West Ham Fan Protests are having an Impact towards the club

West Ham’s stay-away protest hit the club hard with more than 20,000 fans boycotting last month’s match against Brentford. 

The Hammers board admits the real attendance for the 2-0 home defeat on October 20 was around 42,000.

The capacity at West Ham’s London Stadium is 62,500 for football games. The actual number who turned up could be even lower once Newham Council release the precise figures in a few weeks’ time following a Freedom of Information request by action group Hammers United.

The attendance published on the official West Ham website still stands at 62,452 because the club uses the number of tickets sold for games as their way of recording crowd numbers. Initially, no attendance figures were published at all for the Brentford game, although the club clarified

A meeting between the Fan Advisory Board and club executives was held last Thursday and the minutes of that have just been released. Tickets for the Brentford game were reduced to just £15 in some cases because the club claims it was a low risk ‘Category C’ fixture and that the visiting side returned 900 of their allocation for the Monday night match.

News of the dramatic shortfall comes on the day angry supporters are planning another day of anti-board demonstrations with a planned sit-in at the end of the home match against Newcastle United. A half-hour stay-behind has been organised to voice ongoing dissatisfaction with the way West Ham is being run. It is an officially recognised demo that has been agreed by the club to avoid confrontations between fans and stewards trying to clear the ground after the final whistle.

Today’s show of opposition to chairman David Sullivan and vice-chair Karren Brady is the latest in a long line of action led by fans group Hammers United. West Ham’s controversial stadium is the focal point of sustained protests aimed at forcing Sullivan and Brady out of the club.

West Ham supporters are also angry at the way their club is being run. They believe transfer policy is a mess and that trust has broken down between them and the board of directors. They also believe Baroness Brady is not a full time CEO when the club needs one. The club insist that the co-star of TV’s ‘The Apprentice’ is wholly committed but admits she is not involved in player trading.

A further protest is already in the pipeline for next Saturday’s home game against Burnley. The Hammers are currently second from bottom of the Premier League with only four points from the first nine games.