It’s impossible to condone the actions of some West Ham fans that provided such ugly scenes in the London Stadium on Saturday. Four pitch invasions, fights between supporters in the stands and objects pelted at the owners produced amongst the most startling and violent images ever seen at a Premier League fixture as the 3-0 defeat to Burnley descended into complete chaos, forcing David Gold and David Sullivan to leave the game early for fear of their own safety.
And yet, while we may lament the unsavoury reputation some fans – this was, after all, an incredibly militant minority from the tens of thousands who attended – have unfortunately now attached to an unashamedly proud and passionate east London fan base, it’s surely time for the owners to admit their own mistakes in letting such a situation materialise at their club.
There has been a culture of chasing shortcuts at boardroom level practically ever since Gold and Sullivan purchased the club in 2010, and now it’s catching up with them. In terms of transfer policy, the delaying of parting with certain managers for the sake of avoiding compensation packages and of course, the poorly-planned move to the London Stadium, those shortcuts have all created long-term grievances that lead to the swell of bitter emotion witnessed at the weekend.
But two shortcuts particularly, the ultimate responsibly for which lay at the boardroom’s door, played a direct hand in Saturday’s events and in many ways ironically symbolise how Gold and Sullivan’s mindset has resulted in their own misfortune.
While the board thought moving responsibility for policing the ground to LS185 was an incredibly shrewd cost-cutting measure when they agreed the deal for the club’s new home, Gold and Sullivan must have wondered on Saturday whether saving those extra pennies that every other Premier League club has willingly paid local police forces, without arranging some form of backhanded loophole, were really worth it.
It’s been abundantly clear since West Ham first moved to the London Stadium that the venue isn’t policed properly, and that the stewarding simply isn’t up to standard – the current responsibility is split over four companies, and one steward on Saturday was amazingly pictured falling asleep. Yet, it’s taken an afternoon of four pitch invasions – which put the safety of their players in jeopardy – and an aggressive backlash that endangered Gold and Sullivan personally for the board to do anything about it.
They’re now willing to overtake the funding for stewards but the tax payer will have to accept the bill for extra policing. Even if that reported plan does come into effect though, it’s already too late – West Ham have only avoided a truly major incident by luck rather than judgement and on another day, something far more morbid could well have taken place. That’s not an indictment on West Ham fans by the way; whenever you have tens of thousands of people in one place – whether it’s a music festival, a football game or a demonstration – appropriate security and policing is essential. Human beings always need to feel safe, or they begin to take matters into their own hands.
The second shortcut was an equally pivotal influence on Saturday’s events, and even more underhanded than a stadium deal that continues to take money from the tax payer. It’s well-known that a supporters’ march protesting the direction Gold and Sullivan have taken the club was planned before the Burnley game, but it was called off after the controversial ICF-affiliated group believed to be initially leading the charge – Real West Ham Fans – not only denounced their involvement but also threatened the well-being of anybody else who dared to take part following alleged meetings with Gold and Karen Brady.
Using a group associated with violence and intimidation to prevent a democratic, peaceful protest – or at the very least indirectly supporting them by refusing to distance the club from Real WHF – is an incredibly authoritarian and tyrannical act that has no place in British society, especially when the rhetoric from that group intended to split the debate along political lines by painting the march as left-wing and Antifa influenced. And the consequence of doing so became abundantly clear as soon as Ashley Barnes opened the scoring on Saturday, triggering the first pitch invasion of the afternoon; if you deny people their right to protest and be heard, they will find means of doing so in far more extreme and dangerous ways.
More pivotally than that though, it is just another shortcut to notch on Gold and Sullivan’s bedpost. Rather than allowing West Ham fans the chance to voice their grievances, rather than accepting the rightful inevitability of the democratic process, and rather than opening their minds to how cathartic and healthy a march could be in the long-term as disgruntled supporters feel their concerns are finally being heard in some form, the board shook hands with hooligan influences in a bid to sweep all criticisms of them under the rug.
Can they really be surprised then, when the pressure found a more anarchic form to be released? Has that not been the eventual response to almost every autocratic measure by an overreaching power in every society since the first civilisations began? Is that not social justice in its purest form?
Once again, that is not to condone the actions of some West Ham fans, who could have found another way to vent their frustrations on another weekend with another march organised – Saturday was not their only and ultimate opportunity to express their emotions. But every human being has their limit when they begin to feel ultimately powerless, and that’s exactly what we saw on Saturday – West Ham fans trying to reassert some control over a situation that they haven’t been happy with for the best part of Gold and Sullivan’s eight-year rule.
The manner in which Gold and Sullivan came under threat on Saturday was a direct consequence of the shortcuts they’ve taken, and in many ways that’s painfully symbolic of the decision-making process at the club. In one form or another, every cost-cutting measure – whether that’s in terms of finance or reputation – has eventually come back to bite them.
This is just the latest and you have to wonder what the next one will be, and what damage that will do to a club that once dreamed of competing at the very top of the game.
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