I recently put a friendship to the test during an argument over football. In fact, we are still not speaking, and that’s probably the reason I gave the subject some more thought.
The crux of the issue was that that he firmly believes West Ham is a yo-yo club, and I firmly do not.
The friend in question, a Crystal Palace fan, is still basking in the glory of their promotion back into the Premier League. I have no strong rivalry towards Palace, but a slur against my team from someone whose own club is generally considered to have a lower status, certainly got my back up.
If the yo-yo analogy had come from a supporter of a perpetually successful team, it may have carried more clout, although I would have remained perturbed. My honest feeling remains that we cannot be branded as such, because we have too much history in the top flight of English football.
A yo-yo club is one that has regularly switches between the leagues, without ever forming an identity as a force in any. Teams like Bolton, Norwich and Birmingham have occupied the position of being strong in the Championship, but not up to the levels of the Premiership.
Admittedly, in recent years we have failed to find the stability to establish ourselves in the top half of the Premiership.
But I believe we are a Premier League club that reluctantly visits our Championship cousins when we have been naughty.
I see West Ham as a genuine top ten English Club with mixed fortunes, strong history, thriving culture and a dedicated world-wide fan base.
Form changes with the players on the pitch and the coaching staff off it, but what confirms a club’s longer term status is the infrastructure and resources it has to hand, alongside that history.
Since the Premier League started in 1992, we have been in the lower division three times, for four years in total. We finished second in Division One in 92-93 to earn promotion, and have only been relegated on two other occasions.
In the all-time Premier League table, we sit 11th, well clear of Leeds in 12th and having played more games than Manchester City in the division.
We are 22nd in all top flight attendances out of the 45 teams to have played in the 21 seasons.
Those are not the statistics of a team that has yo-yoed between the leagues, nor represents a club frequently on the slide in terms of overall status.
All I need now is for West Ham to avoid the dreaded second season syndrome, followed by a call from my mate apologising.
To be fair we have been a bit of a yo yo club over the last 20 years or so but everyone knows West Ham are a big club with a massive fan base and shouldn’t have been. We are a top ten premier league club in terms of size and should be aiming to be a top 4 club when we move into our new stadium and i think we will be to be honest. COYI’S
well said we wont drop , definitely not never , we need another striker and central midfielder and a defender all top quality we will be top 4 in 2 yrs
I’m afraid I agree with your friend. We have been somewhat of a Yo-Yo club since I started supporting them in 1973. That said I think we are now entering a crucial season where if we can finish in the top half again we can truly establish ourselves at a top 10 team. Big Sam and the board are taking us in the right direction, and the future is looking more stable than it has for years. WHTID
Also a club of our size should always be in the top division and anything else just aint acceptable.
No one has any RIGHT to be in the premier league that has to be earned, which we haven’t done on two occasions since the premier league began. That is not what I call yo-yo. West Brom, Sunderland, Middlesboro are prime examples of yo-yo clubs.
We’re not a yoyo club, we’ve been relegated twice in the last 20 years and spent only 3 seasons out of the premier league. We’re a a top flight club that has had a couple of blips. West brom are the best example of a yoyo club; never seem to get an extended run in the prem but tend to come straight back up when they do go down!
With regards to 2nd season syndrome, it’s a myth! Fact is you have a far higher chance of being relegated 1st season on the league. And if you look at tecent years teams like hull and Blackpool only survived the first year by the smallest margin and with a low points total that would’ve relegated them in other seasons
Whilst your stats cannot be argued with… and i too hope that we are now a top ten club…
We have been a little up and down over our more recent history..
Bolton cannot be described as you have stated.. they has their stay in the PL and then left… I hope we say up for at least as long as they did!
COYI..
Some of you lot make me laugh..At this point in time we have just about the same squad we had last season as the transfers have been nothing special (carroll included..overpriced and injury prone)..as every year we blow our chance to sign better players…bony and redmond examples..if we dont sign 2 very good strikers before start of the season we WILL struggle this season
I think it’s pathetic that some fans are getting their thongs in a twist a week after the window opens? And we have strengthened already in one of our weak points from last year and signed and England international who is 24! When did we last do that?
As for bony and Redmond do you really know much about them? Redmonds value dropped by 7-8m based on 2 seasons ago. This is a guy last year that was outshone by both Morrison and hall when he was there. He wouldn’t get Anywhere near the 1st team for a couple of years at least IF he ever made the grade.
Have you really seen bony other than you tube clips? He’s going to Swansea for almost 14m, only 2m less than big Andy. He’s had 1 good season in an average league, he’s a risk where Carroll isn’t. If we spend our wedge on this guy and he flops we’re in real trouble!
We have 6 weeks till the window closes, will sign new players and if Morrison has sorted his head out he could be like a new signing in itself! We’ll be fine, I’ve no worries about bring in a relegation scrap, and as a hammers fan that is unusual
2 relgations and 3 season in the chamionship in 20 years.. please explain how at any point that is a yoyo club..
If you looked at the 25-year history of clubs like Wolves, Palace, Birmingham, West Brom, Stoke, Bolton, Leicester, Nottingham Forest, Derby, Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United, Leeds, Southampton, Sunderland, Norwich, Charlton and even Manchester City you’d see real patterns of yo-yoing! Thankfully, whenever West Ham were relegated from the top flight during this period they came back very quickly. Some of these clubs disappeared for years and most of them dropped into the third tier.
we are not a yo-yo club we are just a club who has made two very costly errors in recent times i.e Roeder and Grant as two managers who never should have been anywhere near the club. Also reading the comment to say we need 2 strikers please stop talking rubbish, we need another striker and a right winger that is all. To say Carroll is nothing special shows your total lack of knowledge about how the game is a team game.
I love your optimism…cant believe you think 1 striker is enough…say 1 gets injured ( and carroll will)..then what?…1 striker playing on his own and nothing on the bench?..watch this transfer window..we will panic buy on last day of window
I can’t believe your naive enough to think we’ll go in to the season with 1 striker, especially as he may not even be fit for the start if the campaign
not sure if we need one or two more strikers by only having two at the club would it mean we would be limited to playing 4 5 1 if we were chasing a game and one of our strikers was out injured how could we go 4 4 2 and we do need a right winger aswell it would be a statement of intent if the owners were bring in two strikers i spose theres other positions to cover aswell shelvey might have been a good signing as oneil has left we have the league and 2 cups if bfs takes the cups serious we dont need a squad the size of swansea as they are in europe they could have a run in both cups and say 12 games in europe and could well do a wigan so we need quality signings but gambles like bony aint worth the risk maybe we could have a young player or two come through the money involved for bony plus wages are mad im sure our side might be not to different from last year but as things are going if we finish between 8th anf 12th itl be a good season
Whenever West Ham were relegated in the past it was due to the mis-management of the club’s directors downwards, and usually not long after a period of relative success. E.g. The Bonds, Brooking and Lampard team that won the FA Cup in 1975 and reached a European final a year later, were relegated in 1978. Then after the brilliant season of 1985-86, came the subsequent sales of the likes of Goddard, McAvennie and Cottee….which resulted in relegation in 1989 and not long afterwards the departure of Mark Ward. The discord on the terraces and the season-long protests after the money-grabbing board introduced the ‘bond scheme’ relegated West Ham again in 1992 Harry’s team finished 5th in 1999 and played in Europe. Then Rio Ferdinand and Lampard junior were sold but they still had a team with excellent players in James, Schemmel, Repka, Ian Pearce, Lomas, Sinclair, Di Canio, Carrick, Joe Cole, Kanoute, Defoe and an emerging Johnson. Brevitt, Bowyer and Les Ferdinand were added, but nothing could stop the Irons going down in 2003 after finishing 7th the year before! We can look in the direction of Terence Brown and anyone with the surname of Cearns as responsible for the above. It was Brown who eventually cashed in to the highest bidder – an Icelandic banker – which lead to further chaos on and off the field for the next three years. Even when the two David’s stepped in, they got it completely wrong in appointing Avram Grant as boss. Again, a reasonably talented squad that consisted the likes of Green, Upson, Bridge, Parker, Noble, Hitzlsperger, Robbie Keane, Carlton Cole, Demba Ba and others, should’ve finished well clear of the bottom 5 or 6….but they didn’t. With the current West Ham squad being assembled under Allardyce and the new stadium looming in 2016, Gold and Sullivan wouldn’t dare mess it up as they know there would be hell to pay if they did. Older West Ham fans like myself have witnessed for years how much their club was abused by former chairmen, whose lack of ambition and greed might’ve ended in extinction. Can you imagine where West Ham would be now if a total positive direction had been adhered to from the mid-60’s, instead of the total shambles that followed?
The only yo-yo I can see now is top and bottom half of the table.