West Ham United are struggling to find sponsors for their new stadium. Currently named ‘the London stadium’, in honour of the city they stole it from, the club are desperate to find ‘that deal’ but have now almost exhausted all the middle eastern airlines with no sign of success. They’re now approaching Stanley Knives to see if they’d like to spend 50 million quid having their product name emblazoned across the former Olympic Park centrepiece and others have been approached too.

It could become The Stab Vest. The Knuckle Duster. How about the Pie & Mash? Like its a big pub or cafe? Real East End stuff. How great would that be? Ok, not very, granted. But its a thought. Because otherwise David Gold will just do some corporate shuffling of funds and call the stadium The Anne Summers. Or why not just The Dildo? An appropriate metaphor for many of those who frequent the place. And I dare say Mr Gold could find a way to use his corporation to gain from a massive naming rights deal in his stadium, and get the council to pay 96% of it. He has ‘form’ in such matters.

Or they could call it: The 1984! In honour of the retrospective they appear to be staging there at the moment. Bringing back all the joys of the past, all the history of inter-city-firms, of mass violence, pre-match, post-match, during-match, or riots, running battles down high streets, hurling missiles, all the fun of the past. And also ‘The 1984’ would tip its hat at the futuristic dystopian world Orwell created as his version of a ‘hell-on-earth’. Which is again an appropriate metaphor for West Ham’s stadium.

The sad thing (one of 96) is that with the advent of the Premiership, with the shifting of the game ever corporate-wards, with the massive money in the game and its every gentrifying effect, we thought the ‘bovver boy’ days had been consigned to yesteryear. But apparently not in the East End, where they have risen like the phoenix from the ashes of the shit-hole that was the Boleyn ground.

They’ve identified 200 scumbags from this and other photos of the Chelsea match t’other night. Who’ll be banned for probably 10 years from football. My worry is: then where will they go? They’re going to want to start fights and hit people, I’d much rather they were doing it at The 1984 than on the streets of London. Much rather they were hitting Chelsea fans than little girls in TopShop.

You can put lipstick on a pig…

Happy Friday

A xxxx