West Ham fans will drive a hearse to London Stadium on Saturday to protest at the ownership they claim is ‘killing’ their club.
A march against chairman David Sullivan and vice-chairperson Karren Brady is expected to attract around 10,000 people in what demonstrators hope will be the biggest show of strength yet.
The Hammers won their first match under new manager Nuno Espirito Santo last weekend. Yet despite the feelgood factor from a dominant 3-1 victory, the campaign to oust Sullivan and Brady is rolling on and will do so right up to the gates of London Stadium ahead of this weekend’s game against Burnley.
The funeral procession is designed to amplify the message that while supporters are backing the team to the hilt they will not rest until there is change at the top level of a club fighting for its Premier League life.
Action group Hammers United are leading the latest demo and insist they will carry on the fight regardless of results.
Absolute rubbish
West Ham fans protest against the owners
West Ham fans protest against the owners
Spokesman Andy Payne told GIVEMESPORT: “We are part of the football club, in spite of the leadership at the top level, and we want our team to win.
“It was levelled at us that the fans had given up on the team. Absolute rubbish. Watch the Newcastle game, watch the fans get behind the boys and we did.
“Nuno enjoyed himself. You can see the smile on his face, you know, he enjoyed that. That's what football should be about.
I think we will beat Burnley. But the only people who might think it’s going to be over because we have won a game or two are the people who run the club.
“That's their only strategy. You can go back to Karl Marx and bread and circuses. They just think that if we win it's all going to go away. What they don't realise is that we are the 12th man.
“On our podcast this week everybody has been enjoying us winning again. But do they think that means West Ham is changing? On the pitch it doesn't matter. What matters is what’s off the pitch. What matters is the direction of the club.
“We need to have it changed. It's like the last Tory Government. They had 15 years to sort it out. And most of my colleagues would say, we're going the wrong way, not the right way.
“There's already a protest planned for the Liverpool game at the end of the month. Saturday's march, where we're expecting at least 10,000, is going to be pretty epic. We'll come out of Stratford Station and along the main road. We've got a hearse. We've got a coffin.”
Peaceful protest
Young West Ham supporter blowing bubbles
Last Sunday’s long overdue home win - the first since February - was marked by a half an hour sit-in by anti-board demonstrators.
Loud music was played over the PA system, which had the effect of drowning out negative chanting aimed at Sullivan and Brady.
Organisers insist every protest aims to be peaceful and dignified. When West Ham played Burnley in 2018 in a similarly troublesome situation, the club was fined £100,000 after fans ran onto the pitch and disturbances forced Sullivan out of the directors’ box for his own safety.
The significance of this weekend’s opposition highlights how the owners of West Ham have failed to win popular support in the intervening seven years, in spite of winning a European trophy in between. The discord is deep rooted and embedded.
The haphazard transfer policy and carousel of changing managers - three in 2025 alone - has generated a feeling of uncertainty.
But West Ham’s vast London Stadium home - the former Olympic Stadium - is at the heart of the civil war. It has been widely derided as the worst ground in the Premier League with its lack of atmosphere, distance from the pitch and temporary stands.
Payne has broken his ankle but will be at the forefront of the march being pushed in a wheelchair to add even more colour to what the protagonists want to be a ‘carnival’ type protest with accompanying music as well as a funeral car.
Lego House
London Stadium (West Ham United)
With that in mind a reworking of The Jam’s ‘Town Called Malice’ hit single has been produced entitled ‘Ground Called Malice’ in a clear dig at the much-maligned London Stadium.
Payne said: “When people say to me ‘why weren't you all protesting when we moved from Upton Park to London Stadium?’ there is one simple answer.
“It’s because we thought we would give it a chance. But it's had plenty of those. London Stadium is like a really s*** Lego model.
“Where the designers at Lego, the best in the world, suddenly got it really badly wrong. And if you ever have the misfortune to sit in the upper tiers behind the goal, you’re going to look down and think what the hell is going on with this really weird tiered system?
“Where I sit near the dugouts, you walk across a platform, and you look down and think 'that looks like scaffolding.'
“We've got a load of scaffolding in a stadium that looks vaguely impressive from the outside, but once you get inside it, and when you have to live in it as a season ticket holder as I do, it's like your Nan's house that never works properly. And you sort of think, ‘can we just get this sorted out?’
“So for us, the protests are going to be ongoing. This is the time where we're going to stand together.
“It'll be respectful, peaceful, legal. We don't want to make the directors uncomfortable.
“We cannot have a situation where we're working against the 11 on the field. We can't have that.
“We've got to support the lads, and we will, but the people at the top have proved time and time again, with their recruitment, with their lack of vision and this move to the stadium that they don’t care. But we do.”