In a refreshing change of events, former Birmingham City owners, David Gold and David Sullivan took control of the Hammers and admitted straightaway the mess that West Ham United have been battling with. Since the crashing collapse of the Icelandic banking system, West Ham had been financially stricken and the true extent of the footballing debt is now apparent. The Hammers owe £110 million out. One Hundred and Ten Million pounds.

Only in November did C.B. Holdings claim that the Hammers were in debt to the tune of £38 million, misleading the fans in to thinking that the situation was nowhere near as bad as some in the media had reported. In fact it was almost 3 times as bad as they made out and the new owners/controllers made clear exactly where they debts lay. They also confirmed that the club were going to have to sell players in this transfer window, contrary to the clubs previous stance. An immediate cash injection of £8 million was needed to keep the club going.

The list reads like a what not to do in football, or to put it another way, how to run a club like Leeds United. It’s as if someone wrote a business plan based on what went wrong at Elland Road and it was mistranslated into Icelandic to make it seem positive. It’s madness to see the debt and borrowing going on at West Ham over the last 3 years.

• £50 million owed to banks.
• £40 million owed to other clubs for transfers.
• The £40 million owed to other clubs, includes £20 million compensation to Sheffield United.
• Alan Curbishley is still owed his severance deal after winning his case for constructive dismissal
• No-one owes West Ham any money, all player transfer fees that were received paid the bank debt immediately
• C.B. Holdings had borrowed money against the next two seasons season ticket revenue
• There is no money for strengthening the squad.

Now this paints a completely different figure to what the West Ham fans believed, rightly or wrongly what the were being told. The previous regime were filling there heads with nonsense. It is a very real prospect that relegation would have seen West Ham implode financially. No ifs, no buts, they were immediately into administration. After all the information about Leeds United, C.B. Holdings were following exactly the same route.

It seems like absolute madness that not one lesson from the Yorkshire clubs demise has served to teach anyone anything it seems, as we see with the issues at Manchester United, Portsmouth and Liverpool in the last week. Regardless of the riches awash for the Premiership clubs, you still have to cut your cloth accordingly. Someone sooner or later is going to fall over the edge, which is a subject I’m going to be looking at in more depth for EPLtalk.com next week.

Gold and Sullivan have acted quickly in bringing in their trusted lieutenant, Karen Brady as vice chairman and she’ll be quick to install some much needed pragmatism at Upton Park. They are now going to talk to Newham council about moving to the Olympic Stadium after the 2012 Olympics. That could be  a challenge as Tottenham enquired about taking it over and were plainly told it was not available. The Olympic stadium is set to be reduced from its 80,000 capacity down to a pointless 30,000, for which there is neither the use nor the need.

The NFL could still play a part in the stadium’s future use that could play into West Ham’s hands. The NFL have earmarked that the often mooted London franchise’s potential base could be there. It would certainly make more sense to use it as a dual sport stadium than a white elephant for athletics, which is the current plan. There is neither the inclination or support for that size of athletics venue in London, they should sell it and use the money to redevelop Crystal Palace Athletic Stadium.

So now, West Ham have to focus on the future and the fans will be thankful that regardless of the criticisms that could be placed at Gold and Sullivan’s door during their tenure at Birmingham City, they still have a club to support. The work is now on to bring in fresh investment to try and work off the remaining debt and crucial to that is the fact that West Ham United need to stay up.

Gianfranco Zola has been nothing but a gentlemen throughout this difficult period for him and he needs to make sure that he can keep his side together for one almighty relegation scrap. For a first job, he has certainly been earning his money, of that there is no doubt. In the next six games, West Ham face Portsmouth, Blackburn Rovers, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Burnley, Birmingham City and Hull City. Come the end of February, Gold, Sullivan and Zola will know exactly the size of the task to keep West Ham United in the Premier League.

This weekend sees the entrance of the Premiership and Championship clubs in to the F.A. Cup as the worlds oldest domestic cup competition continues in its 128th year. It’s one of those weekends that gets football fans excited, throwing up all kinds of memories for fans of every club from every level of the domestic game. For fans of all clubs, the F.A. Cup offers us all the chance to dream that this could be our year.

This weekend the fans of Barrow, York City Luton Town and Forest Green Rovers will be bursting with pride as the take on league opposition. Disappointingly for the fan in me, only four non-league sides have made it through to the third round this season but there are still some tasty ties for this years game.

Stoke City, Sunderland, Southampton and Notts County will be the clubs trying to avoid the ignominy of a defeat to a non-league side, but with all three of the bigger clubs at home, I don’t think we’ll see any shocks in those particular ties. There are several ties that are eye opening for several reasons though and of those, Manchester United entertaining Leeds on Sunday is the pick of round. Leeds’ fall down the leagues has been spectacular, but they currently sit on top of Division One, looking certainties to return to the Championship.

It’ll be interesting to see how this resumption of the cross pennine rivalry will be played out, with no love love lost between either side. Of the top four sides in the Premiership, Arsenal certainly have the most difficult tie, with a London derby trip to West Ham United on Sunday as well. Chelsea and Liverpool should make light work of Watford and Reading respectively whilst Tottenham should win easily against Peterborough United.

Overall though, the chances of any Premiership clubs getting knocked out by lower league opponents look slim to be honest but there are a couple of tricky ties. Portsmouth will be hoping Coventry City won’t bring their recent good form to Fratton Park, whilst Birmingham City face a dangerous trip to Nottingham Forest. Manchester City visit Middlesbrough who have been bang out of form since they sacked Gareth Southgate but should be too strong.

Of the other recently promoted sides, Burnley and Wolves both face potential banana skin games at Milton Keynes Dons and Tranmere Rovers and may view the match as a chance to give secondary players a run out. Bolton Wanderers fans will probably be viewing the clash with Lincoln City, now managed by Blackburn Rovers old boy Chris Sutton, with renewed optimism following Gary Megson’s sacking earlier today.

What ever happens, 3 Premiership clubs will be out of the competition no matter what with three all Premiership ties in the third round. Aston Villa welcome Blackburn Rovers, whilst Wigan will be trying to put tonight’s thrashing at Old Trafford out of their minds as Hull City visit the D.W. Stadium and Arsenal travelling to West Ham United.

Overall though, this isn’t really a weekend for shocks, but the F.A.Cup has a reputation for shocking you when you least expect it and that’s why it’s still the best cup competition in the world. Here’s to a great weekend of cup football before we get back to the Premiership.

As it’s World Cup draw week, I thought I’d share one of my favourite football stories with you, about the first ever World Cup, though it was only for domestic sides at the time.I heard this story for the first time when I was nine, due to it being made in to a television drama in 1981, called a Captain’s Tale. It made a real impression on me, because it seemed so far fetched, yet was true and here’s how it happened.

After the success of the first Olympic football tournament at the London Olympics of 1908, a gentleman by the name of Sir Thomas Lipton had an idea to have a World Cup. Whilst the Olympic tournament had been for amateur players only, Lipton wanted the best professional club sides in the world to compete for a trophy, which would be called the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy. He approached the English F.A. who refused to have anything to do with such a nonsense.

It was sad to say, but in those days, the English F.A. tended to look down at most countries in the world and upheld it’s insular and rather outdated opinions for far too long. Suffice to say, they refused to play in the first 3 official world cups, as of course, England believed they were the best in the world and had no need to prove it by playing horrible little foreign teams. Maybe in those first 3 World Cups, England could have added another trophy to the meagre one World Cup win in the last 80 years, we’ll never know but it wouldn’t have hurt to have a go.

So, rebuffed by the English F.A., an employee of Sir Thomas Lipton suggested an amateur side be chosen, as the F.A couldn’t interfere and a request went out to the teams in the Northern League, which is still functioning and is part of the English non league pyramid system. The only side that came back with interest were West Auckland F.C., a side made up of coal miners from Durham. So, Lipton accepted them as England’s representatives and the team had to travel to Turin.

Sir Thomas Lipton

Now, somehow, this little team of coalminers managed to raise the majority of the funds required to travel all the way to Turin, most of them pawning personal possessions to enable them to reach their destination but it proved a sacrifice worth making. Drawn against top German side, Stuttgarter Sportfruende, in the semi final,  Auckland ran out 2-0 winners and amazingly went on to beat F.C. Winterthur 2-0 too to become the first winners of the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy.

Returning to Durham as heroes, the club were once again invited to defend the trophy in 1911, but this time the opposition were a little more familiar. Facing the defending champions in the semi-finals were F.C. Zurich, but once again the amateurs would not buckle to the better equipped side and once again triumphed 2-0. This then set up a mesmerising final against the home side, Italian giants Juventus but amazingly West Auckland thrashed them 6-1.

Under the rules of the tournament, West Auckland were allowed to keep the trophy, but this is were the tale takes a sad turn. Almost bankrupted in no small part due to the travelling to Italy twice in two years, the team had to pawn the trophy to their landlady to cover debts but the side still went under in 1912.The club reformed in 1914 as West Auckland Town and returned to the Northern League where they still remain to this day.

As for the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy, it remained in the landlady’s family until 1960, when an appeal by the village of West Auckland saw them buy it back. Yet tragedy struck the club once more, when it was stolen in 1994 and has never been found since. A replica was commissioned and that now stands in the clubhouse, securely held a safe cabinet. This year also saw the club play Juventus in a friendly to celebrate the centenary of that first win, which they lost 7-1, but fair play on Juventus for enabling the club to celebrate what must go down as one of the strangest stories in English football.