Read Paul Barber's West Ham programme notes

Main Club Sponsor

TICKETS

SHOP

The chief executive discusses various topics including our fantastic start to the season and the Europa League.

Paul Barber

2023-08-26T06:00:00Z

Chief executive and deputy chairman Paul Barber.

Welcome back to the American Express Stadium for our second home match of the new season and this evening’s Premier League clash with West Ham United.

We extend our welcome to our visitors’ players, staff and officials. The Hammers travel to the south coast fresh from beating London rivals Chelsea 3-1 at the London Stadium last weekend, and still basking in the success of their UEFA Conference League triumph at the end of last season.

Our record against West Ham since we secured promotion to the Premier League in 2017 has been excellent, but we know tonight’s match will be a tough test in what is always a great atmosphere when the east Londoners visit the Amex.

We can be very pleased with our own start to the new Premier League season – two wins, six points and eight goals make for very satisfying reading as does the (very early!) Premier League table!

Checking Live Fixtures...

No Live Fixtures

Live League Table Table

Summary
Extended
Form

Pos

Team

Pld

Pts

Albion Albion

-7

Man City MCI

Arsenal ARS

As we all know only too well, however, the Premier League can be brutal and maintaining good form is hard to do when the level of competition is so high. It’s a long and hard season and we have a very long way to go in what is our club’s biggest ever campaign.

This time next week we will know our UEFA Europa League opponents, as will today’s visitors who will compete with us (and Liverpool) in the same competition, so it’s a really exciting week for everyone connected to the club.

The draw, which takes place in Monaco on 1 September, will not only determine our group stage opponents but also the order of our home and away fixtures. We will confirm the dates and kick-off times for those matches as soon as possible.

We have been asked by many fans about the prospect of ticket and travel packages for our away matches in Europe but, at this stage, we have no plans to arrange flights and all tickets for our away matches will be sold according to loyalty point status.

Sales of our three-match packs for our Europa League matches have been excellent with some 20,000 packs already sold. We will be holding back around 5,000 tickets for those fans who prefer to buy on a match by match basis.

Europa League three-match packs are available.

Demand for tickets for all of our matches, home and away, is at an all time high and, with season tickets and 1901 Club memberships fully sold out, waiting lists are once again building up and at every match we have fans disappointed to miss out.

The club’s season ticket exchange is also busier than ever and we would encourage any season ticket holder that can’t attend to make their ticket available so we can ensure the team has the maximum possible support for each match.

In this regard, we will be doing our best to make the exchange available for Europa League games too, so please keep an eye on the club’s website for details of how this will work for those matches only. Looking beyond the European adventure, we have a very big match here at the Amex next Saturday evening when Newcastle United visit in our final Premier League game before the first international break of the season.

On our return, we face Manchester United at Old Trafford, AFC Bournemouth at home, and Aston Villa away - and suddenly it will be Autumn again! October sees us face tough fixtures at home to Liverpool and away at Manchester City.

Off the pitch, the club’s success on the pitch last season, a significant increase in our profile globally and the US Summer Series have all helped us to make significant gains in our social media following around the world.

In turn, significant engagement with fans through our social media channels is also helping us to smash all previous replica shirt sale records: home shirt sales are up over 200%, while our new away shirt is outselling last year’s by almost 70%.

Overall, we have sold more than double the shirts we sold at this stage of the season last year - and we still have a surprise to come! Once again, our biggest challenge is meeting demand despite, once again, significantly larger orders being placed.

It was great to see so many supporters at our traditional start of season Fans’ Forum, hosted by BBC Radio Sussex’s Johnny Cantor live from the Amex, and also to see so many hundreds of fans join us online for the special Europa League Q and A.

Roberto and I enjoyed taking questions from the hundreds of fans who had made the effort to attend the stadium, and also from those who were sending in questions through the BBC and online.

Similarly, head of supporter services Jenny Gower and I were pleased to have the opportunity to answer your Europa League ticketing questions and, with over 500 fans joining the session, we covered a lot of ground in the 90 minutes we had.

In addition to our liaison with the Fan Advisory Board and regular dialogue through the many letters, emails and calls we receive, direct fan engagement at our numerous fans’ forums remains the most important part of our work to keep you informed.

Finally, I know many of you are keen for more details on the documentary we commissioned to chart the club’s progress since that fateful day at Hereford United. Well, I’m pleased to say that work to apply the finishing touches is now taking place.

It’s been a mammoth task for the film makers to pack everything in - not least as it’s been very tempting to let the story run on and on! - but we are finally there, and we hope to confirm details of its release date soon.

Thanks, as ever, for your great support in our opening two matches of the new season. Once again, it will be critical today. Enjoy the match!