from labor club to toy porn magnate

• Ronald van Dam

  Editor and commentator for NOS Sports

“Perfect chastity and perfect purity are the sign of a divine life.”

With this pious thought, Arnold Hills founded a company soccer team in 1895 for the employees of his shipyard. The Thames Ironworks F.C. of old is now West Ham United, today owned by – how ironic – a porn magnate.

Coincidentally, this Arnold Hills is the great-great-grandfather of young journalist Frank Hills (25), who grew up in the Netherlands. “His story has been passed down from father to son,” Hills says. West Ham is in the Hills family’s DNA. “My nieces and nephews have season tickets,” he says.

Hills himself also tries to visit an occasional West Ham United game, defending a 2-1 lead in Alkmaar tonight in the Conference League semifinals against AZ.

Arnold Hills was an idealistic businessman who had his workers’ best interests at heart. The owner of Thames Ironworks & Shipbuilding lived in a small house among the workers, experiencing firsthand the sometimes very poor living and housing conditions.

To avoid shattering their wages at the pub and to ‘enrich’ their lives, Hills set up a number of cultural and sporting clubs. But according to his ‘pure’ vision: a diet of fruit, no alcohol, only sex to procreate and regular sports. Fifty employees signed up.

“An extraordinary man, although I don’t necessarily admire him,” Hills says of his grandfather’s grandfather. “He was someone with two faces. On the one hand idealistic and socially committed, but as an entrepreneur he also did stupid things. A project involving a ferry across the Thames completely failed and cost his company millions.”

“To his fiancée he sometimes said he would have eternal life,” he continued. “The English at that time considered themselves the rulers of the world, and rich industrialists like Arnold sometimes behaved unworldly.”

Not surprisingly, then, Hills’ idealism soon clashed with the ambitions of the workers who ran his club. Whereas he wanted to hold on to amateur status, his workers actually craved success against professional clubs like Tottenham Hotspur and Southampton. That penchant for professionalism was a bridge too far for Hills.

“He was a great supporter of the friendly gentleman’s game and didn’t like the idea of them bringing in players from other parts of the country. That went completely against his ideas about practicing sports,” says Frank Hills. “But he did have a stadium built for a hundred thousand spectators for a then astronomical sum. Not reconcilable if you want to hold on to amateur status.”

In 1900 the club was separated from the shipyard and continued as West Ham United. Hills remained a major shareholder until his death in 1927, but no longer interfered with the East London club, which would produce such talented footballers as Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand.

The image of a working-class club is still cherished by West Ham United fans, but behind the scenes money now rules. That is now mainly laid down by porn magnate David Sullivan, who took over club in 2010.

Hills: “That Sullivan owns forty percent of the shares, comes from around the club and I do think he’s a real fan. But yes, he got rich in the porn industry. My great-great-grandfather probably would have turned over in his grave.”

The Hammers have been craving success for years. The club won the European Cup 2 once in 1965, the last major prize was the FA Cup in 1980. Last season, the Premier League club was eliminated by Eintracht Frankfurt in the semifinals of the Europa League.

“West Ham have been particularly notable for their major transfer losses in recent years,” said Frank Hills. “On Sebastien Haller who left for Ajax, for example, they lost 28 million euros. For Italian Scamacca, they paid 40 million to Sassuolo, but he has not yet been able to break through in the English league partly due to injuries.”

All those losses may be somewhat offset if child of the club Declan Rice is sold after this season. The midfielder is a “product” of the Academy of Football, the famed youth academy that brought West Ham fame. Arsenal would reportedly have one hundred million euros to spare for him.

“They are fifteenth now. Rice can and deserves better,” Hills believes. “But then there has to be someone in return that the fans can identify with. Otherwise it’s going to be one of those foreign legions all the way. Then my great-great-grandfather will be right after all.”