BEWARE...HERE BE PIRATES
















Whenever the media don't know the fine print or details of a transaction whose very conditions are beyond the brain power of the smallest bear in Hunderd Acre Wood you can usually be guaranteed that at sometime during proceedings you will hear the following:

"But surely the fans deserve to know" (translation - "we don't normally give a stuff about football supporters but we've set aside forty five minutes for this discussion so answer the sodding question.")

"The source of the money is a bit of a mystery." ("It's Sunday, I'd rather be at home with the wife and the economics editor is on his yacht in the Solent.")

"Isn't this another example of a British company falling into foreign ownership?" ("Look first Austin Rover, then HP Sauce now a football club supported by more horrible Cockneys than you can shake a stick at....I'm running out of things to say....HELP!)

This really, really annoys me. One quarter of the Premiership teams will be in foreign ownership if the West Ham deal goes through (Aston Villa, Chelsea, Man.Utd and Portsmouth being the current Fab Four), and from the hysteria in some parts of the media you would have thought we'd sold the Royal Family to the Germans.

I really don't care, hand on claret and blue heart who owns my club. As long as it's still West Ham and plays in claret and blue at the Boleyn (or Stratford from 2012) fine. The only thing that remains stable at a football club are its supporters, the emotional committment that is beyond money, be it sterling, dollars or whatever.

Do you know what the first thing was that I said when I heard about the possible takeover? "I hope they don't sack Alan Pardew".

Not, "Great, we can buy back all the stars we've sold over the past five years (except Fat Frank of course, he's pissed on his chips in his new book I'm afraid)," but I hope they don't sack the person who has given us back our footballing dignity and traditions.

Some people in the media who never venture beyond the televsion or radio studios bandy the words "tradition" and "not British" about at times like these. Well I'll tell you something, prior to 1992 my football tradition meant Saturdays at 3 p.m and Tuesday nights under the floodlights, since SKY and their huge wads of cash came on board I've seen West Ham play everyday of the week except Thursday because of television's demands.

The F.A Cup has lost its replays, it's played over two or three days in the early rounds and winning the League Cup no longer merits a U.E.F.A Cup place.

Tradition my arse.