I first started watching West Ham in the 1957/58 season. I was lucky, it was the year we got promoted to the First Division after being relegated at the end of the 1931/32 season.
The manager Syd King had taken us up in the 1922/23 season but was sacked after relegation. The following month of the sacking he committed suicide by drinking alcohol mixed with a corrosive liquid.
It was enjoyable watching the West Ham team built by the underrated Ted Fenton. In those days the club spent very little on transfers and relied a lot of local boys playing for the academy.
In the 1957/58 season we scored 101 goals playing two-up front (Dave Dick and Vic Keeble) and two speedy wingers (Malcolm Musgrove and Mike Grice). West Ham established themselves as a First Division club: 1958-59 (6th) and 1959-60 (14th). West Ham struggled in the 1960-61 and half-way through the season Ron Greenwood replaced Fenton.
The 1960s were great if you were a West Ham fan. We saw the emergence of talented players from our academy: Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters, John Sissons, Ronnie Boyce, Clyde Best, etc. Not only did we produce some great players we did not sell them to the top clubs, and the fans were able to watch their full development.
Although we always played attractive attacking football, we were always a mid-table club. We also won the 1964 FA Cup and the 1965 European Cup Winners’ Cup. That night at Wembley was one of the best experiences of my life.
The 1970s saw a gradual decline in our fortunes. We began to sell off our best players: Martin Peters (1970), John Sissons (1970), Geoff Hurst (1972), Bobby Moore (1974) and Clyde Best (1976), although arguably, except for Peters, they were past their best.
Relegation came in 1977/78 but we were able to hold onto our three great midfielders, Billy Bonds, Alan Devonshire and Trevor Brooking. It was a bad year, but we continued to play attractive football and the fans did not call on John Lyall to be sacked.
It took three seasons in the Second Division before we returned as champions in 1980/81. In 1980 we won the FA Cup and the FA Youth Cup with Alan Dickens, Tony Cottee, Paul Allen and Bobby Barnes emerging as future talents. It did not seem to be a bad time to become a West Ham fan because you had grounds for optimism.
With these young players joining some experienced players plus some shrewd signings such as Frank McAvennie and Tony Gale, in 1985/86 we managed to finish in third position, our highest ever position in the First Division. Unfortunately, John Lyall was unable to build on this achievement.
We bought people like Liam Brady who was well past his best and players from the lower divisions such as Gary Strodder from Lincoln City. McAvennie could not maintain his goalscoring success and we sold Tony Cottee, our best player, to Everton for £2,200,000. We were relegated in 1988-89 and this time Lyall was sacked.
However, it was not a terrible team as it included Paul Ince, Alan Devonshire, Julian Dicks, Phil Parkes and Steve Potts. The problem was that we had trouble scoring goals. Replacing Cottee with David Kelly from Walsall was a complete failure. A bad team, but definitely not the worst since the war.
Billy Bonds took us up in 1990/91 but the following season we were relegated again. Recruitment was bad and again we relied on buying players from the lower leagues. We returned to the new Premier League in 1993. Billy Bonds was replaced by Harry Redknapp and over the next seven years he kept us safe in mid-division.
Unlike previous managers Redknapp bought a lot of players, some of whom improved us as a team: Paolo Di Canio, Eyal Berkovic, Trevor Sinclair, John Hartson, Paul Kitson, Igor Stimac, Steve Lomas, Paolo Wanchope, etc. Redknapp left West Ham on 9 May 2001, after falling out with chairman Terry Brown. During his time at the club Redknapp had a 37% win-rate.
Redknapp’s replacement, Glenn Roeder, was a disaster. A talented youth coach, he was a hopeless manager and we were relegated with 42 points in the 2002/03 season. However, it was far from being the worst West Ham team since the war. How could it be when it contained players like Di Canio, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Jermain Defoe, Frederic Kanoute, Glen Johnson, David James and Sebastien Schemmel?
The great tragedy was that it was a team that had the potential to challenge for honours. Instead, most of them moved on to win those titles and cups with other clubs. Roeder was sacked (31.40% win-rate) and replaced by Alan Pardew who got us promoted via the play-offs in the 2004/05 season. Pardew guided the Hammers to ninth place in the Premier League in the 2005/06 season, which culminated in an appearance in the final of the FA Cup.
In 2006 Pardew was replaced by Alan Curbishley. He was one of our own. The son of a docker, he was born in Forest Gate and in between 1975–1979 played in 85 games. He was one of our best managers and had a win-rate in the Premier League of 39.44%.
Curbishley resigned his post on 3 September 2008 because he was unhappy with the club's transfer policy, after key players were sold without his permission. On 3 November 2009, Curbishley won his case for constructive dismissal and was paid £2.2 million in compensation. He never managed again. I suppose he did not need to.
The real tragedy came in in January 2010, when David Sullivan and David Gold acquired a 50% share in West Ham United giving them operational and commercial control over the club. Karren Brady, who had been the director of Sullivan’s companies since the age of 20 joined the Hammers as vice-chairman.
In June 2010 Sullivan had the great idea of appointing his mate, Avram Grant, as manager of West Ham. That season we finished bottom of the table with 33 points. Grant was sacked with a 31.91% win-rate. Up until this season, Grant’s West Ham team is the worst I have seen in my lifetime.
However I am convinced this year’s team deserves the title of being the worst since the end of the Second World War. This season started very badly with our transfer dealings. Several members, including myself, pointed out on the KUMB Forum that after the window closed, we had one of the worst squads in the league and faced possible relegation.
What made it worse was that Graham Potter, speaking in an early press conference said he was happy with the quality of his squad. That told me that either he knew nothing about football, or more likely, was frightened to say anything that was critical of Sullivan.
Potter had been brought in halfway through the previous season and so was aware what was needed. The obvious flaw in the squad was having only two strikers, Wilson and Füllkrug, who were both over 30 and had a long history of missing games because of injuries. It seemed that we were going to rely heavily on Bowen and Summerville for goals.
Centre backs were another area of concern, Kilman and Mavropanos had been disappointing and Todibo seemed a risky signing. The midfield lacked a combative defender and sending out on loan a man who could have done the job, Edson Alvarez, suggested to me that Potter did not have the personality to deal with established internationals.
It seemed he preferred young players like Fernandes who would be willing to take orders without questioning them. I was also concerned about signing players who had been relegated the previous year: Fernandes, Hermansen and Walker-Peters. That assumes the trauma of being relegated has not caused problems with your confidence.
The first game against Sunderland reinforced our fears of what would happen this season. Sunderland, who had been promoted via the play-offs, were favourites to be relegated. If Sunderland could beat us so easily then what did it say about the chances we would be relegated? Things did not improve and Potter was sacked with West Ham managers lowest win-rate in history (24.00%).
I was not too upset by Nuno Espirito Santo's appointment. He had done well at Wolves and Nottingham Forest. However, a manager is only as good as his coaching staff and Sullivan’s decision not to allow him to bring in his own people was a serious mistake.
It was not long before he was struggling and some of his team selections were bizarre. What was worse, he was unable to create a fighting spirit in the team. For example, when Avram Grant team was relegated it included Mark Noble, Scott Parker and Winston Reid. What chance did we have with this lot?
Things slightly improved after the January transfer window. Tay Castellanos and Axel Disasi were good signings, but I don't think we would have recruited Pablo if he did not have the same agent as Nuno. Arguably, Paco Jemez was the best signing as he helped to improve the defence and probably was the one to turn Mavropanos into a warrior.
However, it was not enough and in the crucial games that we had to win, the players seemed to freeze and did not show the energy or intensity that was needed. In fact, it was amazing that we still had a chance of staying up on the last day of the season. Santo ended up with a 27.78% win-rate, slightly higher than Potter but lower than that of Grant (31.91%). Who would have thought that was possible?
It was this lack of commitment by the players that makes them the worst West Ham team since the war. It got so bad that there were times that I became apathetic about their chances of staying up. Being a fan is becoming part of a large community with the players providing the most important role in its success. For the first time in my life, I felt the club, especially the ownership, did not deserve my support.
I remember Potter saying in one of his first interviews after his appointment that he wanted to create a team the fans would be proud of. If he did think that, he clearly did not tell Sullivan about it. In recent years I have had this fear that West Ham would win the Premier League just after I died. Now I am afraid I will die just before we are promoted...
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