A prominent journalist has launched a scathing attack on West Ham fans, branding them ‘entitled’ amid growing protest plans against the club’s ownership.
To hammer home his point, the leading journalist even drew a sharp comparison with Sheffield Wednesday supporters.
Games between West Ham and Sheffield Wednesday had been a pretty regular fixture in the football calendar throughout the 20th century.
In fact Sheffield Wednesday hold the far superior record, winning 41 of the 93 clashes with West Ham dating back to 1920 with the Hammers victorious in just 28.
But it says everything about the modern history of the Owls that they have not played against West Ham in the Premier League since the year 2000, a 3-1 Hammers defeat at Hillsborough.
There have been two cup games in that time but a quarter of a century has passed without Sheffield Wednesday and West Ham meeting in the league.
Off the pitch, the two clubs are tenuously linked by a mutual dislike of Sheffield United.
West Ham and Sheffield Wednesday fans take to activism
Now the two clubs find themselves being compared by one of the top football journalists in the country.
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West Ham fans are planning protests against their owners in upcoming matches against Tottenham and Brentford.
It comes seven years after repeated protests and marches were held against majority owner David Sullivan and the board.
Those protests spilled onto the pitch with then captain Mark Noble rugby tackling one fan to the ground while West Ham supporter Paul Colborne famously planted the corner flag in the centre circle in a symbolic show of defiance against the ownership.
Nowadays Colborne, also known as ‘Bubbles’, chairs Hammers United – one of the big fan groups rallying against the ownership.
Former West Ham captain Mark Noble tackles fan protestor to the ground during an infamous defeat to Burnley in March 2018
Photo by Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Getty Images
Colborne has long stated it is important West Ham fans push for change at the top regardless of results on the pitch, which he feels is secondary to many of the issues that need to be addressed.
Since Colborne and others invaded the London Stadium pitch that day against Burnley in 2018, West Ham have enjoyed some of their best years in the living memory of most of the club’s fans.
But it has been set against the backdrop of a simmering disdain for the stadium they have called home for almost a decade.
It is that which ultimately tops the list of grievances West Ham fans have against their owners.
West Ham’s board have stated they don’t feel the protests will help anyone.
Meanwhile over at Hillsborough, a ground which evokes memories of West Ham’s beloved Upton Park, Sheffield Wednesday find themselves in crisis.
Owls fans staged a demonstration outside the Thai embassy in London last week in their own protest at owner Dejphon Chansiri.
Their supporters are calling for the Thai businessman to sell the club amid a host of ongoing financial issues at the Championship side.
Prominent journalist slams ‘entitled’ West Ham fans over protest plans and makes Sheffield Wednesday claim
Fan groups say it was a “small contribution to what we hope will be a much bigger and wider-scale series of events, that will eventually get him out of our club”.
Some West Ham fans want to drive Sullivan, Daniel Kretinsky and Karren Brady out too.
But journalist Martin Samuel, a lifelong Hammers fan, is staggered by what he is seeing from some of his own supporters.
The prominent journalist has slammed ‘entitled’ West Ham fans over their protest plans and makes a Sheffield Wednesday claim.
Samuel believes Sheffield Wednesday supporters will likely be baffled by the activism of some West Ham fans when comparing the plight of the two clubs over the last two-and-a-half decades.
In a scathing assessment of Hammers supporters, Samuel has defended the overall record of West Ham’s owners and told his fellow fans to live in the real world.
Samuel has called for context and says Sullivan and co have, in the cold light of day, overseen one of the most successful periods in West Ham’s history.
The Hammers fans react during West Ham United v Chelsea - Premier League
Photo by Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images
Club’s plight being overblown by West Ham fans, claims journalist
“Talk of the club dying, of its existence being threatened, of sustained failure under the present regime — it’s all so overwrought,” Samuel states in The Times.
“And entitled. Supporters of clubs in genuine distress, like Sheffield Wednesday, must look at West Ham’s fanbase and wonder what will happen if true calamity ever befalls them?
“West Ham had a dreadful start to the season. After two games, there did not look a poorer team in the league and the transfer window was eight days from closing. The club then spent £60 million on two players, played better in their third league game and won 3-0 at Nottingham Forest. It’s not problem solved — this is still going to be a difficult season — but the surest way of turning drama into crisis is for the London Stadium to become a hub of furious discontent, again.
“As it always is when West Ham are losing. Everyone reminisces about Upton Park as if it was the sense of place they loved and the scoreline was secondary, but the new ground is fine until the results turn. No issue against Sevilla in the Europa League. No issue when beating Chelsea, or Manchester United.
“West Ham’s net spend between 2021 and 2025 is £331.4 million. In 2023 they won the Uefa Europa Conference League, a first major trophy since 1980. And West Ham’s 14 years in the Premier League is the longest stay of any club outside the “big six”, except Everton. All of this is on this board’s watch. “We will never forgive, and nor will we forget, all of the damage they have done to our club,” read another distressed statement, this one from Hammers United.”
Samuel does state the club could be doing better and has not had value on their outlay with inconsistent recruitment.
But he goes on to point out the Sullivan regime has overseen one of the better periods in West Ham history, contrary to the picture painted by many.
“The club aren’t about to die, nor experiencing sustained failure,” Samuel adds.
“This is West Ham’s longest stay in the top division since 1958-59 to 1977-78; they have spent one season outside the top division in 16 seasons under this ownership, compared to two in the 16 seasons before them. And no trophies in those 16 seasons either; nor in the 16 seasons before that.
“At the moment, West Ham have the same points as Manchester City. And, no, it won’t stay that way for long, but it’s still very far from the deathbed. It just could be better, that’s all.”
Big dilemma for West Ham fans
It is fair to say the protest plans are dividing some West Ham fans – as highlighted by the fact lifelong Hammer Samuel disagrees with them.
David Moyes thinks the only way things could ever get any better for the Hammers than it was under him was a takeover to a nation state.
The fact is Moyes, Samuel and West Ham fans are all right in certain aspects of their takes on this 130-year-old club.
But the biggest question which must be asked, and answered honestly, is whether protests and an uprising at this time will be more detrimental than beneficial to the long-term future of West Ham.
Will it lead to the desired expedited exit of the current owners and board and force a sale to mega rich, ambitious new owners? If so then that is undoubtedly the way to go.
But the sale of Newcastle, for example, took almost three years from start to finish. These transactions do not materialise overnight.
On the other hand if the protests breed a suffocating toxicity at the London Stadium during what is looking like a transitional season for a new-look and younger West Ham side – under a manager trying to change the style and identity – then Hammers fans might be cutting their noses off to spite their faces.
If West Ham are struggling to attract interested buyers as one of the world’s top 17 earning clubs while being Premier League and – for the last three years – European regulars, then what hope would they have in the Championship?
Just ask Sheffield Wednesday – and many West Ham fans won’t like the answer.