The First Day Of The Rest Of Our Lives

"I don't need to be kind to the armies of night that would do such injustice to you

Or bow down and be grateful and say, "Sure, take all that you see"
To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls and determine my future for me"

- Fleet Foxes, "Helplessness Blues"

Hey folks, long time no see. Been up to much? I just wanted to point out that somewhere in the dark back halls of whatever Zoom enclave these people inhabit, the chairmen of twelve European football clubs managed to concoct an idea that made both Prince William and Boris Johnson wince and say, "Lads, that's a bit elitist". In some ways, you can only admire that. 

Liverpool v Man City. In New York. Midnight kick off. Just like you dreamed. 

***

 "There's thieves among us, painting the walls

With all kinds of lies" 

- She and Him, "Thieves"

Unless you've been focusing with undue attention on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, you've probably noticed that several giants of European football, and also the current seventh and ninth best teams in England, have had some thoughts. A Super League has been proposed with eternal places available to twelve clubs from England, Spain and Italy, with no teams from Germany or France yet and five places available to waifs and strays, presumably to ensure that all the Founders have got someone to beat. Each club will remain in their domestic leagues, doubtlessly treating them with the same reverence that they traditionally reserve for cup competitions, and sundering over a century of history in the process. I'm immediately put in mind of that time Homer Simpson designed a car for his brother and bankrupted his company. 

Look Marge, I designed a Super League!

Condemnation has been widespread, with most punditry focusing on the fact that the new league is all about money and driven entirely by greed. Well, no shit. In that sense, the last twenty four hours has been very helpful in identifying exactly who might vote for that leopards eating faces party that seems to have become so prevalent recently. 

There is nothing profound in stating that football has succumbed to greed or that nobody cares about fans anymore. This has been true for an awfully long time, and these announcements do not somehow bring this to light. If you didn't think this before yesterday you haven't been paying attention. Nor should there be any scrabbling for the moral high ground from West Ham, Leicester, Everton et al. The only reason they haven't signed up for this is because they weren't asked. Those clubs literally sat around and watched  inertly as lower league teams went to the wall, so spare me the idea that there is some kind of moral compass residing in the middle of the Premier League. A non zero threat to English football now is that whatever emerges from this wreckage is handed over to another self styled Big Six who immediately begin trying to siphon more money out of the sport. 

But life sometimes casts unusual heroes and so it is that on a Monday night the entire country is watching Leeds - Leeds! - play Liverpool and it somehow feels like a battle line has been drawn. It's Us v Them, and God bless those beautiful Yorkshire top knots for their late equaliser. 

But, when I read those who say "the game's gone", I have no idea what they mean. Have they watched the last twenty years of European football? The game hasn't gone anywhere. It's come. It's arrived on your doorstep in the shape of the Twelve Horseman of the Endless Makita Tournament, and they're not even bothering to beat around the bush anymore. The message of this power grab couldn't be any clearer if it was tattooed onto Roberto Firmino's teeth:

We can no longer afford to risk actual competition. So we're not bothering with that anymore.

That's it. There isn't any deeper meaning to this than a desperate desire to move to a model of guaranteed revenues. No more fucking about with playing actual games, or worrying about who has the best team. That's so last century, man. The pandemic has been both a disaster and a gift. It has ravaged them but it's mortally wounded us too. And so they strike now, and it has been quite a while in the making, after the years of appeasement have shockingly not worked. Fair enough, there's no historical precedent for that approach failing, after all. 

But what's really shocking about this is the bluntness with which this has all been stated. Never before have these clubs been quite so brazen about wanting to erode the pesky little notion of having to earn their revenues. Here it is in Technicolor, sponsored by Your Friendly Local PetroChemical Company and coming to a North American metropolitan hub near you soon. Watch on your iPhone, vote to tell Jurgen Klopp who to bring on next, and be sure to post an Instagram snap of where you're watching from so we can send you a t-shirt to remind you who you actually support in case you've forgotten after six years of exhibition games. 

If I may be so bold, I think it is this speaking of the unspeakable which is causing so much consternation.  What is so embarrassing to the supporters of these clubs is that this latest stunt isn't really a huge leap from what these clubs were already angling for. The betrayal here is uttering the truth that these competitions have been rigged all along, and admitting that the only issue now is that they aren't rigged enough. The only way the lie works is if Liverpool fans can go to Madrid and win the Champions League and believe that they are the Rebel Alliance and not the Empire. Well, John Henry just arrived in a Super Star Destroyer, lads, and Jurgen is finding your lack of faith disturbing. 

The Super League unveils it's new team coach designs

It has been standard for years for these clubs to murmur about the prospect of a Super League and then have to be placated by a greater share of revenues or an easier path to qualification. Consider that UEFA's proposed Swiss Style reformatting of the Champions League was going to reserve two places for big clubs who, God bless 'em, hadn't quite managed to qualify but are good fun at a barbecue and therefore really needed to attend.

Where was the outrage and upset at these egregiously stupid amendments? Where was the demand for equality and a sense of competition then? Instead of righteous anger we've just been subjected to a continued party line that "everybody agrees that things need to change" but never any suggestion of what these changes should be. More equitable revenue sharing? Bans on player hoarding? Nope - just some vague mutterings that the games are all boring before the quarter finals because the same teams always win, as though this was some great existential mystery. 

I'm delighted that Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher are speaking so eloquently against this bullshit, that James Milner was prepared to register his distaste and I welcome the statements from the representative fan groups of the self styled Big Six. Don't underestimate the courage needed to stand up like that. But let's not kid ourselves that this hasn't been apparent for years. The owners have broken the omertà and spoken the truth aloud, and suddenly a lot of fans are being forced to confront realities they had previously been able to pretend didn't exist. Are we the baddies, indeed. 

When Liverpool won the league last year I wrote a rather ungracious Twitter thread where I posited the theory that such title wins were indistinguishable from those of any other big club. That Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool were simply homogenous entities whose success was built upon a structure designed to reward and elevate them. Lots of Liverpool fans called me a virgin, an insult I'd not heard for a few years, and told me they were massive. And yet here we are a year later and I still can't distinguish those clubs from each other, other than that they've all signed up for an endless exhibition tournament. 

What are their protests? That the same teams will be in it all the time? That there is no threat of big teams not qualifying? That it's boring? Er, lads, stop me if you think that you've heard this one before. 

Because this is another aspect of the closed shop and the guaranteed revenues - there's not actually a need to win anymore. Early analysis of the financials of this thing are that the bulk of the money is dished out simply for being in it. James Corbett of OffThePitch.com wrote this thread a couple of months ago about the way the cash will be distributed in the brave new world, and you'll be delighted to hear that it's very much the taking part that counts. €180m for participating in the group stage (if you're a founder member) but just a further €30m if you win. Better yet, if by some miracle an interloping non founder member wins it, they get about half of what the big boys get just for being in the group stages. I suppose the one positive of this is that some men might finally get to experience what it's like to be paid like a woman.

There is a great Jerry Seinfeld bit in his stand up show when he starts speculating about horse racing. I can't do it justice so let me just repeat it for you here. 

"I’ll tell you one thing the horses definitely do not know. They do not know that if you should accidentally trip and break your leg at any point during the race we blow your brains out. I think they’re missing that little tidbit of information. I think if they knew that you’d see some mighty careful stepping coming down that home stretch. “Take it easy, take it easy.” “You win, I’ll place… whatever.” “The important thing is your health.”

This appears to be the overriding principle of the Super League. Take it easy. You win, I'll place. The important thing is paying down the debt on your stadium. There's always next year, after all. 

***

"And I could make you rue the day

But I could never make you stay" 

- The Magnetic Fields, "All My Little Words"

A fascinating aspect of this is that nobody, anywhere, appears to have asked the players what they think. It isn't just the fact that they risk being unable to represent their countries but that the Super League has the concept of a salary cap baked into it. "Revenues are decreasing, salaries are increasing. So we need to do something" says skilled mathematician Florentino Perez of Real Madrid, who signed 28 year old Eden Hazard for over €100m, paid him €400,000 a week and seems to be suggesting a bigger boy made him do it. If these lads had any fiscal sense at all they'd donate a few grand to the Tories, make friends with Matt Hancock and win themselves an NHS contract to pay down some of these debts. But no, it's got to be the death of football instead, say Florentino and Sheikh Mansour. Sigh.

Next stop, Sevilla and West Ham 

But what's really interesting is how the players will react. Salary caps are generally pretty sensible until players - who drive all the value in the sport - start to see that the revenue they are generating is going to fine upstanding citizens of the world like Joel Glazer and Paul Singer, who appear to have spent their entire adult lives preparing to play the bad guys in 101 Dalmatians. It's not that I think players have any particular sense of morality about this stuff, but I do suspect they have a very good handle on what they are worth and giving it to Disney villains isn't going to be high on their agenda. 

So, in summary, the Super League offers players a salary cap, no more international appearances and an even more watered down sense of competition than the piss weak Champions League we have right now. Hmm, nice job Joel, that coat is going to look beautiful. 

I can't help dreaming of a wild scenario where the Founders press on with their league and players start to win legal battles to extricate themselves from their contracts on some technicality. A few might take a moral stand but I suspect a number will not accept missing World Cups for their countries. 

And so, suddenly Messi goes to PSG and Ronaldo to Bayern and those Champions League TV rights still look pretty valuable. And as they come others start to follow - Kane to Roma, Ramos to Dortmund, De Bruyne to Sevilla and Son to West Ham. It's easy to laugh of course, but in 2000 the idea of a Super League containing Manchester City and Chelsea was just as fanciful as the notion of Toni Kroos playing for Porto. 

Things change, the game moves on and evolves, even as these dunces try and draw a line in history and declare themselves as important forever more. It feels as though someone somewhere needs to log on to Wikipedia and point out to these clowns that Celtic, Nottingham Forest, Marseille, Porto and Ajax have previously done something that the likes of Arsenal and Spurs have never done, namely be champions of Europe. 

***

"You see I'm just like you
If you only knew
That I'm just like you"

- Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Cabron"

In writing this piece I suspect there is a chance that fans of the Big Six might think I blame them or somehow don't empathise with their position. Let me resolve that now. For those fans I have nothing but sympathy and I hold the people who own their clubs in utter contempt. Those charlatans, those grifters, those unworthy vultures who have besmirched the names of once great institutions. I have long held the view that football fandom is little more than a quirk of geography or family. What, after all, separates Spurs and West Ham fans beyond a postcode or a particularly dominant grandfather here or there? 

And what have Spurs fans done to deserve seeing their team be used as a tool to push through such damaging and corrosive measures? Similarly, are Liverpool and Manchester United fans now any more at fault than the rest of us were when the Premier League was formed and the football pyramid abandoned? Now more than ever is the time for football fans to come together and somehow try to reclaim what is ours. Of course it's easy to throw our hands up and look at the vast array of enemy forces lined up against us, but these things always begin with a single step. 

The first and most critical action is a Europe wide promise to boycott the new league. Don't buy the subscriptions and if you have to because the TV network carries something else you want, then surely don't watch the games. It will be tempting, as the media start to warm to the idea and the PR campaign begins but the object of all fans here is to make the European viewing figures for this thing a disaster. I excuse the fans of the Big Six - what can they do but watch their teams? It's on the rest of us. 

It's easy to say that these teams should be expelled from their leagues, and I've been giddy about this in the past. I still think this is ultimately the course of action that should be followed but practically one has to consider the financial realities. David Sullivan had an asset valued at £400m on Sunday morning, and by the time he went to bed that was probably halved. He still has to pay his players in a post pandemic economy, while TV companies circle, no doubt eager to get repayments of their rights monies as the big boys depart. But, here's the thing - with these teams gone, the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A all have a chance to be something they typically never are.....interesting. Sullivan et al have a chance to design something unique and marketable here. Call me old fashioned but an English Premier League where ten teams can realistically win has to have some value to TV companies. 

And then imagine, for a moment, a group of European leagues with evenly shared revenues and evenly matched teams. Imagine a world where relegation wasn't financially catastrophic because the leagues were overseen by a set of rules not designed by men with the sensibilities of Charles Ponzi. The financial shock of these teams going is likely to be horrific in the short term, but both UEFA and FIFA have deep pockets and can tide teams over. In exchange they should bind those teams forever to their competitions and demand proper financial management and fair competition. Instead of being terrified of Nantes v Feyenoord in the Champions League final, we should aim for that because it would be evidence of a healthy competition, something not present in European football for decades, no matter what lies we have told ourselves. 

This is an incredible opportunity for our leagues. We can build interesting, unpredictable competitions and sell that to the TV companies. What's our USP? Well, it's not the same twelve teams every week forever, for a start. And if the big boys want to come back, that's fine but they are to abide by our rules or they don't come back at all. If you're interested in my suggestions, I fixed modern football back in 2018 and I'm still pretty sure that a lot of this stuff would work. In a curious way, a lot of the things that made my suggestions unfeasible before would be removed with the departure of the Super League teams. 

The most likely reality still feels to me that this backlash will force the big boys back to the table where they will negotiate a larger slice of revenues and, after taking a couple of weeks of public shaming, they will eventually persuade everyone that they should haven't to qualify for the Champions League. But make no mistake, what really ought to happen here is that this nail is smashed back into the wood with authority. It can't just be that we revert back to the current model and pretend all this didn't happen. They have to take losses now. This needs to result in a worse position than they started with. What are they going to do in response, form a Super League? They're already wobbling - we hold the advantage here. 

But, no, I sense more appeasement, and that peace will hold until some idiot president somewhere pisses away his latest UEFA cheque and starts making threats again. Not for nothing, but these dickheads can't make a profit with UEFA literally subsidising them, so it is interesting to me that JP Morgan are so happy to jump into bed and give them a credit line for this thing. I guess the belief is that with the importance of actual competition removed, there won't be the driver to overspend any more. Financial prudence through boredom, then. Lovely. 

But it really shouldn't be this way. This should be the first day of the rest of our lives. There is an opening here for a brave and principled redesign of the game that puts genuine competition at the heart of the sport, and redistributes revenues to safeguard the future of the smaller clubs who hold the pyramid up. Even if the Super League takes off and is a huge success, this is still the answer. Everything is cyclical and nothing lasts forever. Ronaldo came from Sporting Lisbon, Wayne Rooney came from Everton, Luka Modric came from Dinamo Zagreb. New legends will emerge and teams will decline and fall as they always do. There is a chance here. This is the first day of the rest of our lives, folks. 

An Inconvenient Truth

"Seems like every time you turn around,
There's another hard luck story that you're gonna hear"
- Bob Dylan, "Black Diamond Bay"

There is an issue that has been vexing West Ham fans this week. It's been bubbling around for a while and finally came to the surface during our rousing 1-1 draw at home to Liverpool. You probably know what I'm talking about...yes, it's the huge issue of away fans sitting in the home end at the London Stadium. Time to dust off the laptop, say I. 

That's not the current club crest, oh wait.

I've followed this topic all week as various forums and social media platforms have been awash with West Ham fans who are extremely upset about this. I keep reading about this great scourge and how we ought to be telling stewards as soon as we see anyone in an opposition hat, and how the club ought to be doing more to stop it. I'm not necessarily opposed to that line of thinking, as I think it is a problem if home fans can't get tickets at the expense of travelling supporters, but I confess I don't see this as being all that troubling considering we struggle to fill the stadium. I've sat in the home stand at opposition grounds to watch West Ham on their travels so I'd be fairly hypocritical if I started objecting to it now. 

But, no! The West Ham online community has spoken and we must have a zero tolerance policy on away fans in the home end. The answer to the question "What number of away fans is acceptable in the home end?" is categorically zero. Remember this number, because I'll return to it. Zero. None. Nil. 

One would be too many. Got it?

Because West Ham fans are very clear on this point. 

***

"Another head aches, another heart breaks

I'm so much older than I can take"

- The Killers, "All These Things That I've Done"

As I write this piece, the Official West Ham Supporters Board (OSB) are meeting. You might recognise the name because they were in the news recently when a member of the group, Nik Tucker, resigned from his position after posting homophobic and anti-Semitic images on his website. I have never met Tucker, or heard of the website, but I've seen the pictures and they don't leave much room for argument.

Those who know him speak of a man who runs a boxing club, gives his time freely to the community and doesn't practice discrimination. I have no reason to doubt any of that but it rather serves to highlight that decent people can still unwittingly propagate anti Semitism when they aren't attuned to what it actually is.

None of this would be all that newsworthy were it not for the fact that Tucker had been selected by the club to serve on the OSB. The process for this involved individuals garnering a small number of nominations from fellow season ticket holders, writing a profile of themselves which was then presented on an anonymous basis to a selection panel which may or may not have included some former players. That group then chose the representatives, thus leading to the possibility that Tucker found himself on the board because Carlton Cole didn't do a background check on him - and that, ladies and gentleman, may be the single most West Ham sentence ever typed.

Also included in the OSB is a guy by the name of Greg Smith, who attended the infamous Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA) march in October last year. I have already written about that here and will return to it later. I continue to find it strange that the club don't consider the use of their image by the DFLA to be a significant problem.

What is clear is that none of the individuals on the OSB have been elected by supporters, and that the body has been set up because West Ham still refuse to engage with the West Ham United Independent Supporters Association (WHUISA). The latter is an actual democratic group with over 5,000 paying members and a committee who are required to stand for election. They are recognised by, and affiliated to, all relevant supporters groups, and yet West Ham continue to do everything they can to avoid speaking to them.

The OSB, meanwhile, has members representing such minority groups as BAME, LGBT and disabled fans, which is quite right and also others such as the West Stand, which is quite weird. I have no reason to doubt the good intentions of any of the members, but I am struck by what lengths Karren Brady will go to avoid sitting down with WHUISA and answering questions from people who the fans actually elected to speak on their behalf.

If you want to hear an explanation of what the OSB are doing then there is a good section here towards the end of the Stop!Hammer Time podcast, where Pride of Irons chair Jim Dolan talks about the good work being done. I applaud the intentions, but disapprove of the gerrymandering.

Now, at this point you may think that I'm just going over old ground, but where this gets interesting is how this news reached the wider consciousness. Nobody in the West Ham world knew about this until Tucker himself posted about it on his website, where he described his departure as being "by (cough) mutual consent...I suppose I am just one of those dinosaur fans who the club would like to be extinct", which is a strange way of saying sorry.

This was picked up by Jacob Steinberg of The Guardian, who has been covering the issues between the Hammers board and support for years, and then suddenly it became big news in the West Ham world. At this point; cavear emptor - I consider Steinberg to be a friend, even though we have a thoroughly modern friendship that has only ever involved us meeting once very briefly on a five minute stroll to the stadium for a home game. We have, however, exchanged messages and emails in the past, he has been very supportive of The H List, and I think he has been fearless in highlighting issues within West Ham.

For the crime of reporting something that the individual had already publicly posted, he was then attacked on Twitter and online. He was described variously as a grass, a Spurs fan, a blood sucking leech, a scumbag, a c*nt and received a number of threats both veiled and overt, and often dripping in anti-Semitism.

Included in this barrage were comments from well established West Ham social media personalities including Nicky Hawkins of West Ham Fan TV (*), who launched an impassioned defence of Tucker before revealing that he hadn't actually seen the posts in question, but he couldn't have put up anything anti-Semitic or homophobic because he was their mate. But this is an example of what he posted:

"Banter"

West Ham Fan TV have 13,000 Twitter followers, 43,000 YouTube subscribers and 16.5m views of their videos.

***

"Well a lot of people guess, 

Some say no and some say yes"

- Billy Bragg and Wilco, "Airline to Heaven"

I want you to know that I appreciate very few people come to the 12th most popular West Ham blog on the web to get their fix of political commentary. But I'd ask you to bear with me briefly while I talk about Brexit. There will, I promise, be a point to it.

I live in Romford where we are, to coin a phrase, well Brexit. We are, in fact, so Brexit that The Guardian, CNN, The Washington Post and The Independent have all been to have a chat. As a Remainer, I feel I know how easy it is to label my neighbours as racists and fascists and I confess that there are times when I think my wife and I were the only two people in the whole town to have voted to Remain.

But here's the thing. Those of us who live here have seen great change in the last decade. Our schools are under horrendous budgetary pressure, the roads are overcrowded and poorly maintained, the train service to London is so packed that the new trains ordered for Crossrail actually have fewer seats in them to allow for more standing space, the local hospital had to take a £15m loan and be put into financial special measures, it's not terribly safe and the standard of our public services is dire. People had, and still have, good reason to be pissed off.

A picture taken at the Armed Forces Parade in Romford, 2016

And then arrived a referendum, like a gift wrapped rocket launcher which voters could turn in one particular direction and fire with gleeful abandon as a way of venting their frustration at the people responsible.

To me, it seemed fairly logical that after years of austerity and slashing budgets that the people of Romford might point that rocket launcher back at David Cameron and the Tory party who had inflicted that hardship upon them. But at this point, our old friend cognitive dissonance stepped forward. Since 1974, apart from a brief four year hiatus in 1997 under Blair, Romford has been staunchly Conservative, to the extent that you could put a dustbin named "Blue Passports" on the ballot and it would pick up 30,000 votes here.

And thus, the referendum asked a hugely complicated question in a ludicrously simple way. And when the voters of Romford looked round for an answer as to why things had got so bad they unsurprisingly chose not to blame the people they had been voting for. Who, after all, wants to accept they might be complicit in their own unhappiness?

So the people who voted for austerity, and then got it and then hated it, needed somewhere else to place the blame. And into that light stepped mendacious grifters like Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, none of whom care one bit about the people of Romford, but were perfectly happy to give them an easy answer: The EU.

The Remain camp bear a huge responsibility too, as they ought to have been able to craft a response to this by simply pointing at a picture Cameron and mouthing "it's his fault". Instead, Corbyn went on holiday like the useless sixth form politician he is, Nick Clegg was a busted flush after the University fee shambles and nobody in England pays any attention to Nicola Sturgeon or Leanne Wood because they don't care about Scotland or Wales.

And so it came to pass that Leave won, and while I accept that all racists will have voted for Brexit, I don't accept that all Leave voters were racist. It just isn't that straightforward, and until the Remain camp understand that, they will continue to be perplexed about why people would willingly vote for something that seems so obviously harmful.

And why do I give these opinions and make these points on an article that is seemingly about West Ham? For a couple of reasons; firstly, to illustrate that no point of political contention is ever straightforward or without nuance. These issues are complex in their origin, and the positions that people have arrived at are being informed by all sorts of competing factors. I don't agree with Brexiteers, but I have tried hard to understand why people may have voted the way they have.

Additionally, because the entirety of British life at present is dominated by Brexit, and the entirety of British political discussion is influenced by Brexit, the resulting issues that we see at West Ham are a fall out from this. West Ham currently has a problem with race and antisemitism and Islamophobia and homophobia for the simple reason that our society has a problem with all of these things.

***

"Tryin' to be like no-ones ever been
You try so hard, you get it wrong"
- Embrace, "You're Not Alone"

But there is another reason I say all this. I want to demonstrate that I am perfectly prepared to sit down and consider both sides of an argument. You may disagree with my conclusions - I'm guessing around 52% of you probably do - but I'm not into blanket condemnation of people, just because we don't share the same political real estate. Nor am I permanently and dogmatically wedded to my own political views; Labour will never again get my vote while anti Semites run the party, because I've got to be able to look my Jewish friends in the eye. 

But I struggle with the DFLA. I've tried. I've read their Facebook pages, listened to those of you who have contacted me with their side of things, and read their policy demands. And I'm afraid that I get nothing from it apart from Far Right dog whistling. They are on police extremist watch lists for a reason, which is pretty damning considering that's what they purport to oppose. I've read the news reports and I've seen the images of Nazi salutes, and while I'm perfectly prepared to accept that the majority of people on that march would disown those views, I'm afraid "Just because I'm marching with Nazis doesn't make me a Nazi" isn't an argument that has improved with time. There are better ways to oppose extremism. 

And the problem with Mark Phillips, and now Greg Smith, is that they have attached our club to that organisation with a degree of formality. My issue with Phillips attending the march wasn't that I felt he was a racist or a fascist because I don't know him (or indeed Smith), and indeed I am very uncomfortable with the idea that people be punished for their political views. His misstep, however, was to tweet out something to the effect of "great to see so many West Ham fans here, always the biggest group". And the problem with that, from a member of staff with access to our players, is that it suggests that West Ham are connected to the DFLA.

But what about those of us who don't espouse the views of the DFLA? What about those who think that the group are marching under an Islamophobic banner and think that our Muslim fans deserve better than to see their club crest being carried in support of those views? Why is it that Karren Brady will smugly tell small businesses that they cannot use the West Ham crest to sell badges and scarves, but is seemingly willing to see it carried on a march like this, and doesn't see it as a barrier to somebody serving on her OSB?

I'm well aware that some of you may have gone on that march, and some will be DFLA members and that's your prerogative, of course. But you don't speak for me, and whether Mark Phillips intended to or not, he did try and speak for me by tweeting his views and attaching my club to his march. And while I am sympathetic to any club employee who wonders why they seem to be held to a higher standard of behaviour than certain Board members, I still think there is a significant problem with him doing this.

And as I watch all of this unfolding once again, as if scheduled into some sort of annual timeline of fuck ups which the club adhere to religiously, I keep wondering...what exactly is it that West Ham United stand for these days?

***

"The world is overrun with the wealthy and the wicked"

- Mos Def, "Fear Not of Man"

So, where now?

The last week has been a depressing time to be a West Ham fan. Steinberg has been shot for delivering a message that a lot of people seemingly didn't want to hear. First he highlighted the posts from Tucker, then retweeted the video clip of someone at the London Stadium calling Mo Salah a "Muslim c*nt", and then shared the various threatening Tweets he received. By any stretch of the imagination these were newsworthy stories, and yet the defensive refrains have been familiar:

"It's just one guy out of 60,000 so stop tarring us all...it's just banter and you're a grass...it's filmed by a Liverpool fan - let's focus on THAT!....you just want to hurt the club...journo scum...what about other clubs...I don't see any threats of physical violence, actually..." and so on until he eventually locked his Twitter account to escape the abuse.

We've even seen some of the fabled victim blaming that Twitter ought to really market as it's USP, whereby people are suggesting that if Steinberg doesn't want to hear anti-Semitic remarks then perhaps he should just stop being a Jew on Twitter. As though he is a diver in a well known hotspot for Great White Sharks and should really just get out of their territory.

And of course, the appropriate response to all of those points is a simple one, namely how many antiSemites, homophobes, racists, sexists or Islamophobes is an acceptable number in our stadium? And if the answer is zero then what is the problem, and if the answer is higher than zero then why do we care more about away fans in the home end than we do about this? Why should we report away fans and keep quiet about racist chants?

And while we're on the topic, how about some West Ham fans grow up a little bit around this topic? Just because @Tonythespur087654 with three followers and a "proud Dad" bio called West Ham a racist cesspit doesn't actually mean anything, because we are all grown adults here and not twelve year old's trying to win a schoolboy argument.

I wonder if I can "Well, Actually" antisemitism out of existence?

When I talk about shades of grey and political nuance, I am talking about the wider issues that cause people to take the view they do. But in this area, there is only right and wrong. Either you are against people being antisemitic and homophobic and racist and Islamophobic or you are not. There are no caveats, or whatabouts or conditions upon that. Pick a side. Stand with gay people and Muslims and Jews, and yes, stand with Mo Salah even if there seems to be a pretty decent chance that he'd fall over the minute you put your arm around him.

What's really noticeable about this is how many folks don't view things as a problem unless it affects them. Away fans in home ends wind them up so it's a big problem that must be addressed. Muslim footballers being abused doesn't touch them so everyone ought to lighten up a bit. Well that's cowardly and remarkably dumb. It's not just Mo Salah who gets abused when that happens, it's every Muslim West Ham (or Liverpool) fan in the stadium too. And when you decry it as meaningless you are invalidating their experiences and feelings, and telling them it doesn't matter.

And so it goes. When you turn a blind eye to the hissing at Spurs games, or the chants of "I'd rather be a Paki than a yid", or "Does your boyfriend know you're here?" then you allow it to be normalised.  Fans need to do better. When we see or hear this stuff we have to take action. Speak up if you think it's safe to do so, but alternatively just don't give those people oxygen. Block their social media accounts, unfollow them, and don't click on their links or engage with them. This doesn't have to be the identity of our club.

And this is where West Ham the entity needs to step up too.

There should be a well advertised hotline where these things can be reported, and a campaign fronted by first team players aimed at educating our fans on what really constitutes abuse. At least part of the problem with our fanbase is that large numbers of them seem completely incapable of determining what is antisemitic abuse and what is an acceptable song to sing at people because they support Spurs. We long ago blurred the line to the point where the two are now one and the same. I can accept that Tucker genuinely didn't think he was being antisemitic by posting the images he did, but that's the point - we've lost touch with reality and rather than face that inconvenient truth, lots of West Ham fans would apparently rather pretend this is all overblown and not a problem.

And so Steinberg finds himself fighting the great War of You Can't Say Anything Anymore Can You?, in the Battle of Actually Muslims Aren't A Race So It Can't Be Racism, against the 5th Armoured Dickhead Division of the Whatboutery army.

We ought not to leave him alone to do so.

***

"You say you lost your faith, 
But that's not where it's at"
- Bob Dylan, "Positively 4th Street"

I have no doubt that many of you will find elements of this article disagreeable. That's ok, it's how free society works. I can write it, and you call me names.

To the extent that you feel you'd like to tell me I'm wrong and have a civil chat about things, you can do so at an upcoming WHUISA event. I am part of a panel that is discussing "The Identity and Culture of WHUFC in 2019". Also there will be noted author Rob Banks, KUMB editor Graeme Howlett and Dave Evans of the Recorder group, and while I can sense the eye rolling from here, I think it will be an interesting chance to talk about what we really want from our football club.

You can get tickets here for a fiver, with proceeds going to the Dylan Tombides Foundation. I hope you can make it.

(*) This article originally stated that the tweets in question were made by the West Ham Fan TV account, but were in fact posted by Nicky Hawkins, the founder, owner and content creator of West Ham Fan TV. He has asked me to correct this.