Guest Post from Lofty Perch
As we head towards a new season, with new players, new kit, new hopes, new attacking mindset (hopefully) and with a new stadium on the horizon, I wonder, is it beyond hope that we can unveil a new-style West Ham supporter? Actually, when I saw new style, what I actually mean is old style. Old style, as in about 10 years ago.
It was around that time when the DNA of a football supporter began to change. We’ve always had the capacity to have a good old moan up, but our whinging and whining back then was usually shared among pals, fellow fans and anyone unlucky enough to ask: How are the Hammers doing these days?
Depending on the previous half dozen results, we’d either go way over the top with the praise or, more likely dig out a couple of performances and performers, start laughing and trot out the well-worn mantra: Of well, it’s West Ham, what do you expect?
All well and good. Yer pays yer money, you’re entitled to have a grin, groan and gripe.
So what changed? Well, a lot changed, actually.
Without sounding like a luddite, the internet, with all its spin-off social media outlets (including good old WHTID) has a bloody lot to answer for. That, and its new running mate, sports radio phone-ins.
What they have done is provide platforms for any Tom, Dick and Ahmed to tell us what they think.
Well, that has to be great, doesn’t it? Real people with real voices able to share them with the world. In theory, yes. In practice…a big fat NO.
In my opinion (or IMO as my daughter would say) what we have created is a new breed of football fan. One no longer content with sharing match experiences, views on players, new kits and the price of hot dogs.
What we have now are sizeable numbers of mean, nasty, vicious, rude, cretinous characters who have been handed a world-wide audience to assault with their bile and venom.
It’s all got angry and it’s all got personal. Especially when the trolls have players and managers in their cross-hairs. Take aim, shoot, kill.
On Monday, Sam Allardyce spoke about the personal abuse Andy Carroll has received from West Ham fans. His injury appears to have unleashed a torrent of comment from so called supporters, and very little of it reasonable, sensible or supportive.
I’ve seen the Twitter traffic on Andy’s account, read with dismay the grenades hurled at him on fans’ forums and, quite honestly, it stinks. The guy has been accused of everything from being a money-grabbing Geordie ****, total waste of space, a cheat, a drunk, a drug-taker, a thug…the list is endless. And all because he got injured and is out of action for four months.
If Carroll was the sole victim, we could maybe write it off as a blip, a rush of blood, an abnormal over-reaction. But, as we all know, it isn’t a blip and it’s not abnormal. It’s now totally normal and totally predictable.
The targets are many and the abusers are rising in numbers. Allardyce, Kevin Nolan, Ricardo Vaz Te, Mo Diame, Carlton Cole (the list is endless) have all suffered at the keyboards of the witless who feel it is their right to criticise in the most personal, vicious and disgusting manner possible.
I’ve followed and posted on WHTID for about five years. It’s been knock-about fun which I’ve generally enjoyed. Some decent posters, some proper donuts (me included), some good insight nicely mixed with the insane.
But even here, which I regard as one of the more reasonable and temperate fans’ sites, the temperature has been steadily rising. The level of personal attacks on players, coaches and owners is getting beyond the acceptable.
There are ways of getting your message across, it doesn’t have to be abusive and, in my mind, it should never get personal…especially in print. We are all capable of blurting out unconsidered nonsense in the heat of a good verbal debate. But when we write something, we all have the chance to think and delete.
I’ve just re-read this article and realise it’s beginning to sound like it should be spoken from the pulpit on a Sunday. I apologise for that, but I really think we all have to rein it in a bit.
The players all have families, are probably decent blokes and don’t deserve the treatment they are getting right now. It’s only football. Have a moan by all means, offer insight, alternatives and derision. God knows, we are even allowed to praise should the performance merit. But I would ask that we cut out the crap.
And here endeth the sermon.
Love and Peace,
Lofty Perch