For as long as football teams and clubs have existed, there have been supporters, and with supporters come supporters’ clubs. West Ham had previously had an official supporters club scheme in the 2010’s.
The Essex West Ham Supporters Club became an Official Supporters Club with that scheme in 2015 and was involved until that came to an end. Last season the club got in touch as they were looking to bring back official supporters clubs, and as we had been one previously, would we be willing to be one again.
The two gents that I run Essex WHU with all agreed that it would be good to get a relationship going with West Ham again. I’m sure other supporter groups will have had similar discussions about their clubs.
So, when the club reached out shortly before the start of this season, we were ready as a ‘legacy’ club – aka clubs that had been under the old scheme. The details of the new scheme were sent to us, details of how it would work, what we had to do, what benefits there would be to our members etc.
There are different tiers to the level of supporters’ clubs you can be, which vary depending on how many members each supporters club has. The old scheme had bronze, silver and gold levels of clubs, this new scheme has tier levels, 1 & 2.
It basically means the more members you have in a supporters’ club; the more benefits West Ham gives to those supporters’ clubs. All the clubs – old and new – are starting off at Tier 1, which is fair as it sets everyone up at the same level across the board.
Some benefits of being a member of the Essex West Ham Supporters Club currently include pre-match pitchside photo opportunities, access to group bookings, and access to OSC Events. Other benefits include a dedicated access to Club liaison, quarterly OSC newsletter, access to OSC competitions, and you get to vote for the OSC Player of the Year Trophy.
It’s free to join, all you need to join is an account on the West Ham website linked with your client ref number, which I think is an improvement on the old scheme where we had to have a number of claret members and season ticket holders. This time, they’ve made it much more inclusive to all, which can only be a good thing.
You can join by visiting the West Ham website and going to the official supporters’ club section, you’ll see all the official supporters’ clubs there currently are, click on the Essex West Ham Supporters Club to go to our page and click on the join club option. We look forward to having you all onboard and growing our membership.
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