouth they just sold
everybody, and if you put the 10 points back, they almost wouldn't have been
relegated. On paper, that looked better than Mr Pardew. So he couldn't get
Southampton promoted, flopped at Charlton, but he's now done a fantastic job
at Newcastle. You have to make a decision based on what you know. It's like
Chris Hughton. He's done a wonderful job at Birmingham, but at Newcastle,
big question marks. Did he just inherit a team with which anyone could have
got promoted with, with Andy Carroll and all of them. But he was one of a
number of names we looked at. We were looking for someone with a better
proven record.
ID: Let's move on to the Olympic Stadium.
DS: Before you ask anything, I can't go into too much detail on this, for
reasons you will appreciate. This is a very sensitive time, so please accept
that there's not actually an awful lot I can say.
ID: OK, I do understand that. Where are we at in the process?
DS: Well, we are going through the new tender process to ascertain the
differences between ownership and lease. It will be a complicated process
and no decisions have yet been made with regard to bidding. A bid has to be
submitted by 23 March.
ID: What is your top priority in deciding whether to bid?
DS: We would need to ensure that the atmosphere at the stadium is right for
football. Whatever shape or form that takes is still under discussion. We
reckon we can make the stadium work from a legacy point of view, to provide
a heart in the stadium, to create the jobs, the usage, to give the stadium a
national and international stage, but we have to be sure it is right for
football. If it is a truly multi-purpose stadium then that is a fantastic
legacy and vision for everyone.
ID: But the terms of the bid seem to be more disadvantageous in this process
than before. They've taken away naming and catering rights, for instance.
DS: Under the previous tender process, as owners of the stadium, we could
adapt it, with enhancements such as demountable seats, covered seats with
the roof, world class corporate facilities. We have to see what we will be
able to achieve as a tenant. We also have to be very careful about who we
share with.
ID: Who would you rule out?
DS: We are not too keen on rugby or sharing with another football club, as
we have to ensure the stadium is a home for West Ham, not just a venue to
play our matches.
ID: Amen to that. A lot of fans who used to support a move to Stratford are
now having second thoughts and wonder whether we shouldn't just stay put and
redevelop our existing ground.
DS: We have a stadium that could have a 45,000 capacity. We have a hotel. We
have 3,000 corporate hospitality guests, a stadium we own. We say how/when
and who, so to give that up we have to be 100% sure the deal is right for
the club.
ID: I can see you've got to tread carefully, given the timing of this
interview, so let's imagine a scenario where for whatever reason the Olympic
Stadium doesn't go ahead, what would you preference be then – to redevelop
or find a new site for a new ground?
DS: I think it makes more sense to redevelop Upton Park.
ID: You wouldn't look for another site elsewhere?
DS: Economically I don't think it would work. Maybe long term, but short
term you'd want to fill up the ground consistently and have a waiting list
of season ticket holders, then you'd build the East Stand bigger and better.
There's a big part of us that wants to stay at Upton Park. It's a very
difficult decision.
ID: Have you been surprised at the reaction of fans to the Olympic Stadium?
It is quite split, but you might have expected it to be 90-10 against, but
it has been more like 50-50, but I think opinion is now shifting away from
it.
DS: When we did an opinion poll we got 87% in favour. But it's the one area
… I'm going to have another look at it myself and see what can be done, but
I think I have said all I can say for now.
ID: Just one more thing, there have been various fans group say they want
you to hold a proper referendum of fans, maybe get the Electoral Reform
Society to oversee it. Is that a possibility?
DS: No, because who would vote? Would you just let season ticket holders
vote? All the fans who say they are supporters but don't come to games?
We're not a democracy. Where you've got fans running clubs they usually go
bust. I don't think you could even give fans the true … In a perfect world
you'd love to keep Upton Park, play one year at the Olympic Stadium, and
then ask people which they prefer. But it's not viable. We wouldn't get a
lease for 12 months. I tell you, none of us know the answer. None of us know
the answer. And I really can't go any further than that. I hope your readers
will understand.
ID: Let's move onto the ownership of the club. How much do you and David
Gold actually own? And how has that changed since the beginning?
DS: I think we own about 32% each. The bank owns 35%, the Harrises own 1%
and Terry Brown owns a tiny little bit. He put half a million pounds in. I
know the fans hate Terry, but you couldn't have a guy that loves the club
more than Terry. He may have run the club like an accountant, but he goes to
every home and away game and he loves the club. When we asked for half a
million quid he put it in. You could say well it's nothing, but it isn't
nothing, it's a substantial sum of money. The Harris's put a couple of
million pounds in. One of them is on the board. They are lifelong
supporters. John has been a supporter since 1946. His son Daniel loves the
club. They put some money in when we did. I've still got an option till 2013
to buy the rest of the shares but unfortunately we are putting so much money
in to keep the club afloat and to pay down the debt, I don't particularly
want to put up another pile of money to buy the remainder of the shares,
when I have an option over them anyway. And I have got to tell you that
Straumar are supportive. They can't give us any more money, but they did
actually loan us another million quid at one stage, which was incredible
really. They are very lovely people, nothing to do with the old lot. This
season David and I have put in £32 million. There's approximately a £17
million trading loss this year, which we are not proud of. We had to make a
decision whether to run it like an Administrator, get rid of all the players
and be fighting relegation, or to have one go at giving it our all to get
promoted. The other £15 million is being used to pay down debt. We have to
pay down the banks on a schedule. We have to pay down Sheffield United. The
whole Tévez deal cost the club over £30 million. We inherited 70 or 80% of
that. It finishes in 2013. The trouble is, the payments get bigger in the
later years. I can't name the figures because it's confidential but it is
ratcheted. The previous owners would do any deal as long they didn't have to
pay in the current year. It was always 'pay later'. And two years' season
ticket money was taken in advance, which we rolled over for a year. This
year, because we were relegated, they wouldn't roll it over, so we had to
pay down £7 million advance on season tickets and there's a £7.7 million
advance next year so all the season ticket money is gone.
ID: How close were we to going out of business?
DS: Well, if we hadn't put money in we'd been out of business. And that's
what people fail to understand. If you owed the money to the Inland Revenue
you could go into administration, give them 20p in the Pound, which Rangers
will do on the drip and then come back. The problem with West Ham is that
the money is owed to Sheffield United and other football clubs, so they are
football debts and administration doesn't get you out of those. The banks
have a charge over the ground, the training ground, over everything. So even
if you go into administration that isn't lost. So administration wouldn't
clear the debts of the club. Even if it was for the benefit of the club,
even if we lost our shares, if we could get out of all that debt, we would
go into administration. But you'd only get rid of 20% of your debts, not the
80% which are football debts, or debts charged against the football club,
the ground – every asset of the club they're charged against.
ID: When you took over you will have obviously done your due diligence, but
were you really aware of all of the mess at that point?
DS: We knew it was a hell of a mess. There might have been five or ten
million we didn't know about, but we knew about £100 million of it. We said
right from the start that if this wasn't West Ham, we wouldn't be doing
this. This is not a good deal.
ID: Two years on, do you think people really appreciate how bad the
situation was, and what you both have done to rectify it?
DS: Some do, but unless you know the real figures you don't. I think there's
a belief in football that whatever happens, the club survives. There will
soon be a club that won't survive. It might be Portsmouth. The only clubs
that cease to survive are tiny ones. It has not happened to a big club yet.
West Ham was probably the most insolvent club in the country due to the
excesses of the Icelandic owners. If, for example, Roman Abramovich died
tomorrow and his widow didn't want to support Chelsea, the debts and the
players' wages would put Chelsea out of business. Same at Man City.
ID: So there are some clubs that are run as playthings and others have to be
run as businesses. In the end, something will happen to those clubs that are
run as playthings.
DS: If the owner loses interest, they're buggered. It's like a rich man who
buys a yacht and then loses interest in it. Although we have not been good
businessmen in what we've done this season, we cannot do that year after
year. In a weird sort of way, we can't let the debts keep increasing. We
will have lost £15-17 million pursuing the dream. In fact next year, or the
year after, or whenever it comes in, even if you want to, you can't, because
of the Fair Play Rules.
ID: What effect will that have?
DS: In the Championship it will be ferocious. Wages will come down. You
won't be able to renew players, you'll have to let good players walk away
because you can't afford to pay them the wages they are on let alone an
increase if their contract is coming to an end.
ID: Have you found that a difficulty already? I know you can't name
individual players but have there been players who you'd like to sell on but
they won't take a cut and the club that might be interested in them won't
meet their demands?
DS: Some players, because of their wages, are worthless. We then have to pay
the player off. We have had one where if he had been on £2-3 grand a week,
there would have been a queue of clubs to take him. We might even have got a
£100,000 fee for him. But because he was on a very large multiple of that
we've had to give him a huge sum of money.
ID: How do you and David Gold divide your duties?
DS: I do all the transfers, bringing the players in, things like that. David
does all the PR, goes to the training ground. If I'm unsure about something,
or it's a substantial amount of money I'll ring David just to check he's OK
with it. For example, the Jelavic bid was quite a big bid and he'd have had
to stick in half the money. He gives me his opinions on it, you know? When
we appointed Sam we both met him together, same with Avram. In the main, we
think alike. We've been in football together for nearly 20 years
ID: Are you tempted to follow his lead and join Twitter yourself?
DS: No, my son is on Twitter and he loves it. He's a bit dyslexic so
anything that encourages him to write, I am very pleased about. I know when
we signed players on the transfer deadline, I was ringing him up – by the
way, that was the worst night of the season – and he was tweeting we had
signed players but he hadn't put the 'ed' on the end of sign.
ID: David Gold clearly loves it, though.
DS: Yeah, he loves it. I just haven't got the time. I can't handle my
emails. Sometimes I get 2,000 a day. The thought of trying to do Twitter as
well would be too much.
ID: You are very quick at replying to emails.
DS: It's because I am here. David can't reply to every tweet he gets but he
does his best. He tries to keep the supporters informed about what's going
on. He's very open and honest, as I am too. We believe in open and honest
management. You hope that if you are honest with the supporters they can see
you're trying your best. At this moment in time we have to accept that there
are many clubs we can't compete with. We hope that over time we can compete
with all but the Man Citys, Chelsea and Man Uniteds of this world. Maybe one
year a few players will come through. You get lucky. It can happen. You sign
a couple of young players, a couple of youth team players make it. We've
still got ambition.
ID: Who are the young players you're most impressed with? Danny Potts has
done well, hasn't he? He was brilliant in his first game.
DS: Yes, but he was brought in too soon. It was a good experience for him.
But with any young player, they can have a brilliant debut but it's asking
too much for them to do it in three or four quick games. Had Sam had a
choice, he wouldn't have done that. It was done by necessity. All the
players who got a yellow card at Birmingham were suspended against Derby.
Rob Hall is a good player but his knee's gone and he's out for the rest of
the season. But I don't think he'd be in the first team now with the players
we've signed. He's a player for next season. Elliot Lee, George Moncur.
There are two or three. If you're in the Championship they're going to get
more chances.
ID: We need to be 15 points ahead at the beginning of April so Sam can try a
couple.
DS: Yes, absolutely. That's the dream. It's a bit unlikely, but anything's
possible.
ID: It's interesting that we are at the top, and yet you'd be hard pressed
to name a game where we've played brilliantly and played a team off the park
– maybe Blackpool at home.
DS: We all think there is another gear in the team. In a weird sort of way
we saw it against Southampton the other night but there are a lot of nerves
out there. There are nerves in the crowd too. They were really up for it
against Southampton though, and that helped the team. I agree with you, it's
been a struggle, but it was always going to be. Norwich last year, it wasn't
a pushover, they would grind out result after result. They scored a lot of
late goals, and that's what we have got to start doing. We haven't won a
single game in the last quarter of an hour. We've scored a lot of early
goals and then win 1-0. I am hoping in the last 18 games we can get some
points in the last ten minutes.
ID: What happened with Tony Fernandes?
DS: He was trying to buy the club when we were trying to buy the club. He's
very tricky, Tony. I won't say any more than that. He told a few pork pies
to us. What he said this year, his offer was ridiculous. He wanted to put a
little bit of money into the club – and I mean 'a little bit' – to take 51%
of the club. We didn't have 51% to sell really, as it would have left us
with 13% between us. We'd have been giving him our shares. It was a
ludicrous offer. But he's certainly pumped some money into Queen's Park
Rangers. It will be interesting to see if they stay up or go down. Tony is a
charming, charismatic man, a fantastic salesman, very good at talking.
ID: What's the most memorable West Ham game you have ever seen?
DS: I went to the cup finals as a kid. When I was 15 and living in
Hornchurch I went to the 1964 cup final. Ronnie Boyce. Beating Man U 4-0 in
the snow the other year was memorable. I know it was a semi reserve side,
but even so, that was quite a good experience. Even beating Stoke in injury
time. We were so much more up for those cup games, but then there was that
abysmal performance at Birmingham where we just capitulated. I never went. I
thought, I just can't face it if we get beaten up there. Funny how fickle
some supporters are. The first time we went back we got jostled and booed.
The last time we got applauded. So perhaps after 12 months they realise we
didn't do such a bad job. Birmingham are having a fantastic year. Undefeated
at home and a major threat to us. It will be a very big game when we play
them at Upton Park.
ID: Have we had the money for Diamanti yet?
DS: No. It's gone to the European Court of Arbitration. I fear Brescia might
go bust on us. But even if this court tells them to pay, it doesn't mean
they will. Say they owe us £1.7 million. They are trying to get £500,000
knocked off for a technical reason. Well why not pay us £1.2 million in the
meantime? I don't understand it. It doesn't make any sense.
ID: Why was Fabio Daprela let go? He looked a real prospect.
DS: The manager took the view he was just OK. We got 750,00 euros from
Brescia and we actually got paid that money. It was a one off payment and we
thought it was reasonable business.
ID: What's the situation with Marek Stech?
DS: If he starts in two more games we have to give £700,000 to Sparta
Prague. It's very hard. We have tried to renegotiate with them, but they're
having none of it. It's a bad, bad situation.
ID: Karren Brady's column in The Sun doesn't go down well with many fans.
Have you been concerned by some of the things she writes?
DS: She's always done it. If I stop her doing it, the club would have to
give her the money. And it's a substantial amount of money, so I prefer for
her to do it and the club not to give her the money if that makes sense! I'm
confident that Karren will never write anything detrimental to our great
club and she hasn't this season.
ID: Sam's column in the Standard is quite a good read. He doesn't get into
trouble over that. Yet.
DS: He doesn't earn any money from it either! [laughs]. He does it for
nothing. Just to get PR for the club.
ID: Do you think racism has been eradicated from Upton Park? I've only
experienced it twice in my twenty years as a season-ticket holder, but once
at the end of last season I witnessed some really extreme anti-semitic stuff
against David Gold after we'd lost a game in the last minute. It's still
there, isn't it?
DS: If you lose in the last minute we all say and do things … That's why I
never speak to the manager until the Monday. I don't speak to him after the
game. If it's a midweek game, I'll speak to him the next day. I think things
can be said on both sides that you might live to regret. I think some
people, through ignorance, lack of education, they come out with the racist
thing. I'm short, so I have the hightism thing against me, which hurts just
as much [Iain laughs]. I was born short. I wish I had been like Brad Pitt,
but I am what I am. I may not be black, I may not be Jewish, but I'm little.
ID: At least you're not ginger!
DS: I like ginger women, actually. I like redheads. [Both in fits of
laughter]. Perhaps I would prefer to be a black Jewish man than a small
white man. So I get hightism remarks against me. You've just got to take it
on the chin. It's not very nice and yes, we did get a bit of grief at the
end of last season – "You've wrecked the club, and done this and that", but
we have done our best and we are not going to get it right all the time.
Hand on heart, we picked the wrong manager, but I don't want to keep
whacking Avram. He was a lovely person but he wasn't right for West Ham.
Another club, he might have been wonderful for. We made a mistake, but if
you look at managers, they sign players and make mistakes all the time.
Unfortunately as an owner, you make a decision every couple of years, or
every five years, you hope you get it right.
ID: Have you ever had a manager who wanted to sign a player, you've seen
that player and you say 'absolutely not'?
DS: Only when the manager has been there a few years. You've got to give
support in the early years. But after a few bad buys I have written emails
to managers where I have said "I'm supporting you buying this player, but I
am telling you now that this is a bad, bad player and you shouldn't be
signing him". I think I have been right on virtually every occasion. I have
only vetoed about two players in a long period of time. In the main you
support a manager. I've signed a couple who I would not have signed but the
manager wanted them so you support him. All you can do is give your opinion.
Sometimes you say to a manager "think about it, have a long, hard think
about it" and sometimes they do and change their minds and sometimes they
don't. You support the manager, or you become the manager. I have signed a
couple over the years where I have taken a long-shot gamble and said to the
manager "are you OK with it, you don't have to play them but don't boycott
them". I have only signed them with their approval. I have only said to a
manager, say every 50 players, I don't want them to sign someone, and I
might pick one out of 50, subject to finances.
ID: Is there one that you have picked that has then gone on to do really
well?
DS: I signed Mauro Zarate at Birmingham on loan and he almost kept us up an
he went on to do well at Lazio. I think he's at Inter Milan now. We signed a
little Ecuadorean who did very well and is now the top scorer in Mexico.
Zarate we signed on loan with an option of buying. I wouldn't buy a player
like that on a long-term contract. Everyone's got to be in agreement. Every
player we have signed this year, the manager has picked and I have supported
him. They all made sense on paper. I also signed Ilan at West Ham. I saw the
state of Benni McCarthy when he arrived and had my doubts about him, though
he was the manager's first choice. I had the opportunity to take Ilan for
half a season, with an option in our favour for the next season. I signed
him as I thought we needed more firepower. He wasn't a great player, but his
five vital goals kept us up. He had an uncanny knack of sticking his right
foot out and scoring. Whilst he didn't do enough for us to offer him a
long-term contract, I think he did the job he was brought in to do. Zola
agreed to take him, though he knew nothing about him, and thankfully he
played an important part in our first season survival. I've never signed a
player without the agreement of the manager in 20 years in football. On the
very rare occasions (eg Ilan) I have taken the initiative they have
supported my judgment.
ID: The FA have launched a campaign on homophobia in football. If a player
came to you and told you he was gay and wanted to come out, what would your
reaction be?
DS: I'd say 'Good luck to you'. I think we've had a couple of gay players at
West Ham. I'm pleased that we have signed up to the FA and Government
campaign on homophobia in football. In fact, I think we signed up yesterday.
It's the right thing to do. We have a lot of gay fans and they would expect
us to do nothing less.
ID: Why do you think no gay player has ever come out, apart from Justin
Fashanu, and we all know what happened to him?
DS: I think it's because they're nude in the dressing room, they're in the
shower, I think they feel a little bit threatened. If they knew one of their
team-mates was gay …
ID: Oh come on, that's rubbish. Surely nowadays no one really believes that
gay men fancy any other man they might meet?
DS: Well they probably do think like that, some of them, but it doesn't mean
they are going to try it on. I don't know what to say, maybe some
footballers feel threatened by gay footballers. To me it's nothing. If
you're that way inclined, good luck to you. I've always jokingly said that I
wish every man in the world was gay. There would just be me and the whole
female population. So the more men that are gay the better as far as I am
concerned.
ID: You'd be bloody knackered though … Just to finish off, have you started
planning for if we go up?
DS: Well yes and no. It's difficult. The players we signed this January, we
all think can perform in the Premier League.
ID: Presumably a key aim has to be that we don't become a yo-yo club like
West Brom.
DS: Yes. Sam never got relegated with Bolton. He had a tough first year but
he never got relegated in about nine seasons. He got them up to fifth or
sixth in the table. I think he won the Carling Cup with them. Despite the
debt, we're a bigger club than Bolton. If we add a bit more finance, maybe
we can be a top six club.
ID: What's the deal with Sam? If we get up would you expect to extend his
contract?
DS: He's got a two-year contract. We'd have a look at it. I've always
thought if someone's got a contract, you speak to them at the end of it.
Everyone's happy. At the end of that you see where you are. I think it is
wrong to negotiate a long way in advance. Wait till the end of the period,
he decides what he wants to do, we do the same.
ID: What do you make of Mr Di Canio's start in management?
DS: Good! Very impressed!
ID: Did you ever consider him seriously?
DS: I met him, and I said in the nicest possible way, while my heart would …
you cannot have a rookie manager. I actually said, you've got to take a
lower league club. He's had a little bit of financial support at Swindon and
that does make a big difference in that division. I'm not belittling what he
has done at all. If he does it next year in a higher division you start to
think perhaps he's very very good at it. It's like the Huddersfield manager.
He did well, but he had money to spend and he had layers on high wages. The
counter argument is that he got Jordan Rhodes for two bob from Ipswich so
he's a good judge of players. I do watch for the Swindon results every week.
He's got passion, there's' no doubt about that. And he loves West Ham. I'd
like nothing better than in five years' time to be in the Champion's League,
Sam's got the England job, Di Canio's just got Swindon promotion to the
Premier League, and we pinch him! But that's five years down the line. I
feel he's got to do two or three years of establishing himself and his
credentials. Ron Noades won Division 2 with Brentford, but he couldn't do it
in League 1. Just because you can win League 2 doesn't necessarily mean …
But it's a great start.
ID: Whenever you read an interview with Paolo, all he wants to talk about is
West Ham.
DS: He loves West Ham and West Ham loves him. He's on a par with Tévez with
the supporters but last summer we had to go for safety. We looked at lots of
managers and two of them are now doing very, very well. We looked at the
Watford manager [Malky Mackay] who's now at Cardiff, we looked at Chris
Hughton, who's at Birmingham and they've both done fantastic jobs. We went
for Sam because we wanted experience. Having made one mistake, we wanted to
play as safe as we possibly could. With Paolo, if we'd brought him in then,
had he done badly we'd have looked so stupid. Also, it's a bit like Paul
Ince, if you fail at high level you find it difficult to start again lower
down, not that I am making a case for Paul Ince! [Iain laughs]. He did an OK
job at Milton Keynes, he bombed out at Blackburn, you really want to see
someone earn their apprenticeship as a manager. You get some top class
footballer who wants to come straight in as a Premier League manager, well
not many do it.
ID: Have you looked back at the 10 Point Plan you issued in May 2010 and
checked how you've done?
DS: [laughs]. No! I daren't! What did we say?
ID: Number 1 – appoint the right manager. Tick?
DS: We may have eventually. Second attempt.
ID: Signed new players.
DS: Sort of.
ID: Made more investment in the Academy.
DS: That's probably neutral, but we have sustained it despite relegation.
ID: Continued to clear the debt.
DS: Sort of
ID: Freeze season ticket prices for renewals.
DS: Well, we've done that.
ID: Build the status and image of the club.
DS: I think we've done that, with the crowds we've been getting, we really
are promoting the brand hard with advertisements, with mailshots. We mailed
two million people in Essex and East London with leaflets on West Ham. We've
just taken 50 pages in the Evening Standard and the Metro on a deal for the
next year
ID: You should be advertising on LBC!
DS: We do that as well. No, it's talkSport.
ID: Disgrace! You should sponsor my evening show! 400,000 people!
DS: Is that what you get?! That's incredible. But they'd have to do it very
cheap!
ID: Next one, make it enjoyable to come and watch.
DS: Well, we're starting to win games, and that's the most important thing,
you win games.
ID: Get closer to the community.
DS: We really do put a lot of effort into that and spend a lot of money
ID: Go for the Olympic Stadium.
DS: Er…. [Iain laughs]
ID: Get closer to supporters
DS: We've for the Supporters Advisory Panel and they come up with some very
good ideas. I correspond with about 50 fans on the email and they give me
their opinions.
ID: But you still enjoy it?
DS: If it wasn't for the financial drain, I'd say I was loving it, but it is
at a level which is a bit frightening. I think David has aged five years in
two! I can still laugh about, but I really don't know why! We're 4-1 on to
go up, and you just pray it happens. But you see Blackpool coming with a
run, Birmingham coming with a run, Hull, Reading.
ID: I think Southampton will drop to the play-offs.
DS: Reading are a good side, you know. Even before we had the sending offs,
they were at us. When it was 0-0, there was nothing in it.
ID: They've always been a bit of a bogey side for us. I remember the 6-0!
DS: We'll beat them when they come here. Our home form is really improving
and I think you'll see that continue for the rest of the season. The crowds
are getting bigger. We've got Palace on TV but that will be sold out because
of Kids for a Quid. To get a sell-out at 12.45 on a Saturday is fantastic.
You can't beat Kids for a Quid when you talk about getting the community
involved. It allows people who haven't got much money to bring their kids. I
met a guy the other day who brought 19 kids to a game with his pal.
Nineteen! In addition to doing transfers and wage negotiations, I'm very
involved in the marketing of the club at a micro level. I have organised
most of our expansionary advertising campaigns including the 2.5m leaflets
we've distributed since the stat of the season and the 50 pages we've
recently contracted to book in the Standard & Metro. Myself & Karren
invented Kids for a Quid at Birmingham 20 years ago and its something we
really believe is important for the long term future of the club. We
regularly use it regularly at West Ham for games we think are not going to
sell out.
ID: You've got to catch them young.
DS: Yes, because in 20 or 30 years' time, they will be our supporters. It's
called investing in the future.
ID: I think that's a good, positive note to end on. I want to really thank
you for doing this. I know the readers of West Ham Till I Die will
appreciate it and also appreciate the fact that you have been so open and
transparent.
Published here courtesy of West Ham Till I Die
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