Let me take you back to a much simpler time, January 2013, arguably the most disastrous transfer window, in terms of the calibre of players signed. I still have flashbacks about the defensive displays of Emmanuel Pogatetz, and I am sure Marouane Chamakh needs no introduction. These were the days when West Ham, mainly Sam Allardyce, were buying absolute nonsense.
But times have changed. Out were the days of signing wildly overpriced Englishmen for £10.75million from Wolves, and coming in were a new breed of cheap(ish) clever transfers, such as Kouyate, Sakho and Cresswell for a combined fee of approximately £13.5million, less than the amount spent on Andy Carroll.
So in terms of the actual transfers, everything is improving. But as a West Ham fan, it is in my DNA to complain about something, and that is the way the transfers are being handled by the media team in the form of an anonymous outlet called “The Boleyn Insider”.
The Boleyn Insider was launched a couple of weeks ago, and with each vague article that is put on that website, the novelty seems to be wearing off rapidly. West Ham are literally paying someone to do the job of a Twitter “ITK”, creating stories by linking everyone with West Ham in the hope at least one actually materialises.
Is this really the club we have become? I guess it was the next logical step after our media team have been relying on Jack Sullivan’s 50,000 Twitter followers since he was 12-years-old in an attempt to rack up publicity for a signing or a managerial appointment. My favourite moment was when they got Jack’s older brother Dave to raise publicity and viewership for the website by announcing that a manager would be appointed within an hour before waiting 2 hours to announce Bilic because the website crashed due to traffic as a result of the publicity they generated, finishing off the circle of complacency.
But the difference between the “Insider” and Twitter accounts such as @Exwhuemployee (who in fairness to the lad, is the only trustworthy “ITK” on that website) is that because it is on the official club website, they are not allowed to give too much away, as that is formally known as “tapping up”. So to avoid this, they have to be as vague, which just leads to contradiction. For example, in a recent article, it refuses to name a big-name player who they say “is in England having a medical and the deal will be finalised before the weekend” before talking about how much of a coup it will be, in an obvious reference to Dimitri Payet, who has just been announced as a West Ham player. However, in the next paragraph, it mentions Monaco defender Aymen Abdennour by name and then saying: “My sources have told me that they are looking at a number of other top class players but they cannot say anymore at this stage as it will make other clubs aware of our targets”. This literally confirms nothing, completely ruining the point of the article in a quite ironic way.
So who is this anonymous click baiter known only to the public as “The Boleyn Insider”? Could it be The Stig? The banker from Deal Or No Deal? Bruce Wayne? David Gold in a balaclava? Although I sort of hope it is a weird hybrid between the 4, I guess we will never know. But my only request is that whatever this is or whoever this is, the Boleyn Insider needs to stop now before it gets too embarrassing.
