When I first discovered WHTID it was way back in 2010, I didn’t know who Iain Dale was, just some bloke with a West Ham website. Articles, it seemed were thin on the ground, not daily that’s for sure, and I can’t say I ever read the comment section.
I had just really started using the internet to read my football news, and the one site I stuck with to begin with was KUMB. It seemed popular and, though to many there I was the lunatic against the move with the petition outside the ground, I found it easy to use.
WHTID for me was like the retirement home for West Ham fans, that didn’t like the cut & thrust of the forums. It always seemed more sedate., slower – more polite actually.
When my new football friend Sean Whetstone then started to supply articles for this site it was natural for me to come on here. I knew Sean well then from meeting him on the SAB and his co-hosting of the ‘Moore Than Just a Podcast’ and built up a so called rapport with him, where basically everything he said at the time I generally disagreed with. So with his articles on here I came to comment, well not so much comment but give him stick and generally become the annoying git I love to be.
I must admit at the time I could take or leave this site, I didn’t really know anyone on here, and to be honest, the fact they had a yank thousands of miles away writing up their match reports I thought was a joke. How could Dave Hautzig not only beat me to be the MTJAP fan of the season, but how could he get a feel for the game sitting wherever he lived in New York, watching at home. I perceived him to be not just an out of towner but near enough an alien, a newbie jumping on the EPL bandwagon and supporting my team just because of that damn stupid hooligan movie. Not the best of first impressions.
Iain interviewed David Gold on his late-night LBC programme, I think it was back in 2011 or 12. That night I was in the supporters club, attending a meeting of WHUsView, an organization I was helping to set up to give fans a vote in the move, which the club were against doing. That night DG said “West ham fans are born into it, they don’t support a club then change their allegiance” or something along that lines. As I was at the meeting I didn’t hear it, but luckily, I managed to hear on the LBC website what DG was alluding to that night.
I then tweeted Iain DGs quote & pointed out that sitting opposite DG at that time was a man who admitted he was a Man U fan up until the age of 10, before seeing the light to become a (choose your words carefully Nige) a Hammer. Now, naturally Iain didn’t take it lying down and came back at me. I think he missed my point which wasn’t knocking him for supporting Man U but actually I was trying to prove DG wrong in his claim. Not all are born into supporting their club. In fact many choose. Mad people as I like to call them.
I met Iain for the 1st time outside the gates of Upton Park. He was holding a WHUsView voting card & I was collecting the votes outside on Green Street. I tried to explain to Iain my tweet and why I did it. I can’t remember if he accepted it in the way I meant it, but let’s just say, we didn’t part as friends.
As I said, I started hanging around on here when Sean joined, & through commenting you get to know the regulars & it can be hard at first. The word Clique is like a dirty word around here, but I’ll admit, I did find that there seemed to be one between a section of the commenters, who obviously knew each other well. Sometimes it looked as if they hunted in a pack – upset one upset them all.
How did I get past it? By perseverance & ultimately meeting them. The garden of the Black Lion pub was great meeting point & it was there I met BSB, Liddy, Safe, Russ, and VoR, they had arranged a WHTID meet up and Sean was attending – not that I just follow him around everywhere he goes. I did actually drink in the Lion long before I ever knew him, but anyway, I am not a great mixer with people I don’t know but it was BSB who came over to chat to me, and a great friendship was born.
It is hard to come into a group of people that seem to know each other very well and try to integrate yourself into joining them but once I had, I begun to see why they object to the clique accusations. There is no clique. They welcome anyone, even arrogant self opinionated objectional big heads such as myself. It does take both sides to make that friendship, and perhaps seeing past the short comments on the site and see the people for what they can be.
The point of this article is that while first impressions do count they don’t need to be the final impression or the correct one.
That Iain was happy with me to write for his website shows that now he has met me and podcasted with me, I hope to think he trusts me and maybe, possibly, likes me. (NOTE FROM IAIN: I do!)
David Hautzig is one of my closet West Ham friends now. We talk regularly, we have met and will be watching together at the Leicester game. Through Dave I’ve also the pleasure of the friendship with his best mate John & love their company at games. Considering again what my first impressions of the man were, it just shows you how wrong someone (me) can be. To hear Dave & John explain how in the early 90s they used to go from bar to bar in New York trying to find one showing West Ham only to be disappointed and left with radio commentary if they were lucky made me in a way think how some complain about the journey we have to get to games.
I still read the other West Ham forums and post sometimes on them, but it is still this site I come back to as a friend. It is the friends on this site I socialise with outside of football games as well and to introduce to my closet friends and I trust them with them.
The fact I am here writing stems from another writer walking away & taking his articles to another site due to harsh comments he received. I know from experience that reading harsh comments can demoralise you, but what writers should accept is that not everyone is going to agree with what you have to say, and to that point sometimes you have to take it on the chin. You need an ego If you want to put your view out there to the public and try to influence what they think. Not necessarily a big one, but you’ve got one but the rule of thumb I’ve always gone by is “if your prepared to stick your head above the parapet, be prepared to take an arrow in the eye”. Now that saying may on the look of it seem insensitive bearing in mind who came before me, but it is a saying I have long used to explain to some why I can accept some abuse that comes my way, and for that reason will keep using it.
Basically, if you disagree with me, feel free to tell me or others on here. No skin off my nose. You can be blunt as you like, but, make sure you put why you think I’m wrong. That way we can debate it properly and in the end, both agree why I was right all along.
This is a great site, with great people some I have met, some I so look forward to meeting (DT & SK especially) and long may it stay so.
Nigel Kahn will be writing a column every Thursday morning