In January 2010 our current owners bought the club. That season the club finished the Premier League in seventeenth place. Fast forward ten years and, at best, we will finish this season’s Premier League campaign in fifteenth place. I don’t know about you but that was the kind of progress that I was hoping for in their first season – not ten years on.
It’s been an interesting couple of days from the perspective of taking the big boys on.
Man City took on the big boys of UEFA and have won. Not exactly small by any stretch of the imagination themselves the blue half of Manchester have a great deal of financial might behind them. When it comes to UEFA, however, in footballing term only one organisation have more power. The European governing body is certainly a highly political organisation. There are certain clubs that appear to hold a great deal of power when it comes football on our continent. All boiled down they represent the ‘old guard’ but are being challenged by the nouveau riche. In financial fair play the ‘old guard’ have a certain degree of protection against the new kids on the block ‘buying’ trophies that they consider their own.I’ve always considered financial fair play a vehicle to keep the upstarts in their place. In a very similar way to how men of power within religious circles used selective parts of holy texts to direct, control and hang on to power for themselves the financial fair play rules honoured the same tradition of controlling behaviour. On a personal level I was very pleased to see that the court of arbitration for sport overturned UEFA’s ruling of how Manchester City, allegedly, used funds to show an increase of income on their balance sheets. The Club’s legal representatives showed this to be untrue and, I’m pleased to see, Pep Guardiola and his team will be able to compete in European football again next season.
You need money to do this. At the very top level, which the European Clubs are undoubtedly at, there is no way that a club like ours could break into the upper echelons of European competition.
As a West Ham fan European nights under the floodlights are what I desire to see most outside of winning trophies.
The inspiration for this article did not come from Manchester City’s victory, however, but from a David, further down the leagues, who will be taking on the Goliaths of the Championship next season. Last night I watched my local club progress to a, never before achieved, level of the game. Little Wycombe Wanderers won the League One play off final, against local rivals Oxford United, to elevate the club to their promised land. It takes me around ten minutes to walk to Adams Park stadium from my house and, on match days, I can hear the roar of the crowd through the open windows facing the ground. I’ve seen some pretty amazing games in the twenty-three years that I’ve lived in the town. My memory of a packed stadium, during the home draw against Wolves in the famous F.A. cup run in 2001, stand out along with other, unlikely, wins against Bristol Rovers and Plymouth to help keep the club in the football league and win through to another play-off final respectively.
Next season will be an adventure for the club that used to compete against West Ham, in the Southern League, around the turn of twentieth century. While the Hammers went on to compete at a higher level for most of the club’s history Wycombe remained a non-league side until Martin O’Neill assembled a strong squad that got promoted to the football league in 1993.
Back to West Ham I’m sincerely hoping that we won’t be playing Wycombe in the Championship next season. As for taking on the big boys we can but dream. The owners’ ten point plan to grow the club now look flawed in the areas on the pitch. It’s time for a new approach. The likes of Leicester and Wolves are the models for success when it comes to how a club of lower status should take on the ‘Big Boys’. Southampton’s scientific approach to appointing managers and building a first team squad has been replicated, and superseded, by other clubs of similar stature. It’s time to change things at the top at our club so that we can progress and compete otherwise, I suspect, little progress will be made and other clubs around our position will also overtake us like Leicester and Wolves have done.
Many fans of West Ham have started the journey of taking on our own ‘Big Boys’ to ensure that those steps toward the changes needed are taken. Which Davids will win that one remains to be seen.
COYI!