Why my blog isn't carrying Iain Dale's poll

Iain Dale's email

Hi all,

Some of you will have seen Sam Allardyce on Goals on Sunday dismissing the view of West Ham fans on the social media. He reckons we’re a tiny minority. I think we should all test that.

I don’t think petitions have much effect, and they sometimes look a bit desperate. I wondered about us all recommending our readers to take part in a simple one question poll – “Should Sam Allardyce be retained as manager of West Ham for the 2014-15 season?”  - yes, or no. Clearly Gold and Sullivan have a decision to take at the end of the season. I think they would welcome a poll, which they clearly can’t run themselves, but which maybe tens of thousands of supporters would take part in. But this is only worth doing if we all take part. Each of us doing it independently won’t work. I have already been in touch privately with one or two of you to check this is a go-er.

I use the SurveyMonkey polling software which only allows people to vote once. It’s as foolproof as it can be. I have set up a poll with the following questions….

1.       Should Sam Allardyce be retained as manager of West Ham for the 2014-15 season?

2.       How often do you go to home games

3.       Where do you live?

4.       What is your age?

5.       Which site did you come to this survey from? (gives all participating site names)

The poll is already in draft on SurveyMonkey. If you have any queries, suggested amendents etc, just email me by return. Copy and paste this link into your browser and you will see how it will look. [link deleted]

DO NOT PUT THE SURVEY LIVE ON YOUR SITE yet please. If possible we should all put it live on our sites at the same time. I suggest midday on Thursday 24 April.

Please confirm your site’s participation and I will add your site name to the participants list on the front page.

For the record, this needs to be seen as a joint initiative. Nowhere will I say that it is from me or West Ham Till I Die. When the poll goes live I suggest that we all run a similar text, although every site should feel free to amend it. I will draft something tomorrow.

All feedback welcome.

Kind regards

Iain Dale

West Ham Till I Die

My reply

Hi Iain

Thanks for your email.

I am not in favour of such a poll and therefore won't be putting the link on my site.

I believe the owners already have a pretty good gauge of supporters' opinion, which previous polls have suggested is ambivalent. I think another poll will simply demonstrate the same thing (or perhaps a 60:40 split one way or the other depending on the result of the next match, such is the fickle nature of football). If it were the case that the vast majority of fans wanted Sam Allardyce out and the owners were not listening then I might support such a poll - but I don't think that's the case.

This exercise will serve to foster the belief amongst a section of fans that there are irreconcilable differences between themselves and the club's management, which requires them to resort to polls telling the board how they need to act. This notion of "them and us" is not in anyone's interests.

Of course it is important that the voice of the fans is heard, but is that not already the case? They express their opinions at matches, through social media, through radio phone ins, through the Supporters Advisory Board and through a million different internet forums.

There also appears to me to be one or two flaws with such a poll. While the concept of filtering results by how often the participant attends matches does have a certain attraction, there is no way of knowing how genuine the responses are. More importantly, a 'yes or no' question seems to me inappropriate for what is not a black-and-white issue. Many fans, like myself, would answer the first question with an answer along the lines of, "it really depends what the realistic alternatives are".

Sorry to not be of help.

Kind regards

Neil

I'm giving up my season ticket. Here's why.

My mind was made up before the Crystal Palace match. If I had to pinpoint the exact moment I knew I wouldn’t renew my season ticket for a fifth season, then I'd guess it was some time during the Norwich City match in February.

That's right. A game that we won 2-0 was the trigger. For this has been the season when even winning (which we have done on the minimum required number of occasions) became boring.

Regular readers of this blog will know that for the past three years I have largely been a supporter of Sam Allardyce: I greeted his arrival in the summer of 2011; a year later I backed him to be the next David Moyes (back when such a sentiment was a compliment); I urged the club to renew his contract at the end of last season; and I backed him during tough times this year, both in November and again in January. If there is anyone who has written more words in praise of Allardyce I would like to meet them (what a fascinating pair we would make).

But the 2013/14 season has been one like no other I have experienced during my 25 years as a fan. My enduring image will be one of a defender – let’s say James Collins – clipping a 60-yard pass in the vague direction of a solitary Modibo Maiga, Carlton Cole or Andy Carroll. More often than not the opposition centre halves mop up the danger. Sometimes the striker flicks it on to no one. Sometimes he holds the ball up only to realise he has no support. Sometimes he holds it up and finds a pass. Occasionally this pass might result in an attack and, even more occasionally, a goal.

And that's what watching Allardyce's team has felt like this season. Percentages. We accept that the majority of a typical game will contain minimal attacking football. It’s a system that has nothing to do with entertainment and everything to do with grinding down the opposition. Often it is very ineffective, as was the case at the weekend. The best you can hope for is to nick a goal and three points – something you could have witnessed via Teletext and still derived the same amount of pleasure.

We spent a quarter of the season playing without a striker. That actually happened.

We almost never attack in numbers. When we do attack it is in the same predictable way: move the ball slowly to the wings and hope that Stewart Downing or Matt Jarvis can find some space to make a cross. Ravel Morrison appeared to offer the perfect opportunity to bring some creativity and an element of surprise to the centre of midfield. Instead he was stationed in front of the defence, before being shipped out on loan to QPR.

Match of the Day pundits will tell you that as a West Ham fan this is the most you can hope for. Messrs Shearer and Savage do not offer any further analysis, refusing to accept that fans, in return for a £900 season ticket, would like to be entertained. It must be easy to have that attitude when, far from paying to watch football yourself, you're being paid by the rest of us to do so.

While I hold Allardyce responsible for what happens on the pitch, the lack of pleasure I derive from the matchday experience isn't just down to him. I have become equally disillusioned with my fellow fans. Telling him to "f*ck off ", as has been the case by a large section of supporters at several games this season, is completely disproportionate and verges on a paranoia that he is trying to sabotage the club.

He is a capable manager who is doing what he thinks right. Over three years, in terms of results, he has largely delivered. Fans are quick to blame him for the bad times but never was he given sufficient credit for promotion at the first time of asking and a mid-table Premier League finish, also at the first time of asking. I have often considered our fans to be the best there are. Many now seem to me as fickle and hateful as all the rest.

Every time I hear someone mention Ron Greenwood or John Lyall as a juxtaposition to Allardyce I feel more and more alienated. The past is the past. The game has changed – if only because there’s more to lose from being relegated. It is not the fault of Brian Clough's predecessors that Forest have not won the European Cup in the last 20 years. Similarly, anyone who thinks West Ham continued playing the beautiful game between Lyall's reign and Allardyce's is quite simply wrong.

In fact, many of those fans have more in common with the man they abuse than they know. One blogger yesterday issued a poll asking that eternally stupid question: what is more important – results or entertainment? Since when were the two mutually exclusive? Since when was a failure to retain possession the best way to three points?

Many fans now prefer to mock the team, than support them. ‘How shit must you be, we’re winning away/at home’, was funny the first time, not the hundredth time. Bizarrely, one of the few supportive chants this year has been for Mo Diame, a player who has been ineffective all season and who has publicly stated his desire to leave.

I give up.

I harbour no resentment towards Sam. He took over a squad that was a shambles and he instilled much-needed discipline. He has the players playing in a way he believes to be right. He doesn't see a better way of playing or of evolving the current squad. Personally, I still hope for better. I would like nothing more than for him to prove me wrong – but I no longer think he will. His favourite excuse for playing negatively is that he has to play a certain way to counter the opposition, whether it’s Chelsea or ten-men Hull City. This fails to explain why the rest of the division do not play the same way.

Going to West Ham matches has got in the way of my love for the club. I resent the time and money I spend to watch unattractive, negative football in a negative atmosphere. If I spare myself the effort and expense of being a season-ticket holder, I may just learn to feel more supportive again.

Some of the anti-Allardyce sentiment flying around is based on long-running agendas. Some of it is spiteful and nasty. I do not want to be associated with that. I am, to use the word so often associated with Allardyce, a pragmatist. The current conditions are such that I want a break. I look forward to the day I come back.