According to the Daily Mail’s excellent Charles Sale’s Sports Agenda Column, Eggert Magnusson is writing a book…
Former West Ham chairman Eggert Magnusson, accused by the club’s new owners of being responsible for the Premier League side’s £100million-plus debt, will have his say in a book. Icelander Magnusson, whose ‘crazy regime brought the club to its knees’, according to the latest Hammers overlord David Sullivan, is writing an account of his time at West Ham to be published in the UK later this year. Magnusson said: ‘It will be about my personal experiences. I’ll explain many things that need to be put into the daylight. This will be my personal settlement with West Ham.’
Having just started a new book publishing company, that set me thinking. Would it sell? If I published it would my fellow West Ham fans think I was a traitor!!? There’s no doubt Magnusson has a story to tell and to my mind, it would make fascinating, if sometimes painful, reading. I’ve just signed up a major biography of one of England’s leading players, to come out just before the World Cup (can’t tell you who yet) and am in discussions with a popular West Ham author about two other book possibilities. I think Sports publishing is a great niche area if you can get the marketing right. Anyway I thought it worthwhile investigating so I called Charlie Sale yesterday to see if he had a contact number or email for Eggert Magnusson (he didn’t). And, strangely, nor do many of those who were closely associated with Magnusson during his time at the club. Funny that. Anyway, today, Charlie Sale follows up the story again and concludes…
Political blogger and West Ham fan Iain Dale, whose company Biteback is starting to publish sports books, is one of those showing interest in Magnusson’s memoir of his West Ham reign.
So, if Eggert’s book ever saw the light of day, how many of you are likely to a) want to read it and b) buy it, and c) never speak to me again if I published it?!
Keane for Cole,no thanks.
Keane and Pavlyuchenko for Cole yes.
Even on that i wouldn't be sure m8, maybe Keane, Pav + £15 million then yes lol, but i would personly rather keep cole he is a massive player for us. We will see.
Personally I'd take Keane for Cole right now for one simple reason. Goals.
CC has done okay in that department but only okay.
That said, if the Double D's can find Cole a quality strike partner, then I think his game would improve five fold.
What chance Curbishley taking up David Sullivan's invitation to invest his pay-off money back into West Ham?
I guess we all know the answer, but I would love to see Sky TV cameras putting the little weasel on the spot as he explains why that wouldn't be possible.
More good stuff from Sullivan today in the News of the Screws.
Sullivan has been staggered at what he sees as some of the excesses at the club, free spending that has continued despite the fact West Ham have been on brink of collapse.
"We have bought into an incredibly bad situation. At every level the club has been badly run," said Sullivan.
"I'll give you one simple example. It is now January and we have still got 21,000 first team shirts in stock at £21 each. Ridiculous."
Sullivan was staggered to discover technical director Gianluca Nani was being paid £300,000 a year while two full-time club doctors earned a combined salary of £400,000.
He also wants to know why several new company cars were recently acquired, including an Aston Martin on a £1,500 a month lease.
Sounds like they better put new hinges on the exit door at Upton Park. It will be well used over the coming weeks.
Lofty I cant see how Curbs could take a share in a Premier League club and then go on to manage a different one, surely there would be a conflict of interest!
I know Celts…but maybe Sullivan realises that Curbisley is a useless, one-dimentional, mono-sylabic, stuck in the 80's, very average, over-rated, money-grabbing chancer who is unlikely to get another job.
Just a thought.
Ok my response to the Sullivan Gold regime has been fractured due to responding to different points from various posters so I will sum it up in one piece and will then comment only on the actions of the owners from this point on and will do so in a balanced way that judges their actions on merit and not on personality or my personal opinion of the pair.
Sullivan is intent on blaming the Icelanders for everything but the weather. If he and his media pals hadnt mounted a sustained campaign of lies, half truths and smears against the club maybe we could have been spared having to settle an unjust compensation claim from some grubby northener because the tabloids had terrified the clubs auditors to the point where they would rather have put the club into administration than sign off the accounts while the claim was unsettled.
His campaign to buy the club began at the first signs of trouble for BG, the treatment of our club by the tabloid media was so sustained and vicious that it had to be orchastrated and who better to do so than missers Gold and Sullivan. What tabloid hack journalist is going to turn down a story to sensationalize the troubles at "crisis club" West Ham when it comes from the likes of these well know Hammers fans who still have a lot of friends at the club.
We all had to listen to the bile enducing saga of how nothing but love of the club drove them to save it from the media attacks that they started or at the very least fuelled. The story of the last 3 seasons for the Hammers could have fallen from the fountain pen of James Clavell so laced with intrigue is it.
Sullivan has spent so long peddling lies about the club the he struggles to keep the lies straight in his head, our debts have yo-yo'd between £100M and £140M depending on his need to feel like a saviour at the time, our bank loans have lept from £35M before the takeover to £50M since according to the velour clad Napoleon of Porn. This genorosity towards creditors is extended to sheffield unentitled as well who will be thrilled to know he has decided to award them an additonal £10m in compensation and to as thus far unamed clubs who will share a £20M payout for no reason that anyone can think of.
The biggest winner though in this series of lottery like payouts will be Alan Curbishley (a man who spent £50M of BGs money buying players who were delivered to Chadwell Heath by luxury stretch ambulance) who it seems is to recieve the thick end of £20M having been constructively dismissed for refusing to make a profit on two very avereage players. For that kind of money we could have constructively dismissed Jose Murihno!
Cast in the Nevile Chamberline role is Scott Duxbury who's best intentions were not enough to stave off the multi pronged attacks and lead to appeasement after appeasement. The irony of the situation (comic irony if your of a sufficently dark sense of humour) is that it was someone with morals of David Sullivan that we needed to protect us from, well David Sullivan as it happens.
No sooner has he got his hands on the club, assisted by David Gold who looks like the chav version of the evil emperor from the first 3 Star Wars movies, then he has put the for sale sign up on John Lyall gates so that we can rent a white elephant (although the running track should provide a nice warm up area for the next pitch invasion), sent any potential investor fleeing with their cheque books tightly clutched having heard stories of financial woes rarely seen outside of a central american country, and decided to rename us West Ham Olympic.
Perhaps given who is at the helm we should look to rename the club after its sister ship the Titanic!
There thats my take on it!
Celts…Parking your personal dislike of the pair will be healthy step forward, my friend.
Whatever the journey ahead of us, there has to be an element of enjoyment. The quicker we get back to worrying about the X1 blokes on the pitch rather than the suits in the stand, the better.
Just for the record, I didn't fancy Gold and Sullivan either. However, they have impressed me thus far and I am happy to accept their version of the accounts.
I can't expend too much angst on the past or the suits…the future is bright (ish) the future is claret and blue.
COYI
Celtic, thats the most ridiculous post you've wrote yet. LOL
Whats gone wrong there is another thread via newsnow ?
Ok, that really does not warrent a reply. Sorry but that sounds like the ravings of a nutter.
Shame, you was once a repected poster on this site, but your losing it mate!