Monthly Archives: January 2011
Why Andy Carroll is worth £160,000,000
It’s transfer deadline day in January. Yes, that day of the footballing year where fans look excitedly towards the BBC (or Sky if you’re that way inclined… you sexists) for their rolling online coverage of the movers and shakers in these final hours of 31st January. It’s the time where the bigger clubs gobble up the better players of the smaller clubs at over-inflated prices, where Manchester United refuse to come out and play and where panic buying takes on a whole new multi-million pound meaning.
Stratford Hotspur
A decision is due in the coming weeks on the future of the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, East London. West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur Football Clubs have both thrown their respective hats in the ring to be the new proprietors of the magnificent new stadium, following the London 2012 Olympics. For West Ham, a move of less than three miles from Green Street to just off the Romford Road seems like a small step, their supporters seemingly unperturbed by the thought of leaving their beloved Boleyn Ground to the property developers. In fact the Hammers fans you will encounter, on the whole see only positives, financially and logistically from such a transition. Spurs fans today, however, have echoed the sentiments of local Member of Parliament, David Lammy, in loudly and definitively voicing their objections to the Board of Directors and their partners in the Olympic stadium bid, AEG.
The rise of the mediocre
Wayne Bridge completed his loan move to West Ham this week, after the Davids Gold and Sullivan agreed to cover his reported £80,000 per week wage as well as paying his parent club, Manchester City, an apparent six-figure loan fee. An astute signing many a West Ham fan will have you believe – one life-long Hammer in fact remarked earlier today when questioned about this signing, “Really? We’ve had Tal Ben Haim at left-back all season. Tal. Ben. Haim.”. If United stay in the Premier League due in some part to the input of the England International, then indeed this deal can be seen as a success. The statistics however do not bode well for a player unforgivingly stalked by a series of niggling injuries since he last played more than 30 games in a single season, in the 2003/04 season for Chelsea.Keep it down Karren
Karren Brady’s football diary was designed to be a delightful insight into the inner mechanisms of the beautiful game. Surely, this business woman so schooled in the arts of corporatism and fiscal diplomacy could shed some light on what goes on behind the scenes at one of London’s best supported teams or, we would hope, even the Premier League.
No. Not a bit. Not even a tiny bit.
