Crystal Palace manager

[Guest firetotheworks]

It was Pardew's 'football decision' if we're to take him by his word. Which I wouldn't personally, but then he was more than happy to bring him back into the side when it all came out...which is a bit odd. More than happy to use Jonas's cancer announcement to try and overshadow a protest against Pardew vs Hull as well...bit odd that considering he'd already made the 'football decision' to tell him to find a new club. Club decision or not, Pardew was the one with the message to pass on and he did it deplorably, 'the club' also brought him back into the team.

[Dinho lad]

Santon was one of few of Pardew signings. He was dumped by Carver.

 

Routledge didn't perform here in the PL. Same for Marveaux.

 

Abeid was definitely not the same player that he was at the start of last season when he was being shipped out on loan under Pardew.

[Sho Time]

I think it was more likely a club decision, especially as he had been declining well before anybody knew he had cancer. He was constantly getting game time despite playing poorly as he fit the Pardew ethic of 'work hard, play shit'.

 

The decision not to play and basically make him an outcast is something I reckon came from the top, Pardew saying it was a football decision seems like something he's been told to say, especially when prior to the cancer news he was constantly starting, which was annoying the shit out of everyone.

[Dinho lad]

Also, Jonas was clearly not performing and therefore it was a good decision to remove him from the line-up.

 

But obviously his overall treatment by Pardew and/or the club was a disgrace.

[Guest firetotheworks]

I like how people are painting Pardew as merely being the deliverer of the 'fuck off' and not the instigator as something that he's not in any way responsible for. If it was a club decision and Pardew had to deliver the news, he probably could have done a better job than 'find another club' a couple of weeks after he'd been diagnosed with cancer, particularly to someone that had served us so well. Honestly, it really sticks in my throat when Pardew gets a free ride on the whole Jonas thing. People forget that Jonas came back and Carver played him as well.

 

In the best case scenario, Pardew was a puppet with the ability to tell a man with cancer to find another club. The bloke is an absolute scumbag, at best.

[Guest firetotheworks]

I think it was more likely a club decision, especially as he had been declining well before anybody knew he had cancer. He was constantly getting game time despite playing poorly as he fit the Pardew ethic of 'work hard, play shit'.

 

The decision not to play and basically make him an outcast is something I reckon came from the top, Pardew saying it was a football decision seems like something he's been told to say, especially when prior to the cancer news he was constantly starting, which was annoying the shit out of everyone.

 

Like seriously, how is any of this in any way an excuse for Pardew? Particularly when it's guess work and the official line from the club, Pardew and Jonas is that it was a football decision.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Also, Jonas was clearly not performing and therefore it was a good decision to remove him from the line-up.

 

But obviously his overall treatment by Pardew and/or the club was a disgrace.

 

That's my feeling too, the illness obviously made everything much worse but he was way past his useful life for the team. If he ever had one. Massively respect the guy though, and grateful for his saving goal.

[The College Dropout]

Alan Pardew is a shyster, a fraud, a liar, a coward, a opportunist etc. but I don't think he had much genuine power at the club. If he did the team would look much different to the one he had. Santon & Jonas in particular went from Teflon Don's to not even making the bench - seemingly over night.

[Sho Time]

I think it was more likely a club decision, especially as he had been declining well before anybody knew he had cancer. He was constantly getting game time despite playing poorly as he fit the Pardew ethic of 'work hard, play s***'.

 

The decision not to play and basically make him an outcast is something I reckon came from the top, Pardew saying it was a football decision seems like something he's been told to say, especially when prior to the cancer news he was constantly starting, which was annoying the s*** out of everyone.

 

Like seriously, how is any of this in any way an excuse for Pardew? Particularly when it's guess work and the official line from the club, Pardew and Jonas is that it was a football decision.

 

It's not an excuse for Pardew, it's my opinion on how I think the powers that be run the club. I can't stand Alan Pardew as much as the next man but I think it speaks volumes that he was starting every game under him and then as soon as the cancer news comes out it's "find a new club, it's a footballing decision" only after that time. Prior to that Pardew's usual patter was that Jonas is invaluable to the team due to his work ethic but then immediately after the news he's ostracised and told to find a new club.

 

You know as well as I do the 'official' line from the club means jack s*** in most instances. There's always an agenda.

[Jack Flash]

Never forgive, never forget. He's the biggest cunt who ever lived.

 

West Ham kit man

 

I don’t like Alan Pardew. There, I’ve said it. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever known a more arrogant person in my life. We never got on from the first moment we met – and our relationship deteriorated from there. There was one occasion when I threatened to stick a fork in his hand. I was sort of joking, but there were definitely times when I felt like swinging at him. Or telling him to fork off, if you follow my drift.

 

Let me tell you a story. In fact, it’s called the ‘King story’ among those who were present and who believe it’s a perfect example of Pardew’s arrogance. We were staying at a hotel in the North East ahead of a game at Sunderland during Alan’s first season in charge and were about to have our Friday evening meal. The players were restricted to boiled chicken or pasta, or suchlike, whereas the rest of the West Ham party had the choice of the entire menu. I sat down with Pardew, kit manager Eddie Gillam, physiotherapist John Green and fitness coach Tony Strudwick, who now works for Manchester United and has done very well for himself. We ordered our meals and suddenly Pardew asked us all what we were having. I think Eddie said he’d gone for the chicken, while I’d chosen the steak. Pards then turned to Struds, who revealed whatever it was he’d asked for. ‘That sounds good,’ said Pards. ‘Tell you what; if yours is better than mine when it turns up, I’m having that.’ That was one of the things he’d always say: I’m having that. ‘See that bloke’s haircut? I’m having that.’ He said it all the time. Anyway, I wasn’t ‘having that’ at all. So I said, ‘Well, you’re certainly not having my dinner. You’ll get a fork in the back of your hand!’ Pardew sort of laughed, before turning back to Struds and saying, ‘Yeah, if yours is better than mine, I’m having that.’ Our meals eventually arrived and Pards looked at Tony and said, ‘Yeah, I was right, yours definitely looks much better than mine; I’m having that.’ And he went to swap the plates over. ‘You can’t do that!’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘You can’t just take somebody else’s dinner,’ I said in disbelief. And he replied, without any hint of a joke, ‘When you’re the King, you can do anything.’ Eddie, Tony, John and I just looked at each other and there was an uncomfortable silence for a moment. Struds was a nice guy but he could be a bit of a ‘yes man’ at times and so he just allowed Pardew to swap the plates. However, the rest of us were flabbergasted by it all and we ended up discussing what had happened in the bar. Alan kept a straight face when referring to himself as ‘the King’ and I just couldn’t believe the arrogance of the man.

 

By sheer coincidence, our next away game was at Reading, Alan’s former club. Eddie and I took the team’s gear down to the Madejski Stadium before the game and one of the girls from the office came out and said, ‘Hello, how are you getting on with Alan Pardew?’ We just mumbled, ‘Yes, okay, you know…’ We were putting the kit out in the dressing room when a member of the Reading backroom staff popped his head in and asked, ‘So, how are you boys getting on with the King?’ We burst into laughter. We couldn’t believe that Alan had also used that term at Reading. ‘Yeah,’ the guy said, ‘he always used to call himself the King.’ From that moment on, that’s how the West Ham backroom team began to jokingly refer to Pards behind his back. ‘Seen the King yet today?’

 

We played Forest on the Wednesday evening and my usual routine before a home game would involve taking the young mascots into the dressing room to photograph them with some of the players. The kids were getting some autographs and I was just having a quick chat with Tim De’Ath, the club chef, who’d been sorting out the energy foods for the players, when Alan Pardew suddenly appeared and said, in quite a nasty way, ‘I’m not used to seeing photographers in my dressing room.’ ‘Oh really?’ I said. ‘I’m very sorry. Would you like me to leave?’ Alan proceeded to spend a short time pretending to think and then answered, ‘Yes, very soon I think.’ Where’s a fork when you need one? He couldn’t even ask me to leave the room nicely. He could have simply said, ‘Steve, when you’re finished, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t hang around the dressing room.’ But no, he had to be nasty and sarcastic about it.

 

I subsequently heard that Pardew had said a similar thing to Ges Steinbergs, the club doctor. The manager questioned his presence and Ges made the point that he wasn’t there for the fun of it but because he might be needed. It might have been that Pardew was trying to mark his territory because it was his first game in charge, but it seemed a funny way of trying to win friends and influence people. His attitude really annoyed me, to be honest. He showed no respect and that set the tone for our relationship – or lack of one.

 

Alan was very big on the psychology side of sport. I was told that he had a motivational CD that he would listen to in his car on the way into work. He was into all that sort of thing. One of the craziest things I heard was that he thought claret was a negative colour. He couldn’t understand why everything was claret and blue. They’re the club’s colours, for goodness’ sake! We found ourselves faced with a ridiculous scenario in which the manager started putting up mottos around the walls of the training ground and the stadium. There were quotes from icons such as Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King. (That’ll be the other King then, I suppose.) Some of the lads would say, ‘I don’t know what that f***ing means. I can’t even read it, let alone understand it.’ Don Hutchison, for example, could often be heard moaning, ‘What the f*** does that mean?’

 

Pardew got off to a slow start at West Ham, having to wait until his eighth game before tasting victory, but he took the team to a fourth-place finish that saw us qualify for the promotion play-offs. Brian Deane scored a last-minute equaliser in the final league game at Wigan Athletic and I just knew that we’d shot ourselves in the foot. That goal – one that we didn’t even need to score – pushed Wigan out of the play-off positions and elevated Crystal Palace, who we would eventually meet in the final at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

 

Everybody sensed that Palace were going to get the better of us – and so it proved, as they won the prize of promotion thanks to Neil Shipperley’s second-half strike. And they had West Ham to thank for getting them into the play-offs in the first place! What Pardew thought he was doing when he withdrew strikers Bobby Zamora, Marlon Harewood and David Connolly as we were chasing the game in the last twenty-five minutes I don’t know. But his strange strategy didn’t work and the word ‘king’ was certainly in my mind as the final whistle blew – ’king useless!

 

One of my great allies had gone by this stage: physiotherapist John Green. John was certainly not a ‘yes man’ and I know that he didn’t get on with Alan Pardew. From my understanding of the situation, Pards would ask John for his medical opinion on a player and if he didn’t get the answer he was looking for he’d often discount what John had said. John would insist, ‘I’m the professional here and I’m telling you that he shouldn’t play.’ He’d be at loggerheads with the manager for much of the time.

 

When it came down to it, John was too strong a character for Pardew and I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by his eventual departure. Somebody at the club leaked an email to John that confirmed his days at West Ham were numbered, with Pardew saying he wanted him out come what may. I think that helped John when it came to negotiating his settlement. It seemed a strange thing to happen because John was one of the most respected and qualified physios in the game.

 

Of course, the best thing the new owners did – at least as far as I’m concerned – was getting rid of Alan Pardew as manager. Eggy had initially declared his backing for Pards, who was really struggling with the side in the early part of the 2006/07 season. The top-half finish and the run to the FA Cup final seemed a distant memory as the Hammers lost an unprecedented eight games in succession, dropping into the relegation zone, crashing out of Europe (with defeat against Palermo in the first round of the UEFA Cup) and suffering embarrassment in the Carling Cup against lowly Chesterfield. Tévez and Mascherano were struggling to start games and there was a general feeling of disharmony in the camp.

 

The Hammers improved a little and managed to pick up a few decent results, including that 1-0 win against Arsenal, but a 4-0 defeat at Bolton proved to be the final nail in the coffin as far as Pardew’s job was concerned. Just two days later the manager was handed his P45 and I have to admit that I was delighted. John Green had always said we’d have a big party on the day Pardew left the club. I sent him a text when I heard the news and he replied with a message that said, ‘Party on!’ There has been plenty of speculation about why Magnússon chose to fire Pardew as manager. I read that Eggy said he had ‘reasons’ that he wanted to keep to himself, but it just seemed that the more he got to know about Pards the less inclined he felt to keep him. The results at that time certainly didn’t help Alan’s cause and he didn’t seem as popular with some of the players as he had done. I think the success of the previous two seasons – the promotion, the top-half finish and the FA Cup final – had gone to Pardew’s head a little and some of the players thought he was getting a bit too flash for their liking.

 

I remember when the club had their victory parade to celebrate promotion in 2005 and the players appeared on the balcony of the West Stand overlooking the forecourt at Upton Park. Don Hutchison was standing behind Pardew and when the manager went out to address the crowd – as if he was the Messiah – the midfielder started shouting, ‘Chocolate! Chocolate!’ I asked Hutch what he’d been on about and he said that Pardew loved himself so much that ‘if he was made of chocolate, he’d have eaten himself’. The team had just won promotion yet some of the players were quite literally laughing at the manager behind his back.

 

One thing that certainly didn’t make me laugh was when Pardew produced his ‘Moore than a football club’ T-shirt towards the end of his first season at the club. I thought that was a disgrace. As far as I was concerned, Pardew had no right to bring Bobby Moore’s name into things because he wasn’t a West Ham man himself. I saw it as a cheap trick and felt sure it was going to backfire on him, which I think in the end it did really since I suspect that people recognised the cynicism of it.

 

http://i61.tinypic.com/2zr47rk.jpg

 

When he’d gone to Charlton Athletic, shortly after leaving West Ham, a newspaper story emerged that suggested a director at The Valley believed Alan Pardew to be one of the most arrogant men he’d ever met in his life. I scanned the headline, used Photoshop to highlight ‘the most arrogant man I’ve ever met’ and emailed it to everyone I knew, adding, ‘You heard it here first!’ I’ve since heard that he’s ‘gunning’ for me after I was critical of him in an interview for a book about former West Ham managers. He bumped into Tim De’Ath at a game and asked if I was about. Tim was quick to say, ‘No, you stopped all that, didn’t you?’ And Pards said, ‘Well, tell him I’m gunning for him over that book.’ Surely he’s got more important things to worry about than what I think of him?

 

Given that Charlton and then Southampton both sacked him, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised by how well Pardew has done as manager of Newcastle United (taking them to fifth place in the Premier League in 2012 and winning the Barclays and LMA Manager of the Year awards). Mind you, I think that goes for most people, since many thought he was extremely lucky to land that position. I also find it hard to believe that he was linked with the England job following the resignation of Fabio Capello. But at the end of the day, it’s not his football credentials that concern me. I just don’t like the man.

 

West Ham stadium announcer

 

Pards was big on creating an atmosphere. He spoke a lot about building a ‘positive stadium’. A lot of this fell on my shoulders. For this reason Alan Pardew’s time at West Ham has a special place in my heart. He made the announcer’s role a lot more important. However, he also criticised me more than any other manager before or since, and often in public. I’m in two minds about where he rates in my all-time West Ham managers’ list. He was inspiring and committed, but he was also arrogant and cruel

 

Pards told me he wanted me to have a cup of tea with him in his office before every game. We'd have a chat about how to get the fans buzzing.

 

....

 

The going for a cup of tea in Alan's office before the game wasn't such a success. I went twice but only sat down once. The first time he had someone with him, so he asked me to come back in ten minutes. I did, but he'd gone.  He saw me later in the tunnel. ‘What’s your patter for today?’ he asked, clearly mistaking me for a shopping channel presenter trying to shift some dodgy vegetable chopping invention. I told him the various messages I was planning to make. He nodded his head sagely, clearly rubber stamping them. For a fan like me it was great to be working closely with the manager of West Ham, but announcing details of tickets on sale for upcoming games didn’t really need his approval. Pards went into the dressing room still nodding. Clearly our meeting was over. It hadn’t taken long, it achieved nothing and I didn’t get a brew.

 

Still, the next week I knocked on the door of his office again. He looked a bit surprised to see me, but invited me in. We sat down, me on a chair and him on the edge of his desk. It meant I had to look up at him, which was a bit odd. He had a mug of tea in his hand, but I wasn’t offered one. I felt a bit like a kid who’d been called to the headmaster’s office, except I hadn’t done anything wrong. Then he asked me what he could do for me. I reminded him that he’d asked me to come and see him in his office before every game. ‘That’s right,’ he said nodding thoughtfully, his lips pursed. He reminded me a bit of a Thunderbirds puppet, maybe Scott or Virgil, but definitely not Brains. ‘I want you to get the crowd rocking today. I want them 100 per cent behind the team. What I want you to do is to play ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’ just as the team are running out!’ So that was his brilliant plan.

 

He wanted me to play ‘Bubbles’ as the team ran out. What an incredible idea. If only we’d thought of it ourselves! Thank goodness a former glazier had arrived at the Academy of Football to give us the benefit of his knowledge of East London and its traditions. I sat in my seat looking up at him, wondering how to break to him the news that we’d been running out to this particular tune for as long as I could remember. His hair was virtually white, apart from a little bit of greying black at the front. He has an intense way of looking at you that suggests that you will agree with him. He was completely still, a bit like the Thunderbirds pictures on the wall at Tracy Island. When the brothers contacted base, the eyes on their picture would flash on and off. Actually thinking about it, there was an Alan in Thunderbirds and he had white hair. He was the astronaut, or was it space cadet? The real Alan’s eyes showed no signs of flashing, so I had to think quickly. I didn’t want to make our new manager feel uncomfortable, so I replied that it was a great idea. I would ensure that we played ‘Bubbles’ every week as the team ran out. He nodded his approval, slid off the desk and opened the door. It appeared that this meeting was over, either he was leaving the room or I was. It turned out it was me. I never did get a cup of tea from Alan, so I popped into the press lounge for a brew. I wrote on my clipboard ‘Bubbles’ in big letters, just in case I forgot.

 

The next two matches I knocked on Alan’s door and he wasn’t there either time. After that I stopped going. Any more memos from the Department of the Bleeding Obvious would have to be delivered to me at impromptu meetings in the tunnel. There weren’t any more memos, just the same one, over and over again. Every time Alan saw me pre-match, he’d say, ‘Get them going today, remember Bubbles really loud before kick-off.’ It was like he had a pre-match checklist. 1. Have a mug of tea on my own in my office. 2. Find a place for Hayden Mullins in the team, any position will do. 3. Tell Jeremy to play ‘Bubbles’ before kick-off. 4. Check in with Tracy Island that there’s no mission today. 5. Take seat in dugout briefly, before pacing about shouting. 6. Stand up at the press conference, so the reporters look smaller.

 

Pards not only bent my ear about having a positive atmosphere in the stadium, he also made the training ground a positive place to go to work. He had pictures of Bobby Moore taken down at Chadwell Heath, because he felt the club lived in the past a bit. They were replaced with motivational messages. Nothing wrong with that, psychology is a big part of the modern game. But then he sanctioned a range of West Ham T-shirts in the club shop which read ‘Moore than just a football team’. Now in my book, if you are going to start wrapping yourself in the name of Bobby Moore, you’d better be very special indeed. Maybe ‘I’ve bitten off Moore than I can chew’, would have been more appropriate. Defoe and James were sold as the board balanced the books. The football we were playing had little to do with the traditions of Bobby Moore, maybe the shirts were about Dudley Moore? But, dire as it was to watch, Pards did start to grind out some results. We crept up the table and eventually finished fourth, earning a play-off semifinal against Ipswich.

 

I was summoned to a meeting at the training ground to discuss the pre-match build-up. Ipswich had won the first leg by a goal to nil. The atmosphere at Portman Road had been electric. Pards wanted to make sure we dug deep and gave the Tractor Boys a rough ride. A positive stadium was called for, he told me. Brilliant plan, Alan, I never would have thought of that. Surprise, surprise, he wanted me to play ‘Bubbles’ before the game. Even more surprising I was offered a cup of tea, but he didn’t make it. Still, I nearly fell off my chair in excitement. Other plans included the playing of the ‘Post Horn Gallop’ as the teams emerged from the tunnel. This is a fox hunting fanfare played on a long straight instrument called a post horn. West Ham used to run out to it in the 1950s and Pards had been promised by his coach Roger Cross that it would generate a terrific atmosphere. I couldn’t quite see the relevance of a fox hunting tune in the East End, but it’s hard to argue against tradition. My mission was to create a wall of sound. Alan wanted it loud.

 

On the walls at Chadwell Heath were lots of these motivational messages that he loved so much. This time there were new posters about the Ipswich game. They were all about the number of ‘golden crosses’ that Pards wanted to see flying in on the night. We were clearly going for an attacking policy, with crosses in the box the key to winning the contest. Pards told me on no account was I to mention to anyone the ‘night of the golden crosses’ plan. Even though I was a lifelong West Ham fan, who’d been charged with creating a game-winning atmosphere, he still felt it necessary to tell me not to give the tactics away. On the day of the game Pards contacted me via press officer Peter Stewart, asking for a certain song to be played that night. I told you he was hands on! The tune was ‘Luck Be A Lady’ by Frank Sinatra. So, with all his talk of a positive stadium and how it was all about belief, he had panicked at the last minute and decided to throw himself at the feet of Lady Luck.

 

Pards had a new slogan T-shirt for the final, something about us being the original academy. In his mind he was Stephen Fry, but in reality he came across as Barry Fry. Having ridden the Bobby Moore wave, he’d now gone back even further in time. But, Malcolm Allison never plotted tactics like these with the salt and pepper pots at Cassettari’s Café. We didn’t pass mustard; in fact we hardly passed the ball. It was a shocking performance and Crystal Palace were worthy winners by a goal to nil. Hayden Mullins played out of position at left back. Pards loved Hayden and though he was a good determined midfielder, he was no full back. The other thing I’ve never understood about that game was Pardew’s decision to take off his three strikers: Marlon Harewood, Bobby Zamora and David Connolly. We were a goal down, needing to score to get back into the final and he took off the three men most likely to score.

 

In January 2005 we lost 2–0 at home to a Sheffield United team in bright orange shirts which were far too loud to be worn in a built-up area. It was like losing to a team of stewards. If you’re serious about promotion you can’t be losing home games to your rivals at the top. I was disappointed and for the FA Cup tie with Norwich I wrote what was perceived by Pards as a negative column in the programme. It pretty much echoed what he’d said after the Sheffield United game, but I’d forgotten that I was chief cheerleader. Pards was allowed to moan, but my job was propaganda not free thinking. I was told my column was being rested for the next three games. The offence must have been more serious than I first thought, because I never returned to writing for the programme, which is a real shame.

 

Another time I was publicly criticised by the manager at a press conference. After a bad run of results we were winning a game when the stadium manager asked me to do an announcement about problems on the District Line. It meant people would have trouble getting home, so he felt it would be best to give them a chance to leave early. I queried this, saying that it would lead to a mass exodus which would kill the atmosphere, just when we needed a boost. However, he was adamant and I’m duty-bound to follow his instructions. Pards went nuts. He glared at me as he left the pitch, but didn’t say anything. He saved that until he was in front of journalists in a packed press lounge. He ranted about how his team had just had a great result, but hardly anyone was left to applaud them off the pitch, because the announcer was more interested in giving out train times. I sat quietly at the back thinking that was a bit harsh. A few journalists asked me for comments but I just smiled and left. I’ll always back the manager of my team. I think Pards did some great things at West Ham, but I found his style of belittling people in public rather cruel and unnecessary.

 

With six games to go, we were seventh in the table, two points outside the play-off positions. We were playing Coventry that day, and I did my best to get the crowd going, but I made another big mistake according to Pards. Championship leaders Sunderland were playing fifth-placed Reading in the day’s early kick-off. Visitors Reading were the surprise winners and I announced the score before our game. It seemed perfectly reasonable to do so, as Reading, previously managed by Pards, were one of the teams we were chasing. My mistake, according to Alan, was to completely kill the atmosphere. By announcing bad news, I had destroyed all positivity within a ten-mile radius of Upton Park; never mind that most of the fans had watched the closing minutes of the Sunderland/ Reading game on the plasma screens in the concourses before taking their seats. I had actually verbalised the bad news and that meant we would surely lose. In fact we won 3–0, our third win in a week, but I was still in the doghouse. Pardew thought the fans’ sole purpose in life was to cheer his team on, they weren’t allowed to have any thoughts of their own. They weren’t to be fed any information, just good news or no news. It was all a bit 1984 for my liking. I was waiting for Pards to invite me to room 101 and not serve me a cup of tea. I can’t help thinking that having won 3–0 he might have created a more positive atmosphere himself by praising his team in his post-match interviews, rather than laying into the poor old announcer, who was just doing his job. Instead Pards slaughtered me in public, not for the first time, and then moaned about a fan protest after the game, which was aimed at the board not him. Why mention it? Come on, Alan, let’s keep it positive!

 

But I can’t do much about a positive stadium once the game is under way. It’s up to the players after that and with the manager getting increasingly anxious in the technical area, we threw away the lead to finish two-all. Pards had an argument with Ipswich boss Joe Royle on the touchline as the pressure began to tell.

 

The trouble with Alan Pardew was that he interfered in everything. He was the manager of the football club, but he wanted to poke his nose into everything else, all the non-football bits. He wanted input into the look of the programme, the merchandise and from my point of view he wanted to pick the music we’d play in the ground. Once before a game, the manager said he needed a few words about an important matter. He took Sue the marketing manager and me into a small room just off the tunnel. It’s the room the broadcasters use for their TV interviews. To a backdrop of sponsors’ logos, he outlined his latest idea to raise the atmosphere at the ground. Pards had been to Sea World in Florida with his family. He’d seen the announcer at the dolphin pool conduct an interactive crowd-pleaser of a quiz. Everyone got involved and it was brilliant, he told me. The TV camera at the pool homes in on someone in the crowd and they are asked some trivia questions to try and win prizes. If it’s an adult the questions are hard, if it’s a kid, the questions are easy. To keep it simple, they don’t bother with microphones going into the crowd. Instead the answers are all multiple choice, with three possible answers. You held up one, two or three fingers to indicate your answer. Alan loved this simple digital technology and gave the whole idea a big thumbs-up. The look of excitement on his face suggested he was reliving the excitement as he held up his fingers, in case I hadn’t grasped the complexity of the format. I agreed it sounded great, but our game was kicking off in fifteen minutes’ time. I was wondering if I wouldn’t be better occupied building up the atmosphere in our own ground, rather than reminiscing about Alan’s holiday. Especially as the interview room is a very small room, with bright lights and no windows, and I was wearing a thick fleece and coat. I was dressed for sitting outdoors for a few hours, not standing in a windowless bunker discussing Sea World. I believe Pards is a big fan of Free Willy, but I am not.

 

I may have momentarily lost consciousness due to the heat and accompanying dehydration, but when I came to Pards was still banging on about the Florida crowd-pleaser. ‘So the kids hold up one, two or three fingers, depending on the correct answer.’ It’s brilliant, he said, we should do it here at the next game. It works because the kids always win. Their questions are much easier, Alan explained, just in case I thought Florida children are much brighter than their parents. I’ve no knowledge of the Miami schools system, but I’d already guessed that, with no need for any fingers. The more excited Alan became about the brilliant Sea World quiz, the closer he got. He was dribbling with excitement. I hadn’t seen dribbling like it since the days of Eyal Berkovic. My face often gives me away and although I was trying my best to look just as excited as he was, my beaming smile may have wilted slightly in the heat. He was obviously expecting a better reaction to his brilliant idea, because he looked slightly disappointed. Pards is a bit of a spin doctor. In his mind as long as you are enthusiastic about a plan, it will work. It doesn’t matter if the plan is flawed and ill thought out, as long as you are positive it will surely work. If it doesn’t work, it’s because other people weren’t enthusiastic about it. They let you down. It wasn’t because your plan was a pile of crap in the first place.

 

By the way, I’m still talking about the Sea World idea, and in no way am I suggesting that Alan Pardew’s team tactics were ill thought out. How could I possibly suggest that? He took us to consecutive play-off finals and won us promotion. Without a brilliant plan we never would have finished in the play-off positions. Critics will say that he led the best squad in the division to fourth place and then sixth place in the table. Maybe we should have finished higher, but that was nothing to do with Pards’ tactics, that was because some critics didn’t believe in the plan. His game plans were spot on. The players gave their all. It was just that sometimes the supporters who should have been cheering their hearts out decided not to. For some reason fans thought that having paid for their tickets they were entitled to a view, and chose not to behave like lemmings. This saddened Alan. Anyway, back to that night against QPR in the cup. I tried not to sound too discouraging about the brilliant Sea World idea, but pointed out that our cousins from across the pond are very different to us.

 

My worry with the Sea World quiz would be to do with hand gestures, or to be more specific, fingers. If the answer is one, an American child would hold up one finger. A London child is more likely to hold up the middle finger and a cheeky grin. If the answer is two you can pretty much rely on the Little Hammer to hold up the same two fingers that his Dad might use to wave goodbye to the foreman at work. We can only pray the answer is three. Even then, there’s no telling what the surrounding fans will be doing in the background. I pointed out the differences in behaviour on the other side of the pond to Alan, but he said it wouldn’t be a problem. People are the same the world over, he claimed. I hadn’t realised he’d studied human behaviour to that extent. It almost sounded as if he didn’t want his word to be questioned.

 

I badly needed to take onboard some liquid and besides there was a match about to start, so I made my excuses about going out to talk to the crowd and left. Alan shouted after me that he wanted to try the Sea World quiz at the next home game. It was good to see he hadn’t let the small matter of a last-minute team talk get in the way of his mission to bring entertainment to the Boleyn. I would have preferred entertaining football and decided this dolphin-inspired quiz could not happen. Fortunately after consulting with the camera operators at the ground, it emerged that we don’t have the ability to zoom in tighter than a section of the crowd four seats wide by three seats high. So twelve people in shot, it just wouldn’t work. I broke the news to Alan, who looked crestfallen. What about the Sky cameras which zoom right in on the players, he asked, with his bottom lip rolling out to full Thunderbird villain mode. Sadly we don’t have control of them, I replied. We have our own cameras high in the gantry, but they are no use for a fish quiz.

 

On the day the transfer window slammed shut in August 2006, West Ham signed two players. It was strange because the manager had nothing to do with the signing and they were top Argentine World Cup stars. Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez were both twenty-two. We’d had big-name foreign stars at West Ham before, but usually they were old and knackered before we could afford them. It didn’t make sense. How on earth had we afforded them? I still don’t fully understand the deal, but there was clearly a problem. A third party owned the players’ rights and that’s not allowed. It was a guy called Kia Joorabchian, who was actually trying to buy West Ham at the time. So this should have been brilliant news. I introduced the two Argentinians to the crowd and they waved and received huge cheers from the West Ham fans who couldn’t quite believe their luck.

 

Then we waited for them to play for the team, and we waited and waited, and still Alan Pardew didn’t pick them. For some reason Pards couldn’t find places in his struggling side for two World Cup stars. Nigel Reo-Coker and Hayden Mullins were preferred in midfield to Mascherano. Whenever I’ve watched Mascherano starring on the European stage since, I’ve wondered how on earth he couldn’t get in the team. Maybe he wasn’t match-fit at first, but even on crutches he should have still earned a place in the starting line-up. Carlos Tevez was kept out of the attack by Marlon, Teddy and Bobby. How was that possible? Looking back at it now, it’s laughable that Pards couldn’t find a way to integrate them into his side. The problem of course, was that Alan hadn’t sanctioned their signings. He’d built a side around pace and stamina and now these foreigners had turned up with their clever skills and he didn’t quite know how to fit them into his team without upsetting his players. Nigel Reo-Coker had the hump because there’d been talk of him leaving to join a bigger club in the transfer window. The move hadn’t come off, and now he was expected to slum it with us, and what’s worse he had to fight for his place against Pards’ all-time favourite player, Hayden Mullins and some fancy Dan from Argentina.

 

So we struggled down at the bottom of the table again, the fans started getting restless, the players underperformed, the atmosphere in the stadium was poor and Pards told me I wasn’t doing my job properly. It never occurred to him that no matter what I said or what music I played, if the team played consistently badly, the atmosphere was going to drop. West Ham fans are passionate and vocal, but they’re also lovers of good football and watching this rubbish week in, week out was enough to silence anyone.

 

Pards was still calling for Upton Park to become a fortress, but on the pitch his players were showing no signs of battling like soldiers. The new owners decided it was time for a change. Alan Pardew wasn’t bringing home the bacon and Eggy decided he’d had his chips. Out went Pards and in came Curbs.

 

Season in a Nutshell 2006/07 - Argentinians Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano arrived in a ‘too good to be true’ deal. It turned out to be a disaster. Alan Pardew had no idea how to integrate the World Cup stars into his team which was based on pace and determination not flair and skill. The club were taken over by an Icelandic consortium. There was discontent off the pitch and Alan Pardew was sacked after losing the dressing room. I don’t know what he did, but it was felt it was best that he left. Alan Curbishley took over and stabilised the club.

 

International highlight – Signing two big-name foreign stars.

 

Awful moment – Realising our manager had no idea how to utilise players of that quality.

[Disco]

Dat Flasher

[Nobody]

VI, get your Barcelona lawyers to sue the crap out of him for that fucking T-Shirt please.

[Guest firetotheworks]

I think it was more likely a club decision, especially as he had been declining well before anybody knew he had cancer. He was constantly getting game time despite playing poorly as he fit the Pardew ethic of 'work hard, play s***'.

 

The decision not to play and basically make him an outcast is something I reckon came from the top, Pardew saying it was a football decision seems like something he's been told to say, especially when prior to the cancer news he was constantly starting, which was annoying the s*** out of everyone.

 

Like seriously, how is any of this in any way an excuse for Pardew? Particularly when it's guess work and the official line from the club, Pardew and Jonas is that it was a football decision.

 

It's not an excuse for Pardew, it's my opinion on how I think the powers that be run the club. I can't stand Alan Pardew as much as the next man but I think it speaks volumes that he was starting every game under him and then as soon as the cancer news comes out it's "find a new club, it's a footballing decision" only after that time. Prior to that Pardew's usual patter was that Jonas is invaluable to the team due to his work ethic but then immediately after the news he's ostracised and told to find a new club.

 

You know as well as I do the 'official' line from the club means jack s*** in most instances. There's always an agenda.

 

Yet then he was brought back in by Carver - although tbf to your point that was probably because the news had broke. Still though, whether it was a club decision or not, Pardew's part in it is still disgusting imo. 

[Robster]

What a post by Jack

[Wallace]

Also, Jonas was clearly not performing and therefore it was a good decision to remove him from the line-up.

 

But obviously his overall treatment by Pardew and/or the club was a disgrace.

 

That's my feeling too, the illness obviously made everything much worse but he was way past his useful life for the team. If he ever had one. Massively respect the guy though, and grateful for his saving goal.

 

I wonder how much Jonas' performances had been affected by his illness.  Would he have done better if he was fit and healthy?

 

[Sima]

Love the 'fish quiz' story.

[Disco]

Absolutely nailed on one of his Pardewed strikers will score this weekend, the cunt.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

His striker doesn't seem to do anything in his current 'system'.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Pardew is for me the worst manager we have ever had. Souness was bad at getting results, alienating players and spending money, but he went into his office every morning believing we could beat whoever we were next facing.

 

He didn't dumb down the size of the club or try and lower expectations. Pardew worked tirelessly with the club owner and his other men to downsize everything, to downplay everything. And he succeeded. If he was half as skilled at managing players and wining matches he'd be one of the best in the world.

 

You have to say, he did a great job for Ashley and a great job on the club and its fans who today consider a home defeat to Leicester as somewhat acceptable because they are doing well you know and have a player who has scored in 10 consecutive games. A round of applause all-round don't you agree.

 

I hope Pardew fails at everything and becomes a miserable bastard. I want nothing but the worst for him. The cunt! He has destroyed my club along with Ashley and forced me to loath it and the game and with it myself somewhat for actually wanting my club to be relegated, to lose games.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I still think Allardyce is worse, absolutely detest the man.

[Ronaldo]

And you should, but he's a better manager than Pardew and Souness.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

And you should, but he's a better manager than Pardew and Souness.

 

By a distance. I hate Big Sam because he ticks many boxes but for him football is all about stats and percentages and he will not deviate away from that ever. He is almost a parody of himself these days. He fucked up big time here and has never recovered.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Big Sam had a mandate to try and achieve though, and he was still negative and played for draws at home against Derby. At least Pardew has the excuse of the Ashley regime.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Big Sam had a mandate to try and achieve though, and he was still negative and played for draws at home against Derby. At least Pardew has the excuse of the Ashley regime.

 

Pardew's shitness infected every vein of this club though, Big Sam only infected the results and match day experience. Pardew has helped create one of if not the worst chapters in our history. Big Sam is aids, Pardew cancer!

[Darth Crooks]

British managers ladies and gentlemen...