It’s up and running now, seemingly no going back, as the campaign to rid West Ham of the David Sullivan regime gained momentum.
Ok, I hear you, the many folk - genuine, honest, West Ham fans all - who do not see the point in protest because Sullivan holds all the cards, has control of the board and insists he’s going nowhere. Unless someone gives him £1billion for the club, that is.But the last couple of weeks has solidified an angry fan base. More protests are now planned: black balloons at Everton, a voluntary boycott of the Brentford game on 20 October and a big, big march of all the fans groups at the Burnley game on 8 November.
A somewhat symbolic fixture that, reminding folk of the home game with Burnley on 10 March - seven years ago, when a handful of fans invaded the pitch, Mark Noble wrestled one or two to the ground in the centre circle and at the end, fans in front of the directors box turned their fury on Sullivan and the late David Gold.
The legend that is Trevor Brooking sat passively in his seat as others were shepherded the safety. He knew he was never, ever going to be the target.
A few lessons have been learned from that day. Keep off the pitch, it’s breaking the law and it allows the club to play the victim card - even if all the old timers associated it with a corner flag being removed. Shades of the folklore that was the Bond Scheme protest of 1991. We’ve been revolting ever since, it seems.
It’s been a long time since that Burnley chaos and our fan base has changed dramatically. More tourists, more fans who never knew Upton Park. But then, an old school fan base who rustled up 10,000 for a march along the Greenway.
No way can we expect that level of protest these days. We have a muted fan base, a level of bland acceptance, sadly. And, of course, some feel protest will get us nowhere.
Maybe so. Maybe not. But on Saturday around 4,000 marched (two marches in fact) and a mass demo at the directors’ entrance went off better than anyone could have expected.
There were the usual snide grifters - they know who they are - trying to denounce the demo and the attendance. Frankly, I felt it was pretty well attended in the circumstances given how much the fan base has changed.
All generations, young and old, gave the team bus a fantastic reception. It’s not about the players and it’s important to make that point. Speeches were made, directors arriving got the message and there was no hint of trouble. March organisers even cleared up all the debris and litter afterwards.
The size of the demo was unimportant. It was well attended by the media and photographers. One charming blonde girl with a camera sort of adopted me (shut up at the back) for some reason, asked me what it was all about and I put her right.
The event was all over social media very quickly, with the BBC, Sky and other mainstream media websites carrying the pictures instantly. It was worldwide long before the end of the game; I got calls from friends in Australia, the US and Canada.
There seems to have been a picture of me and friends that’s gone global standing by that Circus banner. It certainly amused some folk, although I can’t see why!
But it does not need masses of people to get the message across. Grifters will grift. I got the chance to meet lads from the Transpennine group I’ve only known on social media and you know what? It was an uplifting experience.
Sometimes you feel that it’s only you that dislikes the current regime and all it stands for. But this was different. You felt vindicated, even cleansed somewhat, that it was not just you.
If the board wanted this to be the dying embers of the troublesome old guard, they were mistaken. The youth was there, the banners and the songs. The genie is out of the bottle now.
Next time you sense there will be more and I understand why there was "only" approximately 4,000 souls present on Saturday. Fans travel all over these days, trains and boats and planes. They plan time with old friends and family, so standing on a street corner baying at the moon is not preferable to a few beers.
And there were still people asking me, as I walked to the stop and search nonsense, what it was all about. One guy in a West Ham top and scarf didn’t even know who David Sullivan was. How lucky he was!
But whether they admit it or not, it matters to the board and club. The week prior to the march had seen a catalogue of reactions from them aimed at diluting the event. A remarkably tone dead letter to the fans on the club's website - in no way addressing the vote of no confidence from the FAB - was gaslighting in the extreme.
Look at how wonderful they’d been, how much they’d spent on the much-maligned training ground. I’ll stop for a moment to let the laughter subside. Kids for a quid at Brentford, accusations that the demo was upsetting the players, that sort of stuff. They certainly cared.
We had Mark Noble, it is claimed, showing a potential investor around Rush Green. He looked "foreign", we were told. I mean, where do you start with that sort of comment, how do you define "looking foreign"? I’ll leave it there.
Sullivan supposedly stopped talking to his known grifters because they had started being beastly to him, but still the Slaven Bilic line was heavily leaked. A distraction maybe, but he’s still out of work!
And then we had photos of Nuno Espirito Santo and agent Jorge Mendes assistant outside an Essex wine bar near Sullivan’s home. We weere told he’d allegedly spoken to Karren Brady as well as Sullivan on the Friday before the "must win" game with Crystal Palace. Classy? You’d better believe it.
So true or not, our players knew ahead of the game that Graham Potter was a dead man walking. The performance against Palace was better than I expected under the circumstances, but we conceded yet another goal from a corner.
Meanwhile Jarrod Bowen does what he does so well before we conceded another avoidable goal in the 68th minute and failed to do much more after that.
There was no mass exodus of fans like the Chelsea and Spurs home defeats, just a slow, dispirited departure for many. The crowd? Announced as 62,455 because the season tickets had been sold, but a five year-old could see the gaps, maybe 10,000 or more down on a genuine full house.
As for the match, the ‘keeper we signed because he can play with his feet but we now know is timid and weak in the air was dropped to make way for a ‘keeper who is rubbish with his feet but can jump and catch.
Malick Diouf was outstanding, running himself into the ground for the cause, Bowen was always a threat and for some reason Mateus Fernandes was taken off. I also think Callum Wilson was on the pitch, but I can’t be sure.
The following day John Cross from the Mirror slaughtered the club on Sky’s Sunday Supplement to general approval and we then watched Arsenal and Manchester City play a level of football we can only dream of.
How on earth Mads Hermansen or Alphonse Areola, whoever we select, will cope with Arsenal's aerial threat and set-piece expertise in a few weeks' time is anyone’s guess.
And there’s more, as someone used to say. Some of our number decided to have a pop at Sullivan’s partner on X/Twitter. It all got a bit nasty with care homes being mentioned. And the lady concerned hit back with some choice remarks. I sense there may have been some blockings on Monday morning.
Maybe we should stick to the football. There’s enough to be going on with there. And so it goes on, and you know it will be for the long haul now. Will it work? Who knows, but I felt a lot better after standing on a grassy knoll on Marshgate Lane.
And a few old timers have made some unnecessary remarks about that. But you’ve got to be of a certain age to get that one. See you all at Everton, I can’t wait!
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