Rod Liddle (again) but this time on West Ham (C&P) West Ham fans should brace themselves for sexy football Rod Liddle THANK YOU, Santa. On Christmas Eve I hunkered down beside my bed and asked Father Christmas, please, could he fix it to ensure that West Ham United were bought out by a consortium consisting entirely of bankrupts, lunatics and half-wits. ?And if you can?t manage that, Santa, then how about Sullivan, Gold and Brady?? You see, the power of prayer should not be underestimated; it worked a couple of years back too, when they signed Kieron Dyer for about a billion quid. I have to say, it did not occur to me to request that upon arriving, the fragrant Karren Brady would suggest renaming them ?West Ham Olympic?, or that David Sullivan would promise fans a Champions League place ?within seven years?. If the club are to be renamed, I think they need to reference both the Olympic Games and maybe one or two of the products you can buy through Mr Sullivan?s porno empire: how about West Ham Olympic Bedroom Frenzy? Do you think Bobby Moore and Ron Greenwood would approve? But Schadenfreude is a sad state of mind, and the truth is that although, as a Millwall supporter, I have a moral and constitutional requirement to loathe West Ham (we still kid ourselves that we are their bitterest rivals, in much the same way that Liechtenstein thinks of Germany), I find it hard to do. A medium-sized club, they are less afflicted by delusions of grandeur than their London Premier League rivals, and their intensely loyal fan base is still drawn from the local area and not too far beyond. They may bang on about having won the World Cup for England single-handed and all that risible guff about the Academy of Football ? a boast that always sat uneasily, I thought, with the deployment of Julian Dicks ? but you cannot accuse them of being arriviste, or that carelessly deployed insult: plastic. Football clubs are resilient financially, and the most resilient are those with a strong fan base and a connectivity to the area from which they originate. But I cannot believe that their supporters are entirely behind the takeover, and still less the flatulent grandstanding that has accompanied it. Sullivan has pledged, ? la Teddy Sheringham, that he is a lifelong supporter of the Hammers. I could check the cuttings and see if he said the same thing to the previous clubs with which he wished to become involved, or actually owned ? Birmingham City, Cardiff City, Watford, Bradford City, Leeds United, Tottenham Hotspur ? but it would be pointless. We know from his previous statements that he was sick of having to travel all the way from his tasteful Essex porno bolthole to the Midlands to watch the team that he co-owned, and that West Ham therefore suit his location, although Southend and Colchester will be heaving a sigh of relief. We know, too, from innumerable articles ? and indeed from his own website ? that David Gold was brought up in Dickensian (Charles, not Julian) poverty in the old East End of London, Gawd luv ?im, and dragged ?imself clear of the workhouse by the simple expedient of providing 90% polyester split-crotch panties and Rampant Rabbits via the Ann Summers chain to a legion of grateful women. And, you would guess, men. It is difficult to argue that Sullivan and Gold are less suited to the fan base of West Ham than those weird-looking, terribly over-extended Icelandic people who can now not even afford to buy a packet of deep-frozen cod in prawn sauce for their suppers. And you would have to concede that the new owners have not done a bad job with Birmingham City, a club with many similarities to West Ham, both being blue-collar sides residing in the shadow of more gilded neighbours who think terribly highly of themselves. Both clubs also shimmy between the top two divisions and try to convince themselves that they could do rather better than that. And I suppose you might argue that a questionable dress sense and the recent sporting of a ponytail, plus a fortune that (as Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan put it) is ?half a billion pounds of masturbation money? are small crimes against the sort of people whom the Football Association consider fit and proper to run our clubs. Shady Middle-Eastern consortiums, blank-faced Russian oligarchs who own yachts with submarines attached, a Thai politician who is wanted in his own country on criminal charges, the cheat Flavio Briatore, and Ridsdale and Bates et al. Rather Sullivan and Gold than any of them. Apparently, West Ham tried to buy Ruud van Nistelrooy, because Sullivan, with incredible perspicacity, has identified the need for a new striker. Good luck, you Hammers, and good luck, too, to Gianfranco Zola, a decent man. His job is safe for the moment, apparently, but you would not bet that it will remain so.
