What do you do when your football team is shit? This is a deep and profound question that goes to the very heart of the underlying philosophy of our national game. A less pretentious person would see the irony in intellectualising something that is far more animal, basic and visceral than ‘mere’ thought.

But the first consideration is always: ‘who does a football team belong to?’. And the only answer to that question is ‘the fans’. Because really, no-one else gives a toss as long as the money keeps rolling in. Some of the players are passionately loyal. Until a better offer comes along. And I don’t blame them for that. The managers are the way the club performs at any given time, how they play, how they set up, what their immediate goals (no pun) are. Then they get sacked or leave for more money elsewhere too. The owners have their own agendas. Some see their team as a viable way of writing off losses for tax purposes. Others, like the Glazers at Manchester United, see the club as a cash cow, to be milked extensively and often, using any form of obscure financial wheedling they can. The Oligarchs own teams to try and keep their profiles high enough that the KGB don’t kill them in Pizza Express. And the Oil Barons just buy ‘toys’ all around the globe because they have nothing else to do and are prepared to pay very handsomely for the vanity of buying ‘success’.

So a club is really just the fans. They bear the name, the badge, the shirt, through good and bad. Til death do they part. But unlike marriage, there is NO divorce ever from your club. Its the tattoo that can’t be erased or covered up.

Thus is fan ‘protest’ an acceptable form of voicing an opinion, normally that their team are shit and heads need to roll. sumfink needs ter be dunn!!! So they hoist banners that ‘WENGER MUST GO!!!’ or that ‘Mike Ashley is vile’, neither of which anyone would deny. And then there’s West Ham.

Their team are indeed shit. No one would question that. More interestingly, they’ve always been shit, so why all the problem now? But unlike ‘civilised fans’ (a contradiction in terms if e’er there was), those ‘ammers don’t do peaceful, thoughtful protest. They gang up with horrible collective aggression and violence and launch an attack on the director’s box. That’s not to mention the total morons who invaded the pitch, mid-game, to… errr… to… do something disruptive and incur the wrath of the Premiership who will inevitably make things much worse for the club and the fans as a consequence. But the evil intent on the faces of those 20 or 30 throw-back Neanderthal’s out for David Sullivan’s blood (Sullivan duly bottled out 10 minutes later) was a really horrible sight to behold. Ugly.

If they impose sanctions on West Ham and perhaps play in an empty stadium for a few games, that, in terms of atmosphere, won’t actually make much difference at the London Stadium.

Ban them from the league. Relegate them to the Victoria’s Secrets Dulux Paints 3rd division (South) for a few years. Til they can learn to behave.

Happy Sunday (Spurs have just taken the lead at Bournemouth so I’m hopeful)

A xxxx