My dad took me to my first football game when I was eight-years old. It was Spurs v Arsenal on 10th October 1953.
Although we lived in Chingford at the time, my dad was a Spurs fan because he had spent his childhood in Islington. After that we went to every Spurs home game until he was killed in 1956. I loved going to football but unlike my dad, I had not developed a passion for Spurs.When I was 13, I thought I was old enough to take myself to football. We were living in Dagenham at the time and so I decided to go and see West Ham play. After the first game I realised I would be a West Ham supporter for the rest of my life. It had nothing to do with the way the team played or the claret and blue shirts. It was because it was the team that represented my community.
Although I was not an outstanding footballer, I dreamed of playing for the Hammers. In reality, I knew this was not possible and therefore I transferred my ambitions to those young players who had not yet reached the first team. I used to love reading the programme to find out about the young promising players playing in the reserves.
I was in the crowd on 8th September 1958 for the game against Manchester United. It was the day that the 17 year-old, Bobby Moore made his debut. I remember it being the main topic of conversation before the game. He was not an immediate success and it would be a couple more years before he became a regular in the team, but at that time, West Ham gave their youngsters a chance. That season Andy Smillie (17), Joe Kirkkup (19) and John Smith (21) all played in the first team.
Over the next few years I saw other local youngsters play in the first-team: Ronnie Boyce (1960), Eddie Bovington (1960), Geoff Hurst (1960), Alan Sealey (1961), Martin Peters (1962), Brian Dear (1962), Jack Burkett (1962) and John Sissons (1963). On 19th May 1965 I was at Wembley to watch these young men beat TSV Munchen 2-0 in the European Cup Winners Cup Final. Only Jim Standen, the goalkeeper, did not spend their childhood in London.
A lot is talked about the 'West Ham Way'. Football pundits often sneer at this thinking it is about the way we play. To me it has always been about our recruitment policy. Producing players via our academy. People from the local area representing their community.
In the 1960s we were able to hold on to our best locally born talent for most of their careers. That changed in the 1970s and fans just had to accept we were supporting a club with the only ambition of balancing the books.
David Sullivan told us it would be different when he took over the club in 2010 and we would no longer sell our best young players. At first he kept his word, probably because the academy were no longer producing good enough young players to reach the first team. If any of them showed any promise, they were sent out on loan in order to increase their selling price.
The arrival of Manuel Pellegrini in 2018 made the situation even more difficult. He was completely uninterested in developing our young players and liked to spend huge sums of money on foreign players who would go to clubs willing to pay the highest wages. These players are rarely show any passion for the club and as last season showed they are not up for a fight when the team was struggling.
Does anyone think we would have survived in the Premier League last season without three London born lads in Mark Noble, Declan Rice and Michail Antonio?
The future looked brighter under David Moyes. He had persevered with Declan Rice in his first spell with West Ham and when he rejoined the club in 2019 he stated he wanted to bring in English players from the Championship. He had done this successfully at Everton and his first signing, Jarrod Bowen, seemed well-judged. Moyes also gave Ben Johnson (20) from the academy a few games.
In the early weeks of the transfer window we were linked with several British Championship players: Eberechi Eze (22), Matty Cash (23), Cedric Kipre (23), Antonee Robinson (23), Ryan Manning (24) and Ollie Watkins (24). I watch a lot of Championship games on Sky and all of these would have made good signings. However, the main star of Championship football last season was Grady Diangana and unlike the other players mentioned, in got his club promoted into the Premier League. However, he was already our player and we did not need to buy him.
We might have wanted these players from the Championship but none of them have been signed. In fact, some of them have been signed by clubs who will be in a relegation struggle with us: Eze (Crystal Palace), Kipre (WBA), Robinson (Everton) and Cash (Aston Villa). The club stated that it could not buy these players until they sold players that were on high-wages: Manuel Lanzini, Felipe Anderson, Jack Wilshere, Fabián Balbuena, Andriy Yarmolenko and Sébastien Haller. The problem was that no one wanted them. They were over-paid under-achievers.
When I heard that Grady Diangana was to be sold, I thought it was fake news. It made no sense to sell one of the most promising young players in the country. Surely, he would have started and Lanzini, Anderson, Yarmolenko, Wilshire, etc. would have been on the bench. Sullivan said that Moyes had made it clear that he needed to improve the defence and selling Diangana was the only way to raise funds to do so. It was also revealed at the same time that West Ham had made a £20million bid for James Tarkowski.
Even if we do get Tarkowski (although I suspect this is a PR stunt) and he manages to help us get a lot more clean-sheets, it will still be a terrible mistake. It sends out a terrible message to the players in the academy and will probably convince Declan Rice to leave the club (by the way, I consider Declan Rice as a better player than Bobby Moore in their first three seasons in the first-team).
I am 75 years old and have given up hope of West Ham winning the Premier League or getting into the Championship League places. My main pleasure now is watching our young academy players developing into Premier League players. I think Grady Diangana would have been one of those players. Sullivan and Brady have robbed me of this pleasure.
I will not stop supporting West Ham. It is an addiction I have had for sixty-two years. One is more likely to change his wife than the team he supports. When it comes down to it, football fans are powerless to influence the owners of the club they support. I am not surprised that football pundits do not understand the phrase the “West Ham Way” but it is truly shocking that our owners have no idea what it means.
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