572 days ago
Record attendance at WSL game scream all the newspaper headlines after the Arsenal Spurs derby yesterday. Arsenal itself tweets out a picture of the crowd and of a big screen boasting of 53,737 tickets sold. Well all up to a point..
2348 days ago
I am sorry that bearcast is late. I am just back from lecturing the snowflake sociology students of the Mrs. I think I may have intruded on their safe space with some challenging thoughts in my talk "Lies, damned lies, public sector underpay and other myths." I hope to have a recording and the slides up here later this week. Pro tem I offer up some thoughts on Cogenpower (CGP) - to become Monreal PLC - Paternoster Resources (PRS) - now co run by Amanda Van Dyke, formerly of this Parish but now on the dark side, Falanx (FLX), Interquest (ITQ) and Conroy Gold & Natural Resources (CGNR)
2418 days ago
Links with Arsenal, massive cash burn, China, always missing goals (like the Arse) - that was BNN Technology (BNN), shares in which have been suspended today along with its CEO and China boss. I look at BNN in detail plus Telit (TCM), UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) after my weekend pieces HERE and HERE. I cover Blenheim (BNR) after its joke RNS today and also the dog Advanced Oncotherapy (AVO) after its latest spoof. The Mrs says my headline is crude & arguably homophobic, but I know you will love it and it is not if you take it in context.
3023 days ago
Before the FA Cup 3rd round tie against Wolves yesterday there were two big calls. Once again TV pundit Lauro called out West Ham to lose in one of the day's big upsets. Happily Lauro was once again wrong. The other big call was from our relatively new manager Slaven Bilic who said that he'd rather win the FA Cup than finish in the top four of the Premiership so ensuring Champions League football next year at the Olympic Stadium. These are not the sort of words long term Hammers are used to hearing.
3415 days ago
What was Quindell’s (QPP) worst investment? It is hard to know. £2.77 million for Skillwise (sept 2013), a company with no assets bought by its previous owner the day before for £68.40 including VAT is a prime contender. The £150 million spent on the cash consumptive shite that is Himex must be another. But how about a luxury executive box at the Emirates?
Yes, the ability of Quenron to waste shareholders cash knows no limits. I would have thought that having to watch Arsenal all season is a good enough punishment for some crimes but reckon that Rob Terry deserves an far stiffer sentence when he finally meets justice – at least a decade inside and a £19 million fine, for reasons I explain HERE.
But Quindell does indeed have a box at the Emirates. If you are a glutton for punishment,
3640 days ago
I hope the game is on TV somewhere here in Athens and I shall be cheering on the Irons from Greece. Or will I be? Of course I will, hell's teeth this is The Scum at home is it not?
I cannot see Norwich winning at Stamford Bridge tomorrow (or for that matter at home to Arsenal next week) and thus even if we lose to the Scum we should be mathematically safe. And so I am just a bit torn.
Naturally I want to make it 3 out of 3 this year against the Scum. I cannot bring myself to hope for any other result and one would hope that the players are up for the match knowing that this is how the fans feel. I am sad to say it but this is our Cup Final.
But if we lose or draw?
3786 days ago
Losing to Liverpool is not really a shock. But surrendering from the opening whistle as West Ham did is not impressive. Fat Sam Allardyce has apparently once again used the word “unlucky” in relation to this latest humiliation. What planet is he on?
Liverpool attempted 36 shots during the game. In a sense they were unlucky. It could have been 8-1.
The only bright spot is that Kevin Nolan was sent off and so misses our next three games. He is having a dire season. The way the other results panned out yesterday and our abject form and tough set of fixtures ahead leaves me with a fear that come New Year (or even sooner) West ham could be bottom of the league with Fat Sam
3887 days ago
Alan “he shags who he wants” Pardew was appointed as manager of Newcastle United in December 2013. The word is that a P45 with his name on it is slowly on its way. But as things stands Pards is the second longest serving manager in the Premiership. Only Arsene “with a packet of sweets and a cheeky smile” Wenger has been in situe longer. What an appalling indictment of how football is run as a business.
Premiership managers trouser seven figure salaries. And it now seems taken for granted that after a couple of years (or half a season at Chelski) they are fired, getting vast compensation, before some other fellow gets a temporary stint at the helm. Sooner or later you end up with Mark Hughes in charge for a while. Hughes has managed six clubs within the past six years. Still only fifty, there has to be a good chance that by the time he finally retires he will have managed at least three quarters of England’s top sides.
In business (and football) there is a good correlation between having bosses in charge for the long haul and success. Looking back at my own club, our glory years came when we had someone at the helm for a decade or more. The idea that you might get a Johnny Lyall managing a club he loved for years and years just seems so out of kilter with the modern game.
There is also the financial madness of this merry go round to consider. Inevitably new managers want to reshape the sides they are in charge of and so the merry go round of bosses simply adds to the merry go round of players. More fees for agents, more “cuts” for the players, more losses for the clubs.
Footballeconomics makes no sense at all and the managerial merry go round is just one part of it. That may well be highlighted further. If Wenger gets his marching orders (as may happen) and when Pardew is asked to spend more time with his wife (again), who do you think will be the longest serving manager in the Premiership? At two years and 84 days step forward West Ham’s very own Fat Sam Allardyce. Amazing.
4003 days ago
My football mad daughter and I were at the Arsenal game a few months ago and as the crowd chanted “with a packet of sweets and a cheeky smile, Arsene Wenger’s a paedophile” I dreaded the question “Daddy what is a paedophile?” Wenger is not a nonce as it happens but what would I say? “Er.. It is a sort of person who is often on the BBC.” I guess that is true.
Today’s game (a nil nil draw with Newcastle) was hardly a classic. The bloke two seats down shouted Cisse loudly as the Newcastle player ambled from the corner flag towards his goal (which is where my seat is). He was ignored. Cisse. Again ignored. Louder still came the shout Cisse at which point Mr Cisse looked up and got an instant shout of “Wanker!” from the bloke two seats down who regarded this as a win.
Former West Ham boss Alan Pardew manages Newcastle. Not for much longer one suspects as they will – at best – narrowly survive but I sense they may not. Pards left Upton Park amid, no doubted unfounded, rumours about his private life. And so within minutes of the opening whistle the rhythmic chat went up: “Alan Pardew shags who he wants, Alan Pardew shags who he wants.” After a few minutes of this the chant changed to “Alan, Alan give us a wave.” Mr Pardew obliged. The Trevor Brooking stand then started off with “He loves us more than you” at the Newcastle supporters. A few minutes later it was back to “Alan Pardew shags who he wants, etc.”
A couple more terms I am glad that I do not have to explain to my daughter.
With my record of having seen West Ham lose every time I have watched them this season broken and with the Irons now 100% safe from relegation I shall take my daughter to the last home game against Reading. “Going Down, going down” and “That’s why you’re going down” should not be too hard to explain.
4147 days ago
There was something from Sunday’s West Ham match which I forgot to mention showing that the spirit of entrepreneurial genius is alive and well in the East End. Walking back from the ground was a man selling Arsenal loo-paper at £5 a roll. Being a little short sighted it took a whole for me to see why this was not a rip off. Lovingly depicted on each sheet of loo paper was a picture of a different Arsenal player. The entire squad plus Arsene Wenger. I passed on the offer. Of course had it been Spurs loo paper that might have been different.
