West Ham Till I Die
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The GoatyGav Column

Rough Ride From The Media

A short one from me this week due to work commitments.

There have been many reactions on the various West Ham forums about Jim White’s dismissive comments about fan protests against the board. Although a minor shift seems to have occurred more recently the Glaswegian’s, fingers in the ears, “la, la, la, la, la I’m not listening to you!” approach to the Hammers faithful’s grievances appeared to be reaching boiling point.

Personally I stopped listening to, or watching, White after a Talk Sport phone in that left me without any respect for him. The on-air discussion was about away fans who get abused when they sit in home areas of grounds. White was disgusted with home fans throwing verbals at opposition supporters getting behind their teams while seated in home areas. This after an away fan ‘felt uncomfortable’ seated in a home area.

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For those of us who’ve been there there’s a certain etiquette nowadays. You don’t give it the bigg’un as you’re very likely to embarrass the home fans who’ve allowed you to use their tickets or have, indeed, gone with you to the game. Admittedly I have almost come a cropper in the past. The company I used to work for were a well known sponsor of Manchester City. Sitting in one of the box areas, in the Kippax Road stand, I vociferously urged Paulo Di Canio to “SWITCH IT!” to Joe Cole on a swift counter attack. Around two thousand angry looking faces turned to face me which, in all fairness, was completely justified. Did I whinge about ‘feeling uncomfortable’? Certainly not.

Frankly I would have expected a different attitude from a man who grew up in a city with Celtic and Rangers in. I wonder if White would expect to see a blue shirt in amongst the green & white hoops of the stands of Celtic Park? Yeah right…get real!

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Another Scottish football media man waded in over the weekend in response to David Moyes’ formation set up in the Arsenal match. Graeme Souness opined that DM was wrong to change formation from four to three at the back in game-week two. Has to be said that this was quite surprising punditry to read considering the two, contrasting, performances. Obviously Mr Souness knows far more than I do so I’m clearly missing something here.

I’m not going to get in to any conspiracy theory about sections of the media ‘having it in’ for us. All boiled down everyone has their viewpoint however I find the positions taken by some very surprising and their arguments often weak, one sided and inconsiderate of the opposing views.

As for me I simply vote with my feet. Whenever Jim White comes on the air, be it on screen or radio, I simply switch over or switch off. Quite easy really.

Back to business as usual with the women and youth team’s reports next week. Until then…

COYI!

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