He’s Not the Messiah …

It’s that time of year again when I issue my perennial ‘West Ham are in deep trouble, the season’s going down the toilet’ post.

(If you’re remotely interested, you can read the previous entries here:

• End of the Road …
• The Price of Loyalty …)

Anyhow, despite the fact that we’re currently 5 points adrift from safety at the bottom of the premier league, the club have sought fit to keep beleaguered manager Avram Grant on.  At least for now.  (The omens aren’t good – Grant hasn’t been out of the relegation zone for a single day in the last year since taking over as manager of now relegated Portsmouth in November 2009). 

Instead, they’ve jettisoned Grant’s assistant, Zeljko Petrovik, the fall guy for the team’s run of poor form.

With Petrovic now gone, the rumour-mill has gone into overdrive with regards to who will replace him.  And the fans’ favourite is none other than former player Paulo Di Canio.

The club are doing nothing to dampen the expectation, even going as far as very publically inviting Di Canio as a guest of honour to this Saturday’s “Save Our Season” game against Wigan.

Perhaps the passionate Di Canio, a man who has always worn his heart on his sleeve, would be the ideal antidote to Avram Grant’s dour and expressionless demeanour; the perfect yin to Grant’s yan?  And something has got to change if West Ham are to rescue their season.

But, before we get carried away with ourselves, let us not forget the last time we appealed to Di Canio to save our club and to save our season. 

Capello’s Own Goal

So, Fabio Capello has been running the rule over Rob Green – assessing whether his embattled first choice keeper has got the bottle to bounce back from his howler against the USA.

Capello has apparently been resolute in his refusal to deviate from his pre-match ritual of not letting his squad know the starting eleven until 2 hours before kick-off.

However, it would seem that Capello’s rules are made to be broken.  He has already announced that “Garry Barry” will start against Algeria. 

So, come on Fabio!  Do the decent thing, and flex your intransigent rules one more time to give your top stopper the Green light.

You Know You’re Getting Old When …

• … the World Cup starts, and you can’t slope off from work early to watch the opening match because you’ve got too many “responsibilities”.
• … you’re carrying around so many keys that you can’t actually fit them into your  pocket.

Keys

• … you’re spending £150 a week on food to feed a ravenous and ever growing family.
• … you go and watch Scotland play cricket, and all the players are considerably younger than you are.  Even Graham Hamilton, the battle-worn skipper, a seasoned veteran who is greying at the temples, looking slightly haggard and carrying a few spare pounds.

Gavin Hamilton

Twitter: we wos robbed!

News comes today that Sunderland striker Darren Bent has stopped tweeting to concentrate on his football.  It comes after he landed himself in trouble a few months ago for issuing a number of ill-advised tweets, about which other football clubs he would and wouldn’t join.

He’s not the first person to land themselves in trouble for revealing too much about themselves through their Twitter entries.

Witness Please Rob Me, a site which has just launched which tells burglars which houses are likely to be empty – based on information unwittingly provided by Twitter users.  The apparent real objective of the site is to warn people of the potential side effects of inadvertently revealing too much about yourself through your tweets.

Please Rob Me

Perhaps Darren Bent has taken heed of Please Rob Me.  He wouldn’t be the first high-profile British footballer to have his house burgled when he was known to be miles away from home, on a pitch, kicking a ball about.

So, the message from Please Rob Me is – be careful what you Twitter.  You could end up revealing much more than you had intended.  On the other hand, you could do us all a favour and just follow Darren Bent’s example of simply hanging up your Twitter boots.

The Lampards – That Missing Demo Tape

Once upon a time, I was in a band.  I played the bass for a time.  We wrote some pretty decent music for a bunch of sixth-form school kids, trying to pretend we were The Charlatans, at the height of the 1989/1990 Madchester scene.

We were called The Lampards – in homage to West Ham’s bearded former full-back, at a time when his son, Chelsea’s current midfield golden boy was still in short trousers.   OK, so he still is in short trousers most of the time, but you get the idea.

The Frank Lampard

We sent  the demo tapes to the late, great, John Peel.  He liked them, or so he said.  We tried to get a record deal.  We never quite made it, but had lots of fun trying.

I lost one of the master demo tapes.  And now, some 20 odd years (!!!!) later I’ve unearthed it in a dusty old cardboard box.  And thanks to the wonders of modern technology, there’s now no need for that record deal – the songs can be published online.

The Lampards

So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Lampards:

• Left to Burn
• Space 516
• Stop You Flying
• A Bad Sorrow

Matt – I’ll give you the demo cassette the next time I see you.  For now you’ll have to make do with these MP3s on your iPod.  Sorry for ‘mislaying’ it for all these years.

Maybe if we’d sent that one to John Peel, things would have turned out differently.

End of the Road for Saab as Economic Slump Claims another Victim

Today’s announcement that Saab will face “an orderly wind-down of operations” is yet another indication of the sheer depths to which the current economic situation has plunged.

Saab

The news that Saab’s owner, General Motors, has failed to find a buyer for the trusted marque has left a number of my work colleagues, who are avowed Saab-groupies, glum-faced.  Andy, Frank, Leena – take a bow.

It follows hot on the heels of the news this week that FlyGlobespan – Scotland’s premium air carrier – will also be wound up.

Personally speaking, I’ve never driven a Saab, but by reputation and recommendation, I hold the marque in extremely high regard as a manufacturer of well-engineered, reliable and trustworthy cars. 

Fly Globespan

I have, however, had experience of FlyGlobespan and have nothing but good things to say about them.  They’ve transported me and my family on numerous holidays, and we’ve never had the kind of grumbles (late planes, plans cancelled prior to travel, surly staff, etc) which I’ve experienced through the likes of Easyjet and Ryanair.

Aside from the personal inconvenience of having to make alternative holiday arrangements, these recent events provide a clear and stark indication of the depths to which the economic situation has plummetted, when trusted and accomplished businesses are forced to wind up their operations. 

And whilst we’re on the subject of brands which are steeped in tradition and known for operating in their field with distinction and have a global heritage for doing things ‘the right way’, please spare a thought for my football club, West Ham United. 

West Ham United

The way that things are going, I genuinely fear that West Ham United will be the next such respected brand which meets an untimely end as a direct result of the economic downturn.  Granted, some appalling mismanagement of the club’s affairs by West Ham’s recent Icelandic owners has played no small part. 

But, for what it’s worth, I urge Straumur (the consortium appointed to represent the interests of the creditors of Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, West Ham’s former Chairman) in the strongest possible terms to take some decisive action to prevent the inevitable.

As we move ever closer to the January transfer window, West Ham seem incapable of picking up points on the pitch, making the prospect of relegation increasingly inevitable.  If relegation were to happen, West Ham (already reportedly £80 million in debt) would have little realistic chance of avoiding administration – which would see a 10 points deduction and the prospect of Division 1 football (at best) for the start of the 2011 season.

Messrs Sullivan and Gold (formerly owners of Birmingham City) have reportedly had a £50 million bid for West Ham turned down by Straumur.  This raises the interesting (although disastrous) prospect that Straumur (who by their own admission are money people and have no interest in football) may elect to cash in on West Ham’s prize assets in the January transfer window.  By selling the likes of Carlton Cole, Matthew Upson, Scott Parker and Robert Green (all of whom have no shortage of suitors), Straumur would, in a stroke, make an equivalent sum of money to that which Sullivan and Gold were offering whilst in the process removing the spine of West Ham’s team.

The stadium and the London property upon which it stands would be the remaining prime asset, and I’m sure there would be a deal to be done with a housing developer or supermarket.  And all of a sudden – from a financial perspective, this seems like a more attractive proposition than that which Sullivan and Gold have made.

But (and it’s a big ‘but’) this option only becomes attractive as a short term way of stripping the asset if (and it’s a big ‘if’) relegation of West Ham from the Premier League becomes an inevitability.  It isn’t yet.  However, decisive action (a change in ownership and inflow of new net funds before January) is required to avert this.

It’s perhaps ironic that FlyGlobespan isn’t the first airline to go bust in recent months.  XL Holidays – who had been until that point West Ham’s shirt sponsor – went into administration just over a year ago.  Who would have thought at that time that West Ham United could go the same way?

The Price of Loyalty – You do the Math …

At last, an apparent crumb of comfort for we beleaguered West Ham United fans. 

We’re sitting in the relegation zone, having not won a league game since the opening match of the season on 15th August.  The squad is looking decidedly thin; the transfer window is shut, and we haven’t got a brass farthing to rub together in any case.  And now we’re about to get clobbered by the FA in the light of crowd trouble at the Millwall game.

But lo, an ad on the home page of the West Ham website invites visitors to sign up to the club’s credit card.  In return, the club will give you a free home shirt.  A not particularly nice free home shirt (maybe they haven’t been selling too well?).  But a free home shirt nonetheless:

£60 for a free shirt anyone?

But, hang on, what’s this?  Ah, the smallprint:

“All you have to do is transfer £2,000 to your credit card in the first 90 days of your account opening. (3% handling fee).”

So that would be 3% of £2,000.  Or £60.  So not free.  And not even discounted.  If you had taken leave of your style senses and were so inclined, you could buy a new home shirt from the club shop for £40. 

And it’s not just the shirt which is unpleasant – at 15.9%, the typical variable APR isn’t particularly attractive either.