...not to mention honesty.

 

An open letter from West Ham's Joint Chairman David Sullivan.

 

I am writing this on Wednesday morning. I had no sleep last night, having watched the shambolic performance by the team against Wolves.

 

I was as angry and upset as every supporter in the stadium at the disorganised way we played, allowing Wolves too much space so that they looked more like Manchester United. This was the culmination of five defeats in a row, including an appalling performance against Bolton.

 

We have a few very talented players in our team, but it is a very unbalanced squad. Individually we have some very good players, but this is not being converted into a good team performance. Nobody at the club should delude themselves that we are a good team. The table at this stage of the season does not lie.

 

However, with some of the outstanding players we have, we can and must do better as a team. I apologise to every supporter for the pathetic showing on Tuesday night but I fully expect a dramatic improvement as we have so much individual talent.

 

I accept that the club is in deep relegation trouble. However, we are a long way from being relegated. With your help we can get out of this and regroup in the summer.

 

This is a difficult time. It has been a week to regret but Saturday's result can change that. We need a win, we need you to support us, to forgive us the result against Wolves and to remember what this great club is about.

 

The history and tradition of West Ham United, the heritage and the prestige demands we are a Premier League club. But we have no right to that. We have to earn it. The Academy of Football? Now we have to show that. The manager knows, I know, the players know.

 

When I first started supporting West Ham, we had a tradition for playing the game "the right way". I will settle for any way right now, as long as it is the winning way!

 

We all have our favourite players, our heroes. Older fans can remember players like Bobby Moore, Sir Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters – the cornerstone of England's 1966 World Cup win. I know rival teams mock us West Ham fans for saying that, but one was the captain, another scored a hat-trick, the other scored the fourth. That sounds like a claret and blue contribution to me.

 

Younger supporters will probably look to strikers such as Frank McAvennie and Tony Cottee as well as Paolo Di Canio. They all brought something special to the club.

 

Then there was Sir Trevor Brooking, Billy Bonds, Alan Taylor, Bryan "Pop" Robson, Phil Parkes, Alvin Martin and Ray Stewart. We didn't win much but there was always a quality and a style. Another hero to watch: a midfield playmaker, a little wizard on the wing, a goalscorer.

 

Now we need this team to show their quality.

 

Now we need this team to show us their talent, their desire, their passion, their dare.

 

Now we need new heroes.

 

Saturday may be tense, on Saturday you will feel anxious and, at times, unsettled. I ask that we try not to transmit that on to the field, that we get behind the team and provide them with a platform. The rest is up to them.

 

It's hard being an owner. I'm finding it's harder being an owner who is a supporter. I hope for happier times soon.

Thank you for sharing the same vision and dreams.

 

Come on West Ham.

David Sullivan

Joint-Chairman

 

Ok, it doesn't really achieve much in the grand scheme of things but it at least shows that he gives a fuck.

 

Pointless letter by the West Ham chairman in my opinion. So writing a letter makes all fans of an underperfoming club love the club again? Sadly, a lot of morons will say things like ' what a great attitude by our chairman, he really does care etc'... He only wrote a letter ffs! So he couldn't sleep after the bad result? Big deal!

 

Stewart Milne writing a letter like this will only lead to yet more criticism from our 'supporters'. Nobody really knows how much money Milne puts into AFC, and even if he did tell us, loads of our 'supporters' wouldn't believe him anyway. It's a real shame that some of our fans can only feel satisfied when they have something that they can have a right good moan about. The writing of a letter by a chairman of a different club, in a different league in a different country, somehow makes our supporters criticise Stewart Milne. Embarassing. The club is in a bad way just now because of our under performing football players, not our chairman.

 

I'm not sure if this (and in particular the moron comment) is aimed at me for putting this up, but the sentiment I was going for is that the apathy surrounding the club seems to come from the centre of the club.

 

Also, we're in a bad way just now purely because of under performing footballers and those under performing players are in no way the level we're at because of our chairman? Really?

The club is in a bad way just now because of our under performing football players, not our chairman.

Sorry don't agree, yes the club is doing shit because our players aren't performing on a regular basis this season, but the club has been getting gradually worse for years.

A club of our size with no real training facilities?

A club that had to have its youth setup overhauled when WM came back on board?

Sorry but SM has been under performing for years also