It was no doubt intended to be a ‘soft as butter’ interview by Karren Brady. No difficult questions. Move on, nothing to see here.
It wasn’t supposed to reignite the West Ham fan base and that smouldering resentment over the big, stadium move and the furious opposition to the hated policy of ending concessions for the young, old and disabled. But that’s what has happened.
It makes you wonder whether the club, board and ownership really give two figs about what the club’s fans want, so tone deaf and indifferent was the end product of the good lady’s narcissistic Sky interview.
Honestly, the club cannot be surprised at the onslaught of anger from the fan base. It’s fair to say that when things are going badly on the field, all the old arguments about leaving Upton Park for the unpopular London Stadium, do come rushing to the surface. And things are not going well.
Three managers in six months, a lack of investment to help the latest incumbent Graham Potter and we are tottering on the very edge of a relegation crisis. Such a difference to a year ago when we were still in Europe and the top half of the Premier League.
But there we were with her ladyship holding court in front of David Sullivan’s son Jack and Sky’s Mark McAdam. Now Jack is never going to be a journalist, regardless of how often you shove a hand mike into his grasp. Not one even vaguely difficult question, but then you’d expect nothing else with the formidable Lady Brady sitting opposite.
McAdam does a decent job as a proper reporter at Sky, where they are now populated by sixth formers with Ipads. So was he told not to ask any difficult questions, say, about the concessions uproar? We’ll never know.
But Brady was given licence to waffle on about her career, to attack the government’s football regulator bill - don’t forget this was a Tory policy from the previous government now being opposed by Brady and leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch - while being annoyingly dismissive of West Ham fans more than disappointed with the move to Stratford.
Some fans “don’t like change”, it seems. That’s wrong. Like many fans, the majority, I accepted the need to move from the Boleyn. After some 60 years working around the football industry I believe I have a vague idea of how football finances work, and to progress we needed a bigger stadium. (As a side issue, there’s always the row over whether Upton Park could have been extended, but that’s gone now.)
The real row now is that the fans believe they were sold a lie. World class, stadium, world class team, all that sort of stuff. We actually trusted the board to get it right, do the right thing. I know, silly us.
Upton Park’s been sold, we see rows of apartments now and someone has made a packet from the sale.
Now we are still miles from the pitch, the stadium was built for a summer event and to be pulled down very soon after the Olympics. But it’s still there, in need of a serious upgrade and it’s constantly viewed as the worst stadium in the top flight with the worst fans’ experience.
No wonder fans feel just a touch let down. Sullivan gets, from some quarters, praise for being a sharp businessman - of course he is with a billionaire tag - and that should supersede any 'worries' about his porn past, all that sort of stuff. Loadsa money tops morality anyway, it seems.
But we are being told by the grifters that we are in a mess financially because we are not in Europe. Two things there, when did we start budgeting for European inclusion? It’s not as if it’s a regular situation, unless, of course you employ David Moyes to make it happen. Who’d have guessed.
It seems we are going to be £60m down from last season. No Europe, considerably reduced cash from our league position - oh, and it’s cost £15m plus to get rid of one manager and his staff and a technical director. And there’s a large wedge needed to pay off the deals we have already completed.
So how good a football businessman is Sullivan and what looks like a fragmented board, with one top shareholder still trying to knock out their shares?
And then there is Brady claiming we have reinvented the way football clubs are run. She means, I assume that we are dependent on payday loans and scouring the free transfer market. Welcome to West Ham, Mr. Potter.
Then of course we are told we have created a platform to grow, and there are 35,000 families who can benefit from this regime’s policies. I must admit I was saddened to hear of the father who was being asked for £790 for his eight year old son’s £190 season ticket.
Which brings us back nicely to the concessions issue. Not mentioned once or justified during the SkySports interview.
The campaign against those changes has been carried out determinedly by Hammers United, Save our Concessions and a string of like-feeling fans groups. They have never gone away, every home match, every away game, constant support from rival fans with similar issues.
Some, like Liverpool and Wolves, have persuaded their club's to have a rethink. Our own diligent representatives have argued the case through many meetings with the club.
So we await further decisions. Are the club going to do the right thing and change their policy or concessions, or are they going to drag other areas of the ground into a further draconian change, full price for kids, old folk and the disabled? Just how bad does that look?
Brady’s interview was a car crash. It reignited fans’ groups, made them angry again. Was that the plan, to set us all up for more disharmony, or do they plan to salvage their good name? Let’s wait and see, because this issue is not going to disappear into the Stratford night sky.
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