By JAMES CLARK
It's not the fact that we're losing Anton Ferdinand (pictured) to Sunderland, per se. He was always a raw-but-talented defender. In many cases, his penchant for scoring goals seemed to outweigh his talents for stopping goals at the other end, at least in the Premier League. Remember, his best days with Hammers were when he partnered Elliot Ward and helped us win promotion in 2004-05.
Anton was always the consolation, as such, for selling Rio to Leeds for that filthy lucre (18 million pounds-plus) all those years ago. "At least we still have the kid brother," we told ourselves. Raised in the urban environment of Peckham in South London, the Ferdinand parents were the exception to the norm. Their lads Rio and Anton had riding lessons and learned to play musical instruments ... they were not just thick footballers; they were all-rounders, as they say in the U.K. Rio's "forgotten" drug test and Anton's ill-advised trip to South Carolina for a bachelor party notwithstanding, these boys represented the best of the famed West Ham academy.
The fact that Anton sees his future with the ascendant Roy Keane and the Mackems/Black Cats ... and the fact that he can quadruple his wages there ... instead of in East London says a lot about both the limitations of manager Alan Curbishley to rally players around the cause as well as the failure of our Icelandic owners to compete in the financial landscape of the Premiership 2008-09, taking the global "credit crunch" into account.
