My chat with the Chairman...(Sept 03)

Dazza WHUFC · Jan 23, 2004

Ive managed to rescue the account of my chat with the chairman and managing director from my (currently) defunct West Ham website.
This chat occurred in Spet. 03 at the Spurs v West Ham reserves fixture at Stevenage FC. Some of the names/places/etc etc will be meaningless to you but you will all get the general idea of things, some of you may even make it til the end!!!!

Enjoy...

"I had a little chat with the Chairman and Paul Aldridge last nite, heres what occurred:

I approached The chairman and Paul Aldridge near to half time at the Reserve match last night. I politely asked them if they could spare a few minutes of their time to answer a few questions from a couple of fans.
'Who are you?' snapped the chairman
'A season ticket holder' I replied
'Well, Im not speaking to anyone, but you can talk to Paul'

Slightly gobsmacked at the bluntness of the chairman I said thank you and waited for half time. Well, the whistle blew, and a few seconds later down cam Paul Aldridge and following him, was in fact, the chairman. So, on to the quesions. Firstly I asked him about the Alan Pardew situation. Basically Aldridge said that things are moving on, and that they are a lot clearer now compared to last week. They fully expect Pardew to be our manager sooner rather than later, although there are some legal issue to be addressed. Aldridge did say that until its signed on the dotted line there is always a chance that it may not happen, but they do not anticipate this. No time scale was mentioned, but it seemed clear that there were no other targets, and that Pardew WILL be our new manager. It is just a case of when.

I then asked them about the issue of standing in the BML. Again, the chairman let Aldridge do the talking. The club have been put under pressure from the local authorities regarding standing, as everyon is fully aware of. The rumours of the stand being closed down is a non starter, this will not happen. The club have to show the authorities that they are taking action to prevent the mass standing, and as long as they show the authorities they are doing this, there will be no penalties on the club. Aldridge did seem in favour of 'safe standing' and this would be something I think the club would liek to do if they were allowed.

So far during the conversation the chairman was fairly quiet, letting Paul Aldridge do the talking. The best way I can describe them is that they resembled Monty Burns and Smithers from The Simpsons!! Anyway, I then asked them about the new that Titi Camara was taking the club to court over a breach of contract. Aldridge and Brown both laughed this off as a non starter. Aldridge said that they have a very good bunch of legal people and that they cannot see this legal action going anywhere and it is not something that is worrying them.

Onto the Brown Out and the trust. I asked the chairman about what his thoughts were regarding the Brown Out protests and the Trust. He reply was firm and to the point. It is not something that is worrying him, and he is prepared to live with it. He appreciates that the protests will gather momentum when things are going bad, but will ease off when things are going well, but it is not something he appears to be losing sleep over. In regards to the trust, Aldridge said that they have changed personnel a few times and need to get the organisation sorted out before things can progress between the club and the trust. They also stated that for the trust to work they have to distance themsleves from the Brown Out protests. I said to them that one of the supporters biggest gripes was the apparent void between the fans and the club. Aldridge said that they estimate that we have 750,000 fans and that to keep everyone informed/happy is very difficult indeed. He said that anyone who writes will get a personal reply, also, he said that he would talk to anyone who rang the club wanting to talk to him (Aldridge) providing he was in his office and obviously not too busy.

Regarding the team's start to the season I asked them if they were happy with the start we had made. The chairmans reply was, 'we wanted 15 points at this stage'. So I took that as a 'no'. I spoke to Aldridge about the Rotherham changing room incident and he just reiterated what has been said before. The changing rooms were too small for the physio's tables, and equipment, and with the team travelling in training gear it was decided that they would go to the ground with the minimum amount of changing required. There was no disrespect to Rotherham and the press had made a mountain outta a molehill.
I mentioned that I though we were doing OK in the league and that sitting 3rd after 6 games wasnt bad. I said that I had only missed the Ipswich game so far, but wouldnt be going to the Crewe game tonight.
'Oh, we're going' said Brown.
Failed attempt at humour, or sarcastic *#*#*#*#, I could make my mind up.
It wsa around this stage that the chairman excused himself as he needed to go for a cup of tea, shook hands and thanked him for his time, even though he didnt say alot and let Paul Aldridge speak for him.

I then asked Aldridge that after Daillys performance for Scotland in midweek would he be doing more TV interviews for the club. This raised a smirk on his face, he said that Dailly 'wasnt the best player in the world, but is a lovely guy with a nice family.' Well on that assumption, so am I, so can I have a 4 year contract!!! Aldridge said that Dailly didnt have the best of starts to his WHU career, but is doing well now. We then go onto the subject of Repka, Thomas' main frustration when he came to WHU was the language barrier and this affected him on the pitch, he is now learning English and is a lot happier. again, Aldridge said that he was a smashing lad and is having a good season. Then on to the subject of Defoe. I said that it appears Defoe is unhappy when playing, his greed and lack of passing is becoming a problem, and eventually will end up costing us points. Aldridge said that Defoe made it clear that he wanted to leave in the summer, but he is getting on well with his football at WHU. Apparently he was more pissed off with not being picked for England last week. During training yesterday him and Connolly were on the same side. Defoe rounded the keeper, and was slipping/losing his balance, so he laid the ball off to Connolly, who slotted the ball home. The entire squad just stopped and applauded Defoe. I hope he learns from this and now knows that in fact it is a team game and not a personal battle as to who is gonna be top scorer. We shall see in the forthcoming games I guess.

So that was the half time break accounted for, I thanked Paul Aldridge for his time and wished everyone associated with the club well.
OK, so there is no info here that most didnt know already, but I thought I'd tell you all what came 'straight from the horses mouth'. It was the first time I had met or spoken to Brown or Aldridge. I find Mr Brown a very hard person to describe. I cannot work out if he is indeed a shy person who finds it difficult to talk to the public, or if he is in fact someone who really thinks he is so much better than us supporters and does as much as he can to disassociate himself with us. I would guess it could be a bit of both.
My impression of Paul Aldridge was of a straight up, polite and forthright person, who appeared to answer honestly and didnt mind taking the time out to chat to a couple of supporters.

Well, there you go, as I said, nothing too controversial, but it was nice to hear some things direct from those who matter, rather than these nobodies who come onto websites claiming to have 'inside knowledge' about whats going on at the club (this is not a dig and Hack or AMoCS btw)

If you have made it to the end here then sorry If ive bored the *#*#*#*# outta yer!!!"
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panicfc · Jan 23, 2004

Dazza,

was this on the yahoogroups mailing list a while back?

Good stuff, keep it coming.

Dazza WHUFC · Jan 23, 2004

If it was then it wasnt posted by me, even though I was the author.
I posted it on 2 or 3 west ham fan sites so it might well have been taken and posted on the mailing lists.

panicfc · Jan 24, 2004

Originally posted by Dazza WHUFC
If it was then it wasnt posted by me, even though I was the author.
I posted it on 2 or 3 west ham fan sites so it might well have been taken and posted on the mailing lists.
Click to expand...

Maybe that's where I saw it.

Keep the reports coming.