West Ham - A long fall from grace.

As soon as I heard the dreaded words, "Too good to go down," I knew West Ham were screwed. No team is too good to go down until they have enough points to prove it, something that this season West Ham never looked like achieving. I don't take as much pleasure in West Ham being relegated as many non-West Ham fans around me, because I have a soft spot for a team that traditionally tries to play football the right way and have always entertained me. West Ham today though, is a far cry from the free flowing team of Gianfranco Zola's first year in charge, let alone the solid mid table team led by Harry Redknapp, or the former glory days of decades past. The club is a mess from top to bottom.

The boardroom should be removed or torn out for the sake of the clubs future, because the record of the various recent owners goes from bad to worse whichever way you look at it. Terry Brown, the man who sold the club to the Icelandic's, was far from popular with the fans, and having overseen the sale of prize assets including Ferdinand, Lampard and Carrick, without significant reinvestment, questions were raised about his financial competence and the direction of the club. What followed though was something else... Icelandic chairman number one was 'Egghead Magnu-lugs' and his financially record was even funnier than his appearance. He spent far too much money that wasn't actually his on far too many average players and between him and his 'director of football' forced Alan Curbishley into resigning and the start of a dramatic downward spiral.

Magnusson decided he didn't want to continue in the role for various reasons, and sold the club onto Bjorgulfur Gudmundsson another Icelandic chap, not that the name gives that away, the owner of the Icelandic bank, Landsbanki. Well more money was wasted, the clubs fortunes were tied in with the bank and when the global financial crisis occurred, Gudmundsson and West Ham list everything financially. Last season they struggled to 35 points and 1 place above the relegation zone, but the club was finally sold on again and many of the debts cleared by new owners, the 2 David's! Never short of a word or 2, Mr. Sullivan and his partner Mr. Gold arrived talking about a big future and financial improvement, neither appear to have materialised. Last summer some money was spent, but when Frederic Piquionne was signed as a 'squad' player, I feared they weren't exactly aiming high. Players spent periods out injured, inconsistency was the order of the day for the better players Green, Upson and Cole and many others flopped including Obinna, and all of the defensive purchases. The wage bill is still not under control, with players like Kieron Dyer earning astronomical fees to be injured, not good enough, and play for another team. Question marks can also be raised over what many saw as the premature departure of Gianfranco Zola, and the hiring of Avram Grant and his truly remarkable facial expressions, but when the players aren't showing any motivation or passion, let alone talent, the manager has a battle they're unlikely to win.

At the moment I wouldn't recommend putting any money on West Ham to come straight back up, because it looks pretty bleak. Relegation is finically crushing, and yet in a couple of years they will need to employ enough staff to run a world class stadium, and they will need to buy some proven players to get them back in the Premier League, and then probably some more to try and keep them there. The harsh reality is the better players will be sold for various reasons, and I'm not sure what's left will be anywhere good enough. I hope I'm proven wrong though.

Richard’s Top Tips – N.B. May not all be serious.

1. If you believe there to be glue on your scissors, do not check for glue by running your thumb along the blade of the scissors, spotting glue is considerably harder when there is also a fair amount of blood.
   
2. When Dunking Biscuits or Cookies into a cup of tea or another hot drink of your choice, 3 dunks will lead to optimum softness and a 4th dunk should be avoided due to the risk of a biscuit filled drink.
   
3. Before doing anything with potential consequences, think about 1 thing, would you approve if somebody else did this thing...
   
4. When there is a choice between eating a glazed donut and drinking fairy liquid... Always go with the donut however tempting the fairy liquid may be...
   
5. Contrary to the belief of many... singing in the shower does not sound any better than singing outside of it and merely helps to pass the time.
   
6. When playing tennis, or any other racket or bat sport, it is best not to let go of the racket/ bat during the middle of the game. This only leads to complications and in turn often results in a great deal of difficulty next time the ball gets to you.
   

The Alternative Vote and why it wouldn’t have benefitted our politics. – Written on the day of the referendum.

To call it a fairer way of electing MPs is ludicrous. The reality of a two party system may now have changed into a 3 party system with minority parties thriving in some areas, but AV isn't the answer. As there seems to be no call for Proportional Representation, an abandonment of constituency politics and the chaos of coalition after coalition, the 'middle ground' option as AV can be described seems the only possibility for change, but any change in this direction is a change for the worse. The benefits of First Past the Post and 'one person: one vote' politics remain despite our hung parliament in 2010. Only if this system continues to throw up this sort of problem should a different system be discussed.

If you go into an election with a party that you support in mind, and a party you have strong opinions towards, you are going to vote for them. I heard the YES campaigners during this referendum talking about AV stopping tactical voting, but this doesn't particularly stand up. Surely votes 2, 3 and 4 will be tactical as you list options that seem to be lesser evils rather than strong candidates, and will allow the voter plenty of chances to keep a certain party out. I find it astounding that this system could result in 49% of a constituency's votes being counted once, and some being counted upwards of 2 or 3 times simply because they originally voted for unpopular candidates. This is an extreme example, but by no means an impossible one, and it would be far from fair.

Both sides during the campaign tried to scare votes by mentioning the threat of the rise of the BNP in the same breath as the opposite campaign. Frankly they were both talking scare mongering nonsense and should be ashamed of their tactics, but I do feel mentioning the BNP is important. What concerns me is this. If a racist bigot, to use a rather controversial term, or extreme nationalist turns up at their local polling station and puts a 1 in the box next to BNP, do we think this person has the right to having their vote counted more times than those who voted for an acceptable and recognized political party? My other huge concern is along this line too. Is it a fair political system in which somebody who votes for a minority party and in some cases a racist and hate inciting party like the BNP, can be the person who swings the majority in a tight seat. I find this very hard to justify.

• AV increases tactical voting
  
• Encourages people to waste their vote in the knowledge they'll get another chance
  
• Allows voters of minority parties t play a more important role in electing an MP than those who initially voted for the most popular candidate
  
• It makes a mockery of all votes being equal, a principle which our free political system should be based upon
  

 

All that and I didn't insult Nick Clegg or put the future of the coalition government at risk.