As Bad as Things Got: West Ham United, 29th February 2020

This was written in March 2021, so had to have something of a re-write. The GSB out protests were four years ago. That feels absolutely wild, to me.

On the 29th February 2020, 2,500 West Ham United supporters marched along Newham Greenway to the London Stadium in protest at the ownership of their football club. The GSB Out complaints didn’t completely stop over the course of the lockdowns, but they have been muted since.

West Ham United finished the 2023/24 season in 9th place in the Premier League. On the morning of the protest, which took place ahead of their game against Southampton just over four years earlier, they were in 18th place in the Premier League, having failed to win any of their previous seven matches. As if to spite them, the team beat Southampton that day, but a defeat at Arsenal and in their first two matches after the resumption reset the cloud that had been hanging over the club.

On the 1st July 2020, though, something changed. West Ham beat Chelsea 3-2 with Andriy Yarmolenko scoring the winning goal with two minutes to play, They only lost one of their last seven matches of the season, and have only really returned to underwhelming form the once since, in the 2022/23 season, when they flirted with dropping into the bottom three before pulling comfortably clear and finishing 14th.