Het grote WEST HAM UNITED topic #1

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The Championship final

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Hammers hoping to avoid another player exodus

A second play-off failure today could force club to sell its future again

Daniel Taylor in Chicago and Arindam Rej
Monday May 30, 2005
The Guardian

West Ham followers never tire of boasting how "we won England the World Cup", but these days they must find watching the national team a galling experience. Of Sven-Goran Eriksson's starting XI against the United States on Saturday, Joe Cole, Glen Johnson and Michael Carrick all began their careers in claret and blue, David James is another ex-Hammer and the two-goal hero Kieran Richardson was enrolled with the youth academy before, in Sir Trevor Brooking's words, Manchester United "nabbed him off us".

When Jermain Defoe came off the bench there were six former Hammers winning caps while affiliated to new employers. "And don't forget Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand," Brooking, a West Ham director, former player and manager and an unashamed fanatic, pointed out at Chicago's Soldier Field. "They're world-class players for Chelsea and Manchester United now ... and both started with us."
As Alan Pardew's team go into today's play-off final against Preston North End, their supporters can easily be forgiven for wondering what might have been had this collection of multi-talented individuals stayed together. In total, the club has made around £50m from selling their most prized assets. But what price prestige? Or qualifying for the Champions League?

Instead, the cold reality is that the Hammers' Premiership parachute payments end this season, so if they lose to Preston they are likely to have to slash their £12m wage bill by half. The cream of the latest crop of young claret-and-blue talent may again have to be sold off.

Pardew winces when he goes through the list of recent departures, and it does not ease the sense of what-if that Lampard is now the Football Writers' Association player of the year and that United regard Ferdinand so highly they are willing to make him the highest-paid player in the club's history.

"The memory of those players is drilled into us every Saturday night on Match of the Day," Pardew says. "Jermain Defoe, Michael Car rick, Joe Cole ... They're all West Ham players but ultimately because of the relegation we couldn't keep them. It hurts."

"It's one of the biggest sources of frustrations among our supporters," concurs Brooking, in Chicago in his role as the FA's technical director. "There's pride at seeing how well they have done, but it's tinged with regret."

The West Ham story is a mix of perceptive planning and calamitous contractual mismanagement. Though the academy has a deserved reputation for excellence, its success is overshadowed by the decision to pay the sixth highest wage bill in the country, £31.59m, to the squad that was relegated two years ago. Paolo Di Canio raked in £38,000 a week, Cole was on £33,500 and Carrick was paid £31,000.

Hammers fans regularly decry their chairman Terence Brown and concoct conspiracy theories to explain where the money from the subsequent sales has gone. The club is said to be £30m in debt after the completion of a new stand intended to increase attendances.

Yet in his defence Brown, who has been in charge for nine years, can point to the way in which the board has helped its outstanding youth policy to continue flourishing in adversity. Tony Carr, West Ham's youth academy director, has reaped the benefits as, rather than cut the money spent on the academy, the board chose to carry on investing in the club's famous production line.

"The funding from the board has been very good," Carr says. "The academy structure hasn't been touched. It's very high on the priority list. The board have always believed in a strong youth policy and that hasn't changed. If we go up there will be no change and if we stay in this division there will be no change."

The benefits of the policy have been obvious this season, in the burgeoning partnership of the 20-year-old central defenders Elliott Ward and Rio's brother Anton Ferdinand and the occasionally sublime contributions of 18-year-old Mark Noble. "We are trying to make new great players," Carr says. "Mark Noble, Marlon Harewood, Nigel Reo-Coker, Elliott Ward, Anton Ferdinand. These are the players where our future lies, and the important thing for us is to get promoted to keep them and build on them."

West Ham's young stars have high standards to aspire to and desperately want to replicate them. "I speak to Jermain Defoe quite a bit," says Anton Ferdinand. "I speak to Coley when I see him, Mickey [Carrick] and Johnno [Johnson]. It would be wicked to play against them type of players. West Ham like to blood young kids fast. If you've got the ability it doesn't matter about age. They'll put you into their reserve team no matter what. I played for the under-19s when I was a schoolboy. That's a good thing."

Pardew credits the Ward and Ferdinand partnership for saving West Ham's season, as they produced a solid end to the season - only one defeat in their last 10 games - to help their team sneak back into the final play-off place they had briefly let slip out of their grip.

Pardew has been this season's great survivor. "Every game has been do-or-die stuff," he says. "Press down here say, 'This is it, Alan. This is the game where it all matters, isn't it?' I've had that said to me about 10 times. New Year's Day we had to go to Ipswich on a tricky run and we won. We were on a tricky run when we went to Sunderland and we won. And then everybody said our season could end at Wigan and we won."

Promotion will be worth as much as £20m to today's winners. "It would mean we would move on to phase two where we can start to bring in players," Pardew explains. "Phase one was done when we reduced the deficit in terms of debt to a manageable level. When we get promoted, and hopefully that will be on Monday, it can take us to a level which perhaps this club deserves."

England's one-time West Ham contingent will be training when the match kicks off in Cardiff, although Cole is keen to watch and Brooking has found a bar in Manhattan that is showing the match.

"If we go up you just have to hope that our younger lads show they are good enough and stay at the club," he says. "Rio's brother Anton has been as consistent as anyone in the team over the last four months. He's only 20 and has all the attributes to be a Premiership player. Then there's Mark Noble, who turned 18 this month and, again, he has all the characteristics to have a successful career."

Today's encounter may decide whether or not that success comes in claret-and-blue colours.