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176 pages

English

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The past dozen years have provided an unprecedented rollercoaster ride for West Ham United, both on and off the pitch. Since 2001, the Hammers have recruited six managers, had four different owners, played in three winner-takes-all play-off finals, enjoyed two promotions (having endured two relegations) and starred in an all-time classic FA Cup final. After the club endured the collapse of the chairman's banking empire and the Carlos Tevez saga, it was saved from financial ruination and now looks set for the Olympic Stadium. Former Hammers News editor and popular local newspaper columnist Kirk Blows has been there at every step, offering hard-hitting, opinionated analysis of events, campaigning and complaining on all the topical issues with an obligatory gallows humour. And now he pulls no punches looking back on the club's fight for elite status, the heroes and villains including Di Canio, Tevez, Zola and Allardyce; Gudmundsson, Gold and Sullivan.

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Gran Londres

Greater London

Grand Londres

London

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Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	01 septembre 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781909626119
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate Yeoman Way Durrington BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Kirk Blows 2013
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
First published and printed in 2013 First published in eBook format in 2013
eISBN: 978-1-909626-11-9 (Printed edition: 978-1-90917-883-0)
eBook Conversion by www.ebookpartnership.com
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Foreword By Julian Dicks
Introduction: Redknapp was always going to be a tough act to follow
Season 2001/02: Yeah, we ll take that, thanks very much
Season 2002/03: We won t take this any more
Season 2003/04: At best a soap opera, at worst a total farce
Season 2004/05: Failure could condemn club to years of mediocrity
Season 2005/06: An explosion of tears, cheers and a few beers
Season 2006/07: Issues must have distracted the manager s focus
Season 2007/08: West Ham have a boos problem
Season 2008/09: Seen your shares crash in value?
Season 2009/10: Zola s position has become untenable
Season 2010/11: Grant appears to be deluding himself
Season 2011/12: Go for Tevez and Torres ... get Vaz Te and Maynard
Season 2012/13: One minute it s food poisoning, the next it s sour grapes
The Summer Of 2013: Carroll signing a huge statement of intent
Photographs
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to thank: Patricia Laker, David, Jennifer, Helen, John and Rachel Laker, Karen, Jessica and Lewis Blows, Valerie Blows, Karen Glaseby, Julian Dicks, Jo Davies, Trevor Davies, John Smith, Lee Power, Dave Powter, Colin Munford, Gary Hawkins, Ben Sharratt, Tony McDonald, Steve Blowers, Tony Hogg, Rob Newell, Greg Demetriou, Paul Stringer, Rob Pritchard, Laura Burkin, Colin Benson, Joe Sach, John Raven, Gerry Levey, Brad Ashton, Justin Allen, John Matthews, Steven Ball, Elsie and Graham Rowe, Lee Dallimer, John Diamond, Colin Salter, Sai Gajan Mahendran, Steve Carroll, Conor Parkinson, Brendan O Brien, Tim De Klerk, Jerry Phillips and Andrew Henderson. Special thanks to Steve Bacon for photographic material.
FOREWORD BY JULIAN DICKS
F OOTBALL is unpredictable in general nowadays but that s certainly been the case over the past 12 seasons at West Ham - the club I love, the one that gave me the best ten years of my life as a player.
I want the team to play well and win every game but we all know that s impossible because it never happens, especially at a club that has been relegated and promoted twice amid a number of unexpected highs and lows since I retired in 1999.
I have followed events closely since that time and love going back to Upton Park, which I have done frequently in recent seasons as a radio pundit. And what really makes it so enjoyable for me is not so much the football but the supporters, who I had such a great rapport with and are great to see again.
People ask me if I miss playing football and I do, but the only thing I really miss is playing at Upton Park. I don t miss the players, I don t miss the banter, I just miss playing for the fans.
The club has a wonderful tradition and has had some fantastic players over the years - the likes of Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Billy Bonds, Trevor Brooking and Alan Devonshire, for example - but ultimately it s the fans that set it apart.
They are fantastic supporters who stick with the team through thick and thin. They know that West Ham are never going to win the Premier League but can hopefully enjoy a good cup run and get to a final now and then. They are knowledgeable supporters but all they expect from players is that they give 100 per cent every game. If you try, they re the best fans in the world but if you don t, then they can be the worst.
I was brought to West Ham in 1988 by John Lyall, who was only the club s fifth ever manager and nearing the end of his lengthy time at Upton Park. I also played under Lou Macari, Billy Bonds and Harry Redknapp before the turnover of bosses increased following the appointment of Glenn Roeder in 2001.
I look at managers from the point of view of having been a player. Would I like to play for Glenn Roeder? No, I wouldn t. Would I like to play for Sam Allardyce? Yes, I would because he has something about him.
I thought Alan Pardew did a decent job as the manager of West Ham, taking the team up to the Premier League and to an FA Cup Final, but I got the impression that he thought he was better than he was.
I knew Alan Curbishley from my early days at Birmingham but, to be honest, I didn t like his style of football when he took charge at Upton Park. It was a bit boring for me but, at the end of the day, football is about results. If you get results the fans will stick by you but it s when things start going wrong that the fans will make their voices heard.
I liked Gianfranco Zola because his teams play football the right way and when you ve got a manager who the players really, really respect, that goes a long, long way. Things didn t go so well in his second season in charge but for me he wasn t given enough time.
I think he was harshly treated when sacked and I think he would have done well if he had stayed at the club - certainly much better than Avram Grant did when he came in.
I occasionally used to go and watch the team training at that time and I thought the manager was lifeless. When we used to have five-a-sides under Harry Redknapp there was lots of banter going on but when I watched those boys there was nothing there. No wonder they got relegated.
I think Sam Allardyce has done a good job. If you would have said West Ham were going to win promotion and then finish tenth in the Premier League, 99.99 per cent of people would have taken that.
I thought some of the football we played in the Championship was difficult to watch, but last season was a big improvement - although I still think it could be a lot better. But you need proper players to play football and you can t ask them to pass the ball if they can t do it.
So now it s a case of looking forward, with West Ham trying to consolidate their place in the Premier League ahead of their expected move to the Olympic Stadium in 2016.
After playing at Upton Park for ten seasons I obviously love the place, but my hope for the move to Stratford is that it makes football affordable to everybody, so families can attend games.
As I write, the club have recently made a big investment in Andy Carroll who I like as a striker and think brings another dimension to West Ham. But for the money that he s reportedly costing the club he has got to prove that he s a prolific scorer by getting 20 goals a season, not struggling to get into double figures.
If he can do that then that will go a long way towards West Ham being a competitive Premier League outfit in the years to come. But however they re doing, you know they will always have my support.
Julian Dicks
June 2013

Julian Dicks, nicknamed the Terminator for his committed and uncompromising style at left-back, made 328 appearances and scored 65 goals during his two spells as a West Ham player. He led by example when handed the captaincy and won the Hammer of the Year award on four occasions. He currently spends his time coaching and providing matchday analysis for BBC Radio London.
INTRODUCTION
Redknapp was always going to be a tough act to follow
T HE summer of 2001 represented a major watershed in the history of West Ham United - for one obvious reason.
Harry Redknapp had managed the club for the past seven years, guiding the team to three consecutive top-ten finishes - not something the Hammers make a habit of - and a place in Europe in 1999.
That was always going to be difficult to sustain and in the 2000/01 season, during which star defender Rio Ferdinand was sold to Leeds United for 18m, West Ham struggled and could only finish in 15th place.
Redknapp did well to bump the figure up to what was, at the time, a British transfer record, but in retrospect that was the beginning of the end for the Hammers boss, who was severely criticised by chairman Terence Brown for the way he had been spending the club s money.
When a meeting took place to discuss the budget for the following campaign, the chairman and manager clashed - with disputes about the quality of recent signings, how much had actually been spent (with Brown including the value of contracts) and, supposedly, quotes that had recently appeared in the press - and a proposed new four-year contract for Redknapp was ripped up and replaced with a P45. And so on 9 May 2001, West Ham released a statement claiming the two parties had agreed to part company , although Redknapp would emphatically insist to this writer that he was pushed out the club.
Brown used his annual report to highlight spiralling costs and expenditure [that] cannot be justified under Redknapp, who described the attack as disgusting when later discussing the matter at his luxury home on the Dorset coast.
Redknapp had succeeded Billy Bonds as manager in 1994 amid suspicions that he had cynically engineered events, to such an extent that the former close friends stopped talking to each other. And therefore some believed it was perhaps fitting that he should leave the club in similarly controversial circumstances.
The West Ham fans had always seen Redknapp, who had emerged from the club s youth ranks to spend seven years as a first-team player, as one of their own and they loved his Cockney wit and Arthur Daley-style wheeling and dealing when running the show.
His achievements at Upton P