I am beginning to think we are jinxed, and soon to be hated by 1000’s of holiday makers who see us wearing XL Holidays on our shirts.

XL have gone bust, leaving 1000’s of people out of pocket and maybe a hell of a lot stranded on holiday.

An excerpt from the XL website says:

Customers booked with XL Airways Through XL.com or XL Call Centres

Unfortunately, customers who booked either through xl.com or xl call centres are not ATOL protected. Consequently, you will be ineligible for a refund from ATOL in respect of your flight.

Customers currently abroad

The CAA will be able to make arrangements for your return journey. As you fall into an unprotected category of customers you will be invoiced a fee on your return to the UK. Please check on the ATOL website (www.atol.org.uk) for details or go to the local airport ticketing desk where they will be able to make arrangements and inform passengers of the likely costs.

We have to find new sponsors so we do not have to wear the XL logo on our shirts, and West Ham should replace the shirts we have already bought with or without a logo on it.

This post was submitted by Martin Samuel.

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Alan Curbishley speaks out after the Columbus Crew game and how he and the team are looking forward to the All-Stars game but also shows his dispair on not making the US tour longer due to Fianacial reason, Curbishley on the Crew Game:

“It was fun, a lot of hard work and a really good test. Columbus is in midseason so we knew it was going to be a tough game,”

Curbishley on what he expects with The MLS All-Stars game:

“Obviously, we know it’s a big game, We know it’s sold out. We’ve got a lot of fans going there who have booked up holidays around the game. We’re going to make sure we’re OK for the game, probably ease up training for the game a little bit. We understand it’s going to be an electric atmosphere, so, game on. We’re looking forward to it.”

Curbishley on how the tour promotes West Ham and soccer in the USA & Canada:

“We wanted to come to America. We wanted to promote ourselves. We want to help America promote soccer and do our part,”

Curbishley said.

“Not only the first team squad came out but a lot of the academy coaches came out to do soccer camps, soccer schools as we go along.

“We’re here for a whole bundle of reasons, and one is to show everybody what we’re about at West Ham.”

“There are one or two things we want to do this week. We want to get fit but we want to give MLS an uplift,”

Curbishley said.

“It’s going back live to England as well (midnight London time). It’s not just being shown here. We’re going to take it seriously.”

“We’ve got to look at the bigger picture and the picture is we’ve got a season to be training for so we’ll work Tuesday and Wednesday a little harder than we would a normal game but certainly come Thursday we’ll be really excited,” Neill said. “Obviously, it’s the best players in America and we’re getting to take it on in what seems to be a really promoted event and we’re privileged to be a part of it.”

and what Curbishley said about the tour and MLS Soccer:

“The whole trip is shorter than we wanted because we wanted to stay longer and probably make base here a bit but the dowry doesn’t allow that, “We’re really excited to be here and the exposure we’re getting is great. We didn’t realize how many American West Ham fans there are. It’s amazing. Major League (Soccer) is trying to take off soccer-wise and you can see by the crowd coming out on a Sunday afternoon it’s really good. They’ve got a lot of work to do but the more publicity and high profile teams from England and all over the world that come to play, the better it will be.”

Video courtesy of MLSNet.com

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The trip to the USA & Canada is going to be a flight of hell for the West Ham squad when they travel to Ohio (Columbus Crew) & then on to Canada (MLS All-Stars).

The sqaud is to be flown economy class after the company that the MLS Bosses chose to transport the West Ham players went bust.

Tomorrow half the squad will fly to Chicago on a scheduled flight and the rest of the squad will fly out a few hours later, then they will have a 9 hour wait to catch a flight from Chicago to Columbus where they will be playing Columbus Crew on Thursday.

Its ironic that the sponsors of West Ham are XL Airways/Holidays so why cant our sponsors give the squad a private plane? and i may be wrong but its pretty certain that BG owns part of XL Airways.

It looks as though the supporting away fans will have to share seats with Bellamy and Ashton, and maybe some of them can give some advice to Curbs.

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