Running on Empty: West Ham 1 -1 Everton; 28 December

This game was a family outing.  There was me, my two sons, one daughter, a grandson and a son's girlfriend (but no partridge or pear tree).  Connor, bouyed by his success in predicting the score against Man City (if not the team that would win) and possibly overcome even this early in his career supporting West Ham by the Fulham result, decided that we would go one better and win 4-1.  Oh the naivety of the young.  Considering the Fulham performance, rather than the result, as well as the fact that we had played 24 hours before and Everton's match had been postponed, the jaundiced elders expected nothing from this game.  When we were given a team with Carlton (two-goal) Cole on the bench and Rigor and Faubert the faux right back on the pitch, even nothing seemed a stretch.

In the event, we got a draw and felt reasonably happy.  Well, except for the numpties behind us who greeted Cole's appearance as a substitute with their customary level of abuse, which one of them then managed to escalate into racism.  What odd brain cell they must possess suggests to them that this will help the team win?  Does it never occur to them that support might be part of the job description of being a, well, supporter (the clue's in the word)?  While I admit that the general and specific levels of some West Ham players over the years - and certainly in this team - on occasions beggar belief, even I can see they are trying (very, as the old joke has it).  Although Rigor has an unbelievably irritating habit of passing to the opposition, he works terrifically hard.  Not to much effect, I admit, but he won't improve through abuse. 

Similarly, Cole often occupies two central defenders alone and receives scant service from the wings that he can do anything with.  Unfortunately, he undermined his case by missing a golden opportunity to win the game with a poor attempt.  But maybe that betrays a lack of confidence from having Racist Numpty abusing his every contribution.

I bet David Moyes would play him.  After all, he deployed his famous 4-6-0 formation with no forwards until he brought on Yakubu as a sub.  Now there's a player we tried to sign, and out of a choice of him and Cole, we have the better of it. What abuse would he receive, I wonder? 

But then it appears he was a signing favoured by the owners - in the tradition of Big Benni before him.  Perhaps they should stick to owning and leave the football to the professionals? Not that one would wish to trust Avram with big money.  After all, he spent almost all his transfer budget on Winston Reid and Pablo Barrera, neither of whom played even with all the players being rested and who both seem out of their depth in the Premier League.

So we competed well enough against a team that beat Man City away last time out, could have won (and could have lost) and seemed to have Super Scott out on his feet by the end, but we had a point and are unbeaten in three games.

And then bloody Liverpool lose to Wolves (the only team with a worst away record than us) and bloody Arsenal let slip a lead against ten-man Wigan and we're back on the bottom.

A funny old game?  No, it's enough to make you weep!

Boxing Day Clever: Fulham 1 - 3 West Ham; 26 December

Ho, ho, ho indeed.

Where to begin with the pleasure of seeing us win an away game for the first time in sixteen months and 28 attempts?  Especially because for the first forty minutes we hadn't played at all.

I watched the game with my elderly mother, my two sons, eldest daughter and six-year-old grandson.  This demographic limited to some extent the tone and content of the focused advice offered to the team via the television screen.  My mother's dementia didn't get in the way of mocking the criticism we directed at West Ham with comments suggesting that we wouldn't do much better.  True, but as Joel pointed out, we should be so lucky to be paid their wages to be so inept.  Notice, I said 'be paid' rather than 'earn', because, Super Scott excepted, the first forty minutes didn't suggest anybody was earning their wages.  When we went behind to the first goal Aaron Hughes has scored in six years, it was the usual story.  Don't clear a corner, don't put pressure on the cross, don't mark players in the middle of the six yard box, concede yet again.  Do we practice this in training?  I have to think so because we are so slick at doing this every game.  So we sat back and waited for the deluge.  After all, Hughes never scores, Fulham don't score many anyway and they must have thought their very own Santa Clauses had turned up  in claret and blue instead of the traditional red.  If Andy Johnson had not forgotten what it is like to score a goal we would have been dead and buried well before half time.

As it was we muttered our discontent.  Just after half-past one The Controller returned home.  She'd (wisely) decided to visit her mother to keep away from the negativity but returned to prepare lunch for the family.  Popping her head around the door she enquired as to the score and offered, 'oh,well, never mind' before departing for the kitchen and Carlton Cole promptly scored.  She returned to see what the fuss was about in time for Piquionne to score a second.  Half-time and, improbably, impossibly, West Ham were in front.  As we calmed down, we realised this could not last.  The Sky commentators could not believe the turnaround (and nor could we), but there was another 45 minutes to go for us to repeat our slapstick defending.  Cole had already scored a goal, so there was no point him staying on - he's never scored more than one goal a game in well over 150 games. 

Well, well, well.  The past is not a reliable predictor for the future.  Things change.  We didn't concede another goal and Cole scored a second for him and we won 3-1.  By the 88th minute, we'd relaxed to the point of believing we would win, after all.  Connor was joining in the rendition of 'Bubbles' and we were teaching him the version of Jingle Bells where it's fun to see West Ham win away.

The only frightening thing was seeing Avram Grant on the telly smiling.  And, as my son Jack noted, winning means he keeps the job for longer.  Cloud/silver lining interface.

But we're no longer bottom (even if Wolves do have two games in hand and are only a point behind) and we now twist on the spike of hope again.

Until the Everton game tomorrow, that is.

Connor had better keep predicting us to win .....

Christmas Presents? Or the season of goodwill? Before the game away to Fulham.

Today is Christmas Eve.  In two days West Ham will make the long trek west to Craven Cottage for yet another attempt to win away from home.  Not that it's very far from home, of course. But I shan't be going.  I've succumbed to Christmas torpor.  My family will arrive early so we can collectively suffer in front of the television and the Controller will remove herself and be mildly disapproving of our collective abuse (which will necessarily be moderated in front of six-year old Connor).

You can see I'm expecting a positive result.

But it might be that a fat man in a red costume will come bearing three points and deposit them at Avram's feet, thus ensuring good cheer and him remaining in the job for a little longer.  So David Gold, get the costume on.

A Good Game to Miss: Blackburn 1 - 1 West Ham; 18 December

So in London there was almost a blizzard.  All games called off - even those tomorrow.  But one 3 o' clock kick-off went ahead - West Ham at Blackburn.  I had my first experience of watching a live game streamed and The Controller had the joy of hearing the abuse hurled at the monitor.  At one point in the second half she was moved to make a two-word comment - 'Blood Pressure'.  At the end her summary was - 'just bloody juvenile', but far from being juvenile it was very mature, considered and well-crafted abuse.

Where to start?  The commentators noted that Spector would be surprised to find himself playing as Behrami was due to start but managed to get injured in the warm-up.  I would have been surprised to find him playing if I had, but he was just occupying space on the pitch.  Piquionne was beyond awful.  He couldn't shoot, couldn't pass and, when given the chance free in the box, couldn't head either.  Barrera is not lightweight, he's featherweight.  Before their goal he had a chance to clear the ball and was for the umpteenth time brushed off it.  Dyer has no notion of looking along the line and was caught offside time and time again.  Rigor worked and worked - even teeing up Piquionne to waste a chance - but he's not good enough and is always a rush of blood to the head away from giving away a penalty or getting sent off.  This time it was a free kick in the 93rd minute that could have lost the game through a ridiculous lunge.  And then the glory that is Big Ben McCarthy.  Put through by a glorious ball to win the game against his old club in the 85th minute he fell over the ball.  Other than that he couldn't pass accurately from two yards.  I hope I never see him again.

But there is always the glory that is Super Scott.  He made our equaliser and somehow kept us going forward even when all that was forward was Piquionne, McCarthy or Cole (and so you knew it would come straight back).  And Tomkins played as a proper defender.  So two of the players had good performances and that was enough for a draw.

The only downside is that may keep Grant in the job, and a point isn't going to help us stay up.  We're still three points behind the other teams at the bottom and now have payed a game more.  I don't know about The Pornographers, but I think the time for keeping calm is past.  Let's panic!

Preparing for another miracle: Before the Blackburn game

The last but one time we were fighting relegation, the Blackburn game was a turning point.  We were awarded a goal that didn't cross the line and a penalty for a foul way outside the box. 

Now we are looking for lightning to strike in the same place, 'cos that's the only way I can see West Ham winning at Blackburn.  There's a new 'caretaker' manager (why does the caretaker always get the stand-in job?  Why not the car-park attendant or the sous-chef?) who will be desperate to make an impression.  The players will also need to impress a new boss.  Whereas our players haven't won away for ever (form they are now taking to home games), with the same old manager who definitely needs to take care he's not out of a job after this game but who's shown no ability to get anything like necessary performances.

The only hope is a blizzard ....

Underwhelmed: West Ham 1-3 Man City; 11 December

The expected result was greeted with widespread apathy.  Nobody I've spoken to believes anything other than that we'll be relegated.  Of course, I've not spoken to Avram Grant, and he believes that the team is playing well and that we can win two of our next three games (as opposed to two of our last 17).  He also believes that Father Christmas will be coming down his chimney with presents.

What has been more interesting is the other events taking place on Planet Football (where the atmosphere is completely different to earth, and it is inhabited by alien beings who do things differently to humans).  Chris Hughton was sacked by Newcastle for a record of achievement we can only envy.  When some Newcastle fans chanted that Mike Ashley is a 'fat cockney bastard', though, I felt aggrieved.  I'm a cockney and he's just a wide-boy chancer, and there's a difference.  And Newcastle fans calling him fat!  I've seen them with their shirts off in the crowd at Upton Park and, fat as he is, he's sylph compared to some of them.  Five Bellies, indeed.

But with the sacking, Lord Sugar's suck-up showed unexpected reserves of sympathy, saying she'd invite Hughton for a cup of tea.  That must have made Avram twitch.  After all, Hughton has recent and relevant experience.  He took over a failing team and accompanied it into the Championship, where he galvanised it to be promoted immediately.  Then he took it to mid-table.  He did this without spending any money, and by bringing in Academy players.  Sounds like a better plan than any we've had recently.

But then that was turned upside down by the next day's events on Planet Football, the sacking of Sam Allardyce by Blackburn.  Apparently, the owner wants better football and the team to challenge for the Champions League and had already allocated £5m for the transfer window to help achieve that.  And I want West Ham to win the league, play like Barcelona, an end to world poverty by the end of the season and the Coalition Government to sign solemn pledges to never tell lies again (although I recognise the latter is a ridiculously unachieveable aspiration).

Now I'm no expert (unlike the owner of Venky's, Asia's largest producer of chickens and eggs - whichever came first - who had never seen football matches before the last couple of months), but my guess is that Blackburn will struggle to achieve a top ten finish.  But when Allardyce went there, replacing Paul Ince of hallowed memory, they were certain to be relegated.  And they weren't, and they wouldn't be this year. 

OK, it might not be pretty, but then losing with the regularity we do is also not pretty.  It may be functional, percentage football based on sound defending first and foremost, but our defending has been abolutely atrocious and our attacking not much better.

Like all fickle fans, I was delighted when Alan Curbishley went because of his lack of ambition and boring football.  But my ambition now is not be relegated, and if that takes boring football, well boring winning football is better than boring drawing football and not even in sight of boring losing football.  And then, when we're safe I'll be quite happy to start moaning again about style and aspiration.

But as for now, the chance to appoint Allardyce (Big Sam or not), with some money to spend on the squad in the transfer window, is too good to miss.

Sooner or later, The Pornographers will have to grasp the nettle that their appointment in the summer is taking us to the Championship.  Sack him now and there's a chance to escape (albeit slim), stick with him further than the new year and we're down.  Then we might need Hughton's knowledge of the Championship

Seeing is believing: before the Man City game

This week I have had an operation on both eyes  (a right upper ptosis repair and bilateral dermatochalasis [blepharorrhaphy], since you ask).  I currently look like I've been punched by Mike Tyson and my vision isn't the best.  Everything looks a bit like those shots with camera lenses that have had vaseline on them.  It should be fine by Saturday, but I'm not at all sure that 20-20 vision will make the game look any better.

Man City is the new team everybody loves to hate because they've spent zillions to buy the Premiership and then the Champions League.  But that's what Chelsea did before them and it prefaces the next two World Cups that we have a Russian oligarch and an Arab plutocrat owning those two teams as well as, presumably, bankrolling international tournaments with enough Wonga to sate even the ever-so-greedy Sepp Blatter's appetite.

Since for years 'big clubs' have been buying the best players from smaller clubs anyway, it's only a question of scale when Liverpool or Man Utd don't like it.  And Man Utd are not exactly shrinking violets when it comes to shelling out money for players they have previously tapped up.  Ince?  Rooney?  That's ignoring Van Nistelrooy and Stam.  Spurs have certainly bought the playbook - 'Arry or son Jamie do the tapping up, the chairman spends big money, hey presto, Chapions League.

So the delights of Man City's no doubt very opulent bench (as well as very large pay packets) must be better than Arsenal (for Adebayor) or Everton (for Lescott) or being John Terry's neighbour (for Bridge - and that I can well understand).

As the weather's cold I expect Roberto Mancini will be modelling the style item de nos jours, the club scarf (as taken up by the rather less stylish Avram Grant, but in different colours), and there'll be snoods and gloves a-plenty for the players.  For the crowd (our bit, at least) it'll be thermals under layers of other clothes so we give passable imitations of the Michelin Man.  But we can but hope the players are induced to run around a bit to keep warm.

I'm not sure whether being able to see the game will be such a good idea after losing to Sunderland.  Man City are a different proposition and although King Carlos has done the decent thing and got himself suspended so he doesn't have to score against us, he'll miss his usual standing ovation (and we'll miss his crossed hammers sign in return).  But I can't see us getting anything from this game other than frozen extremities.

Back to the Bottom: Sunderland 1 - 0 West Ham; 5 December

Normal service has been resumed and West Ham are once again beaten away from Upton Park  That's every league game since the first one of last season where we haven't won away.  So consistency there, then.

The last time West Ham were relegated, I knew we were in trouble when, in the first or seocnd game of the season, we were beaten at home by Leicester.  Leicester!  They were one of those teams that we always, always beat, no matter how we were playing.  Something like Blackburn now.  Or like Sunderland - we never lose to them, we even won at their place in the fizzypop in September.  But not today, not this season.  And for all the euphoria of beating Man Utd last Wednesday, we're back to the bottom of the table and looking certainties for relegation.

Nobody I know expects to win the semi-final, but nor do we expect to win any games between now and then because we'll be concentrating on it.

And lacklustre performances like today's are just, well, to be expected. 

As the old football saying has it, the table doesn't lie - and it doesn't even spin, unlike Avram, who will no doubt find plenty of positives in today's performance.

So, at least Carlos is suspended for next Saturday's visit of Man City and won't be able to get his usual ovation.  But I can't see anything other than being beaten again, so at least false hope won't be given a twirl this week. 

What's that about being bottom at Christmas?  Good job we have a four-year plan, then.  I just can't imagine that the way this season is going was part of the plan, so I'm not over-confident that the rest of the plan will be any good.  Still, there's always cross your fingers and hope.  It can't be any less effective a strategy than this one and perhaps the Premier Santa will give us a big bag of pressies against Blackburn, Everton, Fulham and Wolves.  We shall see.

A new dawn?..

At present West Ham have lost twice in eight games and are in the semi final of the league cup. It feels like a momentous change to the season and maybe supporters of other teams would be pleased. We’re not, we know we’ll probably lose at Sunderland on Sunday and start the run of form we are used to.

This is the type of negativity that is instilled in me as a life long (forced) West Ham fan. Any glimmer of hope is quickly darkened by some cloud of doom. If the Chilean miners were West Ham fans they would have probably topped themselves in the first few hours, before the food had even run out.

It seems like a lot of supporters are unaware that association football games are scheduled to run for ninety official minutes, with some extra time thrown in on top. I understand frustration at the football at West Ham, but do these people really have somewhere that pressing to get too a birth, or a funeral?

A child being born will no doubt be indoctrinated with the unending love (with equal amounts of loathing) for West Ham and understand their parents lateness. A Funeral on a Saturday is a rare event, never mind on Wednesday night. Even so, if the recently departed was West Ham, they’d have understood and would be annoyed at the funeral schedulers tactless planning. If not, fuck ‘em, miss the service and go for the drinks after, much less depressing.

I have a feeling that it’s none of these things – these people want to miss the rush for the train and no doubt get home so they can wank off to X Factor or some other smut. Appalling cretins.

Read it and Weep!

The last time I actually posted I was worrying how to explain to my 5 year old son that mummy's team had lost while Daddy's team were continuing to prove that even when they play badly they still win. It is a conundrum I have found myself trapped in for most of the season so far.

Strategies have had to be developed to ensure that he - along with the rest of us - suffers the embarassment of being a West Ham supporter. These mainly involve taking him to matches. His first was the dreadful display against Blackpool where after 10 minutes he turned to me and said 'Mummy, aren't they supposed to try and kick the ball into the goal? They don't know how to do that do they?' from the mouths of babes as the saying goes! All this before asking for the Nintendo DS with which to alleviate his boredom - oh for the days when this could be achieved so easily. I also managed to shield him form the abject dispaly that we produced against Liverpool - there are some bonuses to not subsrcibing to ESPN as I can pretend this never happened.

Another good bribe continues to be the half time hotdog, athough in order to get him to come to the Wigan match this had to be moved forward to a pre match hotdog. This time he lasted 65 minutes before asking for the DS - now there's progress. Another added bonus was the point at which he turned round at half time after being told that Daddy's team (The Red Manc Scum) were winning 3-0 and announced that this was ok because 'our' team was winning as well. A defining moment in a young football supporters life - or at least in the lives of those of us who have been fighting to ensure that he is not swayed by the glitz and glamour of the Mancs and their success but enters into the traditional life of suffering experienced by a West Ham fan.

All these strategies were however recently derailed when he was promised at school that West Ham players were coming in to do wome work with them only for this never to materialise - cue much disillusionment with the Happy Hammers. Funny that this occurred just when the Kids for a Quid tickets for Wigan went on sale. I wonder exactly how many schools werer told the exact same thing - good PR stunt that well done Porn barons!

While my struggle to inflict the life of a West Ham fan upon him could be classified as a mild form of abuse, and while the long term effects concern me greatly (viv a vis earlier posts re West Ham's ability to colour your entire outlook on life), today I am no longer worried about this.

At the point this morning (about 6am) when I came downstairs to be told ' Mummy, Daddy's team lost last night but our team won 4-0' I knew that I was winning the battle. Maybe he will turn out to be a fairweather fan - like his fathers' workmates who, despite living close to the ground and claiming to be die hard West Ham fans, failed to make it to the match last night preferring instead to stay in the warm and watch instead of using the tickets they had paid for. Or maybe, just maybe we've arrived at that point when he becomes a real fan (rather than a Real fan which are the other team he claims to support, along with Barcelona - he loves a conflict my son!).

And to be quite honest, I don't care what Fergie, or my other half, says about the Mancs being made up of a team of inexperienced youngsters last night. Though the last time I heard anyone describing Giggs as a youngster was a while ago, plus I'm fairly certain that Fletcher, Anderson, O'Shea, Brown, Chicarito ( I whole heartedly agree with the chicken run supporter last night who politely exhorted him to 'get a proper name') have all played fairly regularly for them so far this season. While I know, courtesy of The Guardian, that Johnny Evans has played more than 50 games in defence fro them. And anyway, it's not as if that was our first team on the pitch - although maybe it should be.

And we still managed to beat the Mancs 4 - 0, their biggest defeat since 2001. Maybe things are on the up.

Since our win over Spurs this season I have taken great pleasure in pointing out to all their fans who tell me how rubbish my team is that, while I agree, we still beat them. That courtesy will now of course be extended to all Manc fans.

4 - 0, read it and weep!

Winter Wonderland: West Ham 4 - 0 Man Utd; 30 November.

Because of the dreadful weather, quite a lot of people didn't make it to Upton Park last night.  Among them was the Man Utd team and, along with all other 'Appy 'Ammers in the ground, I was left pinching myself in disbelief while simultaneously hugging myslef in joy at the result.

Was this really the West Ham that have been so awful this season?

Before the kick-off I had noted that the crowd would have surfeit of riches in the booing stakes.  Carlton Cole was back in the side.  Luis Boa Morte was back in the side.  Jonathon Spector was back in the side.  Radoslav Kovac was back in the side.  As were Tal Ben Haim and Julien Faubert (not particularly targets for the boo-boys, but not inspiring of confidence). 

And we were playing a team that hadn't lost for ages and ages, that has won the Fizzypop for the past two seasons (on both occasions playing a mix of fringe players and established first teamers, as they would tonight).

So there was not a great deal of confidence about the result.  My son, Jack, couldn't risk getting here from Brighton in case he couldn't get back for work the next day.  I envied him his cast-iron excuse, and secretly hoped either my daughter, Jessica, or son, Joe, would cry off and give me an excuse not to go.  No such luck.

So the joy from the unexpected and truly deserved victory was wonderful.

Luis was a man possessed.  As ever he spent the match infuriating the opposition, but on this occasion not the home crowd, who warmed (even in sub-zero temperatures) to his effort and commitment, and even his skill.  Kovac broke up the midfield unfussily and didn't ever seem to get bypassed.  Ben Haim launched himself into some ferocious tackles and kept his position, and Faubert's faux-pas didn't result in goals for a change.

But as for Spector and Cole!  It was dreamland.  I read today that in 97 games Spector has never scored.  So the London Bus effect was due.  But before his first goal we had the outrage of a disallowed goal from Mr Clattenburg, who has form where West Ham is concerned but who was apparently right on this occasion to disallow the first 'goal'.  It's easy to write that when we've won 4-0 (I think that scoreline bears frequent repetition).  But for Specs to score again shortly after and then get his hat-trick (as we maintained) was very heaven.

Of course, at half-time we rehearsed all the occasions when we've thrown away leads of two goals and above, and half-time wasn't long enough to remember them all.  Our consensus was that it was great to be leading but that we'd lose (probably after extra-time in the freezing cold and even to penalties).  Jack, on the phone, was equally pessimistic as we all tried to keep at bay the hope that kills.

So the coming of King Cole and two goals in a match for the first time ever was as unrpedictable as, well, Specs.  And through it all Obinna was magnificent in providing assists for all four goals, the last after a masterful piece of showboating and leaving substitute Da Silva twin twisted like a corkscrew.  Super Scott could nurse his chest infection on the bench all evening, Zavon Hines could get a cameo and give mr Clattenburg the opportunity to cement his reputation by not giving us a cast-iron penalty and Cole could leave to a standing ovation.

I'm still floating today.  Up in the air, just like a bubble, no thought of bursting.

Now we'll get Arsenal in the semi, I'm sure.

Latic Acid: West Ham 3 - 1 Wigan

So this was the game to save our season.  Or at least make a start.  And it's very nice to come home from a freezing football match having won 3-1.  In truth it was quite a nice game because we had a team at our level who also want to play football (like us, they're just not terribly good at it) and these are absolutely the games we need to win.  Like the West Brom and Blackpool games that we didn't but today we had some good fortune.  When Wigan had a penalty at 2-0 up, it could all have started to go very wrong if they had scored.  But Rob Green saved what was, in truth, a pretty poor effort and we could leave off the nervousness until the 85th minute and our obligatory concession.

Our first two goals were surprising.  Behrami got into the box from midfield for Piquionne's knock-down, held off two defenders and prodded the ball home.  A very quiet Boleyn Ground found its voice. Then, in the second half, from his fiftieth shot of the season, Obinna found the net.  If that's his goals to shots ratio, we'll be well into the new year before we see another.  But the third goal was business as usual - Super Scott won a ball in midfield, drove forward and released Obinna to his left, continued his run into the box and beat the defender to the cross.  Determination, vision and skill all in the one package.

Of course we had time for the numbnuts to boo Carlton Cole coming on to replace Piquionne at 3-0 up - as if that's going to help the team. 

And even Avram managed to seem animated on the touchline, waving his arms around incomprehensibly.  But he had made a number of decisive changes for the game.  Ilunga was not even on the bench as was entirely proper after his abject display at Liverpool.  Gabbidon shuffled across to left back and Tomkins came into central defence.  Behrami and Stanislas came into midfield to replace the injured Noble and the incompetent Boa Morte.  Cole was on the bench with Obinna and Piquionne up front in a more solid 4-4-2 formation.  So maybe Avram was watching the same game as the rest of us last week.

Now it's just the two Manchester teams in a week - United in the fizzypop, City in the Premiership next Saturday.  The return of King Carlos is unlikely to bring us any points, but they're not in the league we need to win.  Blackburn and Fulham in the next two games are much more important for us.

It's the hope, always the hope .......

A sense of perspective: before the Wigan match

This week I was presenting awards at a Special School for children and young people with autism.  The awards were a range of GCSE and other certificates gained in the summer by this year's leavers.  The head teacher is completely passionate about all things West Ham (which is presumably why I get regular invites to this event) and makes sure all of the kids know this as an essential part of his (very warm) relationship with them.

It reminded me how much more being a committed supporter is than the matches.  It's part of my sense of identity, how I present myself in my work and how I relate to people (and they to me).  It's part of my history, as I started going with my father over 55 years ago and have gone with my children for nigh on 30 years.  And I have often joked that supporting West Ham is character building as you learn to cope repeatedly with disappointment.  Bubbles, fading and dying.

But when I see those young people who have faced and will face enormous challenges in their lives, and their parents and carers who share those challenges, it's also easy to see the joy that supporting something can give, the connection it fosters with other people, the relationship that it gives with supporters of other teams (who all understand how great it feels to win and the despair of battling relegation - Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal followers excepted, of course, but they're followers, not fans) as life-enhancing.

But that's how I feel before the 'save our season' ((c) The Pornographers) game.  Maybe I'll find it hard to be so philosophical afterwards.

Mersey Beat: Liverpool 3-0 West Ham; 20 November

To be completely clear, no West Ham fan expected to win at Liverpool on Saturday.  Given that it's 47 years since we last won there, and that Bill Shankly had summed up West Ham in his raw scotch accent 'West Ham, great team, great to play, four points every year' (when there were 2 points for a win, of course).  Given that we are rock bottom of the league and have only won once all season.  Given that we haven't won away since the first game of last season when we managed to beat Wolves.  Given that Super Scott Parker has finally succumbed to the effort of carrying the entire team and was sick (add your own punchline of choice).  Given that the quality and manner of our performances this season has been unremittingly dire.


So, as the old Rolling Stones song says, No Expectations.

Which gave a resigned ambience to watching the match on ESPN in Norfolk.  Both dogs could relax because I wouldn't be hurling abuse at the television set.  The Controller could try to engender some spirit by opining that 'this is the kind of game that they might win' or 'the pressure will be off them so they might perform' (that's a translation into football speak of her more novelistic, writerly comments), but without success.

So if, even in such circumstances, it's possible to be disappointed, it's an illustration of how very, very, very, very poor a performance it was.  The first few minutes set the tone for as lacklustre a non-showing as I can ever remember seeing.  Perhaps, the thought struck me, the players have as much confidence in their ability to win as I have.  But I'm not paid shed loads of money to at least put the effort in.  Mark Noble honourably excepted, not a single outfield player is worth his wages this week.  Even if they get paid 10% of what I think they get, they're not worth it.

The commentators were amazed by how poor West Ham were performing.  Chris Waddle, as the summariser, had a career as footballer that was hardly distinguished by hard running and putting his body on the line when it mattered.  So when even such as he is staggered by the 'efforts' of the team, it speaks volumes.

At one point, the commentator noted that Avram Grant was standing on the touchline 'but he's not doing anything', so at least his performance was of a piece with the rest of the season.

This weekend it's my elder daughter, Jessica's, birthday.  If she lives (as I hope) at least another 47 years she won't see West Ham win at Liverpool playing like that.  I would hope that she will never see a performance as bad as that, but we've still got the rest of this season to go.

Everybody now says that next Saturday's home game against Wigan is vital.  Even the manager has grasped that.  Whether he'll still be there to see it is another matter.

Blackpool Illuminations: West Ham 0 - 0 Blackpool; 13 November

Today my grandson, Connor, came to his first game of the season.  As he's so young (not 6 until December), he's building up his stamina.  That means he can only watch so much of the game before he wants entertainment.  I understand how he feels.  Today, the Nintendo came out after half-time, but half way through the first half he had predicted that the final score would be 0-0.

In truth, I still don't see how it became goalless.  Marlon Harewood reminded us of his striking capabilities by missing the cow's arse with a banjo again, but this time it was for the opposition.  Our forwards are all from the Harewood school of 'finishing' (which means they'll finish our run in the Premiership) but Super Scott couldn't save us this time, no matter how hard he and Mark Noble worked.  We just need to face it that the team isn't good enough.  Now we're six points from safety and have won once all season. 

Blackpool, by contrast, demonstrated what a well-drilled and committed team that knows its limitations (and also what it can do) can achieve with guts and endeavour.  Fair play to them - I hope they stay up by maintaining that form all season.

Why is it so dire?.  Well, only one of the new arrivals in the summer in defence can get a game.  Winston Reid, Tal Ben Haim, not even good enough for our defence.  Jacobsen is, but only because we haven't had a recognised right full-back since Lucas Neill left at the beginning of last season.  So from Blackburn reserves to our right side.  James Tomkins and Manuel Da Costa have been tried and found very wanting, Spector is a disaster.  Ilunga had a decent year and got a good contract and has since stopped playing.

Then there's our forwards. Obinna can't score despite all the runing and endeavour.  Piquionne is similarly unproductive, as is Cole.  As for Big Mac .... what a buy he was last January.

Scott Parker and others hold the midfield (as well as the defence and contribute goals), but we never look like scoring and always looks likely to concede.

No doubt Avram saw it differently and will blame the referee for not awarding a penalty, but they had an equally good shout.  And he'll talk about character and keeping going.

Now's the time for him to go.

After this season is over, I think it's time for me to go as well.

Thick and Fast: West Ham 2 - 2 West Brom; 10 November

Footballers are fond of saying that games are 'coming thick and fast' when there's a midweek game.  So, in eight days we shall have played Birmingham , West Brom and Blackpool.  So far, after the first two, the points have come thin and slow.  Two only out of the supposed target of seven from four games (including Liverpool away where our track record is, for West Ham, simply believable although unremittingly dire).

After each game I read our manager's comments either in his email to me (with random blocks of text in red print), or on the Pravda website, or in the public prints.  I am always convinced we have been at a different match.  Where he sees spirit and determination, I see heads go down and passive acceptance of the inevitable.  Where he sees us dominate the play, I see us likely concede every time the opposition attacks.  Where he sees our pattern of play improving, I see us inviting crosses and rarely marking in the box, especially very big and obvious players (Carroll? Jones? Jerome? Ibanez?)  We agree on one thing only.  Scott Parker should play with his pants outside, a cape and great big 'S' on his chest.  How he manages to carry so many underperforming teammates week after week is a mystery.  I only hope they're giving him their wages - he's doing their jobs, after all.  (This week, with the exception of Kieron Dyer. I won the sweepstake in our row about how long he would last because mine was the longest time at 75 minutes and he managed 90.  I don't expect to see him again for some time)

So we were completely lacklustre against West Brom.  Rigor Mortis passed more freequently to the opposition than his own side and then gave away a penalty.  Cole laboured and drew more crowd derision.  Upson and Gabbidon didn't defend crosses, Jacobsen and Ilunga didn't cut them out.  For fifteen minutes arouf half-time we played and the shrank back into our shell as we waited for the equaliser.  The surprise was we held on for a draw.

So the controller has initiated discussion about what I'll do about my season ticket next year when we're relegated.  When, mind, not if.

My bold statement is I'll stop going.

And I mean it.  Whether or not we're going to move to the Olympic Stadium.  Whether or not Avram stays as manager.  Whatever the quality of the Pornographers' bullshit.

So Blackpool at home is a big game.  Lose and I know we're finished even this early.  Win and who knows.

So I'm predicting a draw.

Consistency: Birmingham 2 - 2 West Ham; 6 November

I was updated by text message on the progress of the West Ham game by my son, Jack, who was watching on-line in Brighton.  I was in a foreign country - Scotland - while this virtual world emcompassed me.  In addition, my other son, Joel, sent text messages (but much later as his text updates had to come through to his phone first) and I tried to log on to Sky Mobile on my iPhone with intermittent success. 

Why the anxiety?  I'd chosen to go to see Becky and her partner, Andrew, in Glasgow.  I knew part of me thought this was an opportunity to avoid the inevitable disappointment of another West Ham game.  But still, I couldn't not want to know what was happening. 

Following the team and wanting to know the score has been with me for over half a century.  My earliest memory is of Dad coming home from games and telling me the score and how we'd played (usually we were crap).  Then I remember the wireless that developed from Sports Report into bulletins during games and then, sometimes, even a live commentary.   There were the evening classified reports in the paper ('Star, News and Standard') that were always full of early match detail and brief final score updates to meet printing deadlines and be on the street corner by 6..

When television came along a new visual grammar of immediacy came in the shape of reporters actually at games that we couldn't see giving us breathless reports.  And to follow there were highlight programmes on BBC and ITV.  All, of these, of course, were on a Saturday evening, the day ordained for football until the Sky money bought its soul.

Many of these could be followed, if the team was away, while out Saturday afternoon shopping, on radios or televisions in shops.  And, as I can attest from working abroad in the 1970s, via the BBC World Service (by fading short wave at weird times of the day in the Middle and Far East).  Thousands of miles away, often late at night and listening alone, I still felt part of collective disappointment of West Ham fans (except when we won the 1975 cup final as I listened in Saudi Arabia and was inspired to teach my English class of Saudi Princes to sing "Bubbles").

But what I still can't break, is the desire to know, even when (especially when) I expect the news to be bad.

And to find out West Ham were 2-0 up, only to draw 2-2, was, in its way, almost predictable.  Really predictable would have been to lose (after all, we've managed that after leading 3-0 TWICE!).

So, still bottom of the league, another email from the Manager about how we played well and didn't deserve to lose and how we're determined to put this right for next Wednesday's game against West Brom (the only team whose name begins with a 'W' not in the bottom three).

Even the Controller has begun to sympathise with the predicament, so it must be bad.

West Ham, a bad season.  Consistency.

Leaving the country: vs Birmingham 6 November

Today I'm going to Glasgow.  That might be an extreme way of avoiding West Ham playing Birmingham, but I'm going to visit my younger daughter for the weekend.  Missing the game against Birmingham is only a welcome bonus.

Still perhaps the pornographers will pull something out against their old flame, and Karren Brady will enjoy her return.

But I wouldn't bet on it.

Clocks go Back, Irons Go Back: Arsenal 1 - 0 West Ham; 31 October

While West Ham were succumbing to the usual valiant defeat at Arsenal, I was at the pictures.  Time was, I used to go to away games like this.  Time was, I went to enough away games to have priority points to go to away games like this.  Time was, I wanted to go.  Even when the Arse could chant 'We've got Dennis Bergkamp' we could reply with 'We've got Iain Dowie'.  And we were the last away team to win at Highbury when Bobby Z finished Sol Campbell's Arsenal career, as well as the first team to win at the Emirates with the usual outstanding performance from Rob Green.  But, well, usually they beat us.  Home and away.  When they're not accompanied in that by the likes of Wolves or Newcastle, it's easy to think it's one the ulamented Curbs's bonus games - the ones we don't ever expect to get anything from.  That was certainly Zola's thinking last year, saving the main striker for the following week, while we couldn't even compete against ten men and missed a penalty.  The following week we were even worse at home against Wolves and that's when I was (wrongly) convinced we were going down, but I can't believe there were three worse teams than us.

And now we're 3 points and a worse goal difference behind everybody else at the bottom of the league after ten games at the beginning of November. 

So I won't comment on the game, because I can't.  After the pictures I avoided any TV 'highlights' of the game, and the fact that we didn't concede until three minutes from time doesn't make it feel any better.  But the film was really good.  'The Kids are All Right' (even if West Ham aren't).

Still, there was always the joy of the fizzy-pop cup draw against Man Utd to look forward to.

The Bright Side of the Road: West Ham 3 - 1 Stoke (aet) Carling Cup; 27 October

So the hope doesn't kill you after all.

Last night reminded what a joy winning a football match can be.  It's amplified by (ahem) coming from behind, especially when there is very little time left to play and scoring the killer goal two minutes from the end of extra time. 

I know we were massively aided by the Stoke Manager taking off both of his forwards, Kenwyne Jones and Tuncay, as well as Jermaine Pennant (supposedly 'under the weather') so that when we scored, they didn't really have any way back, but I still wasn't completely confident we could stop them scoring again after we equalised or when we went a goal in front.  And of course, they had chances, but last night the luck went our way.

And not only the luck.  Super Scotty Parker dragged the team single-handedly into the game.  Kovac was anonymous beside him in midfield, Rigor Morte dusted off his clown act, Big Benni has lost weight and speed and talent, Barrera was lightweight and Carlton couldn't outfight two giant centre-halves, and didn't give much of an impression of trying.  Meanwhile, Ben Haim showed he is as bad a left back as Faubert is a right back, James Tomkins has completely lost confidence and Da Costa's distribution was useless.  But Super Scott was everywhere shoring everything up, creating everything that was created, making tackles in the box.  No wonder he looked completely knackered at the end, he'd done it all.  When the substitution cavalry arrived in the shape of Obinna, Noble and Behrami, the match changed.  Barrera on the left was suddenly a threat, Obinna did his best Shopping Channel (Diamante) impersonation (always shoot, normally wildly, typically miss) but gave the Stoke defence something to think about, Barrera switched to the left and became an incisive runner, and Noble and Behrami flew into tackles, won the ball and sprung forward.

But it was still close to the end before the tiny Scott got a header among the giants.  Bruno, the judge on Strictly is besotted with Scott Maslen's dancing and begins his comments with a lascivious 'SSSScottttttt'.  He'd have died and gone to heaven to have witnessed this performance from our SSSScottttttt.

And when Mark Noble did his best Maradona impression for Da Costa to slam the ball home for a lead (what was he doing in their area?), it was the cue for ecstatic taunting of the Stoke supporters.  And finally Obinna got a shot on target (law of averages?) and we'd won.

Now, Avram says this will kick-start our season.  Just like the draw at Stoke in the league (that didn't), the win at Sunderland (in the fizzy-pop cup that didn't), the win over the Spuds (that didn't).  How many kick-starts can a supporter stand?

Still, my son Jack couldn't bear to come and texted that he was at home, in the warm, listening to Afro-beat, having just discovered Fela Kuti.  The East End beat of 'Bubbles' was louder and better last night.

And when I reached the car, the iPod played me a Van Morrison track:  'From the dark end of the street to the bright side of the road, Let's enjoy it while we can, we'll be singing once again, on the bright side of the road'.


Couldn't have put it better myself.

Hope Springs Eternal (or the Objective Correlative)

There's an old short story by Alan Sillitoe called, I think, Saturday Afternoon.  It's about a factory worker who takes all his frustrations to the match on a Saturday afternoon and, if his team loses, goes home and beats his wife.  Sillitoe tried to link the alienation of the factory with the promise of escape offered by football for the fan, to the appalling brutality that gets visited on the wife to vent the frustration. 

Obviously a lot has changed since Sillitoe wrote the story in the early sixties. You'd be hard-pressed to find a factory in Nottingham, but call-centres are just as alienating.  Domestic vioence is still depressingly common, though.  And football, obviously, is infrequently on a Saturday afternoon.

Bruce Springsteen expressed a similar narrative in the track on 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' caled 'Factory Life' - 'you just better believe somebody's gonna get it tonight, the work, the work, the working life'.

I've always maintained I'm a West Ham supporter first, then a football supporter (and only ever an England supporter if there's a West Ham player in the team).  West Ham is my passion, my release, my starter (and finisher!) in conversation with anybody with a passing interest in the game and a barometer of how positive I'm feeling about the world.  Things going well generally?  Any poor West Ham performance is a temporary blip - there'll be an upturn and a victory (or at least a glorious defeat) along soon.  You have to be realistic about your expectations for a small Premier League club.  Things generally not so good?  Every defeat is a harbinger of doom - next season we'll be away at Doncaster and losing to Rotherham at home (or, worse, Millwall - sometimes nightmares come true).

So my brooding on the current failures may have more than a little to do with my work and the demands to implement cuts in really good public services and no realistic expectation of that being short term.  And while I am sufficiently senior to (I think) be safe from losing my job, and anyway protected by a fairly sizeable pension, that's not true of others I have to make decisions about.  And all of my children are not far into their careers and how will they be affected by this?

The owners of West Ham have always been to fans an evil we're not even sure is necessary.  The Cearns family had a corner shop mentality that chafed but now  seems a model of probity.  Terrence Brown was rightly vilified for his Bond and parasitic salary.  The Icelanders talked big and delivered bigger if what was required was debt.  And now we have the Pornographers who make much of their lifelong love of the 'Appy 'Ammers - why David Gold was even on the books as a young player before finding his fortune in the delights of Dildo manufacture.  More importantly, they did make money and have experience of running a football club without it going ruinously into debt (although Birmingham City have never really set anybody's pulses racing as much as the Dildos).

The business model of the Olympic Stadium makes sense (pile 'em high relatively cheap, sell the major property asset and pay the ground rent from regular takings.  Even The Sheikhs of Man City rent their ground) even if nobody thinks it will make watching games an enhanced experience.

So, the pain of collapsing to Newcastle subsiding and the glimmer of a worm of belief that we could possibly beat Stoke City tomorrow, perversely because no-one (not even me until this point) believes we will after Saturday and, yes, there it is, the dawning of hope.

And, as we all know, it's not the depair, it's the hope that kills you ....

Who needs realism?

Being sent this quote by a mischievous brummie has caused me to bite the bullet and vent:

"Whatever happened to West Ham? The name's the same but everything else is different. It's not so much that the club seems resigned to its fate, for even the booing that greeted the final whistle on Saturday sounded half-hearted, but the impression they've lost their identity that really causes disquiet.

West Ham used to be a club that stood for something. They used to play good football (although that particular reputation was exaggerated). They used to produce homegrown talent. They used to boast managerial stability. They used to be an asset to the Premier League. They used to be likeable.

Now they are owned by those two blokes from Birmingham, have no apparent style on or off the pitch, will probably soon open a search for a seventh manager in less than ten years, churn out journeymen continentals as regularly as lame performances, and seem locked in a deep malaise. Only the rank inadequacies of others can save them."

I was going to say it looks like their bitter bargain buy Reojoker (8.5 mill - chortle chortle) has found his voice. 

But unfortunately it is becoming a fairly accurate representation of what the biscuit barons, boring curbs, the velvet porn merchants and now an apparently nailed on move to a soulless corporate athletics stadium  is causing amongst real fans, (fyi Chris, that'd be the ones that attend games).

I know it must be bad when my dad is saying he wants to jack it in this early in a season,  normally that doesn't happen until at least december,  9 games must be a new record.  Probably not the only one that will be set this season, as the highest number of undefended crosses has also got to be there for the taking.

Yet what used to be a crushing realisation that we've played badly and are struggling is no longer crushing, because apart from the top 7 finishes and cup finals, hasn't it always been thus?

"West Ham don't compete, lose." Could probably rival this as a headline:

But I still get a masochistic enjoyment, still have faith we're about to turn the corner,  still stay to the death in every game because there's always, always a chance (albeit what currently looks like an infinitesimally small one) that a breathtaking combination of finesse, technique and power reminiscent of the best of tevez, di canio and frankie mac will enable us to score 3 goals in three minutes and wipe the smug grins off armchair fans, strangle the chants in the opposition throats and allow me to bounce my way through the rest of the week.

It might not be the best team i've ever seen, but it's far from the worst, and I'm already looking forward to taking my seat in the chicken run, feeling the cold and rain, hearing my dad hurl abuse at all and sundry while watching the mighty hammers take to the sacred boleyn turf once again.

Optimistic? You bet, in fact I think this might be our year for the cup double.

Roll on Wednesday... 父

Post-match ennui: West Ham 1 - 2 Newcastle; 23 October

In eighteen months time I shall be 65 and have started to contemplate retirement and the changes that it will bring.  That's a very few months shy of the London Olympics in June which, if the Pornographers and Lord Sugar's new suck-up have their way (and as they own the club, they will) will shortly be followed by West Ham moving from the Boleyn Ground to the Olympic Stadium.  Kevin (who sits next to me in the Chicken Run) and I were discussing whether it would be possible to be further from the pitch than we now are.  It's clear that an eight-lane running track could easily be fitted between us and the pitch as it stands, as well as a long-jump pit probably.  Which makes me not only physically further away, but emotionally and psychologically as well.  Far enough to feel more than a little disconnected.

Watching Strictly I have found out that the ever gorgeous Felicity Kendal is 64, and so a little older than me.  One of the judges referred to her as Flexible Felicity because she is still able to do the splits (and even in time to the music), so I have more evidence that age doesn't mean that every capacity shuts down.  But it does bring some considerations about how to change one's lifestyle.

I thought about that again at about 6.45 pm yesterday.  It was the time that I turned to my daughter, Jessica, and confided that I wasn't really enjoying the football and moreover, I'd be hard pressed to remember a time when I had recently.  Of course, beating the Spuds for the first time for ages was a brief interlude of pleasure.  But it certainly wasn't for the quality of the football, more the joy in the Big Club failing and 'Arry's face getting even longer.  Still, cheer up - you can always buy more players.  Think of the 'commissions' that could bring.

Jessica and I agreed that Newcastle scoring again was inevitable.  We had started the game brightly with a flurry of attacks and scored early and had more chances the like of which most strikers routinely score.  But we'd already scored our single goal for the game, so that was never going to happen.  Shots instead were more likely to go for throw-ins or hit the corner flag, as they did.  And then we forgot that Newcastle play with not one, but two (count 'em) big lumps up front, and hit crosses to the back post for one or the other.  So nobody closed down Joey Barton several times and he hit crosses and eventually one was headed down for Nolan to equalise.  And that was it for us as we sat back and awaited the inevitable.  By 'we' I mean the crowd and, more importantly, the team.  Half time came and went without any check in Newcastle's momentum and Jessica and I agreed it was the usual matter of time.

And reflecting on matters of time, I thought again about how retirement brings a rethink to how you live your life.  And how Karren (yes Lord Sugar, no Lord Sugar) Brady's Pravda article was about how much enthusiasm there was for a move to the Olympic Stadium (except for the few she patronised as worried - only every West Ham supporter who goes, of course), which is a change I don't want.  And how I'm fed up watching crap and having the Manager tell me in his nice friendly email how we're improving and being bottom of the table after 9 games is a false position (it ain't).  Two years ago the Spuds were bottom of the league and their Manager went.  Not that there's much available if it's bye-bye Avram, but that's another change that might be possible.

Because, really, I'm thinking of emulating Felicity with the splits - from Upton Park and West Ham.

Pre-match ennui

Football is never right at 5.30.  Now at just gone 3 I should be watching the first inquest by West Ham's defenders as to how they never noticed the great lumbering centre-forward in their midst.  We should be informing Joey Barton not only that he should be in jail, butb which one is most appropriate for a violent scouse thug who's developed a sideline in psychobabble. 

Instead, I shall wander downstairs to watch Sky Sports News and see how the various permutations of our possible result against the Barcodes will affect our place in the relegation positions. 

All this and Strictly Come Dancing blocking the SkyPlus facility so there'll be no reviews.  Mind you, I never watch games we lose that I record.  Why cut yourself twice?

W is for ?: Wolves 1: 1 West Ham; 16 October

On Saturday afternoon I was walking in Sheringham Country Park with The Controller and our two dogs.  It was a fine day - probably the last of the year in North Norfolk - and very enjoyable, except for the endemic Norfolk lack of mobile phone signal.  Walking in a country park you don't need a mobile phone, unless it's your way of following the progress of West Ham's latest attempt to win away from home.  And this was at the ground where the last away win was achieved on the first day of last season.  What an omen that proved to be.

Since I gave up on both Orange and West Ham's text updates on scores as they arrived after the match was more than two hours finished, I rely on the Sky Sports app.  This adds the drama of not being able to connect to the internet, the fascination of the spinning symbol as the phone updates if it's connected, and the regular closing down of the phone to save the iPhone's pathetic battery life so you have to start all over again.  All the while carrying on a conversation about the scenery and other matters.  It's almost as tense as watching the game.

Cresting a hill I was greeted with the news that we were losing 1-0 and had been since the 10th minute.  This was news although it was almost half-time.  It's the modern equivalent of expats in the colonies reading nine month old newspapers after the ships from home reached them.  By the next time I could connect it was well over 80 minutes of the game and I learned we had equalised and found a new spring in my walking steps.  We completed the walk in time to get back to the car for Jack to phone with a report on the game that he'd been watching via an internet stream, and then there was 5Live's Sports Report.  In the evening I recorded the game on Football First and Match of the Day (last again, quelle surprise) and watched it on Sunday morning, having read the newspaper reports and the websites online.  Who needs to be there?

Well, it would be good if the team were there, for a start - and from the start.  As son, papers, internet and TV agreed, we should have been finished by half-time and were woeful.  But we bossed the second half and could/should have won.  Son, papers,TV and internet couldn't agree whether Piquionne handled the ball in the 92nd minute before putting the ball in the net, but all agreed Cole should have scored (consistency, there), so there you go.  And we're unbeaten for 4 games for the first time in forever and still bottom of the league.

What a way to mark what would have been my dad's 90th birthday.  I have him to blame for the obsession.  He took me when I was seven years old and I passed on the virus to my children at about the same age.  His ashes were scattered at Upton Park after his death in1997.  They don't seen to have brought much luck in the meantime.

So Walking, Wolves, West Ham and When Will We Win aWay again?

The Olympic Ideal

Like every other West Ham supporter who attends matches, I have absolutely no desire to take up tenancy in the Olympic Stadium.  It's an illuminating aside that the new owners make much of their desire to listen to the fans but ignore this overwhelming feeling.  But 'twas ever thus with owners.  That's what owning means.

And I've no doubt that their business model envisages selling the site of the Boleyn ground, usefully given planning permission for housing by Newham Council, their partners in the Olymnpic Bid, for a shed load of money and then occupying  a bigger ground that they rent.  First part Arsenal with Highbury, second part Man City with the Commonwealth Games stadium.  And the larger ground assumes that there is a large West Ham hinterland of would be supporters in south Essex that could be attracted at cheaper prices and a full match-day shopping experience, incuding spending in the ground itself.  Of course, it would help to have a team that was competitive in the Premiership or the Cups to watch, but perhaps the money to invest from turnover would be there in the new FIFA fair financial play strictures that will make it more difficult to spend beyond turnover.

But then there's the ground itself and the Olympic Legacy.  In every other country that has held the Olympics the legacy has been fewer people active in sport, but presumably this isn't the legacy they're aiming for.  Although removing Hackney Marshes football pitches that hosted hundreds of Saturday and Sunday teams to make car parking seems to be making a good start on sustaining the tradition.  The legacy seems to revolve around keeping a running track inside a 60,000 stadium for two or three events a year that will never attract numbers anything like that.  And, of course spectators at other events will be a full running track further away from the activities - be they concerts, cricket or football.  And maybe cricket crowds and gig goers won't mind, but sure as hell football fans will. 

Some of us trace West Ham's less than intimidating home form of recent years to the moving of the pitch away from the Chicken Run in the recent developments of the other three stands.  Time was when the touchline was a mere two or three yards from the front row in the Chicken Run.  Every opposition (and home) player could hear every pithy remark directed at them, and every nuance of a weekly informed critique of their performance.  When Judas Ince  returned he kept well away, confining himself to the centre circle.  If Sir Trevor needed encouragement to get in the game, he wold have it forcefully provided.  Even that close, I couldn't see how Alan Devonshire could consistently beat two players lined up to block him, but he did time after time.

But these days it's rarely possible to build such an intimidating atmosphere, and not only because we're sitting watching less than inspired performances most times.

So the prospect of being even further away in the Olympic Stadium is not welcome and fans' forums have made that very clear to the owners and Vice Chairman if she could remove herself from Lord Sugar's arse long enough to listen.

But last week an unlikely salvation appeared when Tottenham Hotspur made a bid themselves for the stadium.  Of course, it made occupying the stadium by West Ham immediately more attractive.  If they want it, fuck 'em, they can't have it, it's ours.  We are East London, they can stay in the scabby North London borough where they belong.  And they don't even want the running track!  Which will completely rule them out of the legacy maintenance  the Tory Lord Coe ( a Chelsea supporter, too) requires.  The Pornographers' incensed comments about them coming into our Manor and dire warnings of civil unrest reinforced the general sense of outrage.

And at the same time Spurs were getting planning permission for a not altogether locally welcomed redevelopment of White Hart Lane.  And the club leaving the borough would have dire consequences for the local economy.  So the threat of leaving would concentrate the minds of local politicians and of London Trsnsport who might expect to charge the club for redevelopments to the tube line.

Just the suggestion makes West Ham fans want to go more and Haringey want to keep Spurs more. Only a cynic would think that intentional. 

And that's this week's most surprising result.

The Theory of Relativity: West Ham 1 - 1 Fulham; 2 October

Proust got there way before Einstein.  It's over 3000 pages in the Penguin Classics translation of "A la Recherche du Temps Perdu" but he does make the point that the experience of time is subjective.

I've been at football matches where I've spent much of the match watching the stadium clock or my watch convinced that time has stood still.  At Wembley in 1980, after that Brooking header, my Dad and I were convinced that time had been stopped.  There was absolutely no enjoyment in the match until we'd won.  At Cardiff with my kids in 1996, time added on just wouldn't pass quickly enough and Lionel Scaloni couldn't hoof the ball up the pitch, he had to kick it into touch with a Liverpool player injured (who'd have thought it, West Ham borrowing a sporting Argentine international?) and the scousers had stolen our cup.  To go with the car radios and tyres, no doubt (cheap stereotype obligatory to salve the continuing hurt).

I've also been at matches so unbelievably bad, that after ten minutes you are convinced that it should be half time.  That would be most of our games under Manager Curbishley, then.

And then there are the great games that seem to flash past at warp speed.  When we were the last away team to win at Highbury when threatened with relegation (again), and followed that up next season as the first away team to win at the Emirates with the inspired Rob Green, for example.

Yossarian in "Catch-22" seeks boredom.  When he is bored, time passes so much more slowly and he will therefore, he hopes, live longer in the killing zone of an aircraftman in the Second World War.

He should get a season ticket to Upton Park.  It's nowhere near as life threatening (now that Millwall and Leeds are safely in lower divisions), but the boredom quotient can be pretty high, as the game against Fulham showed.

The referee, Andre Marriner, seemed to have lost his recollection of the laws of the game along with the final 'w' of his first name.  While we howled at the injustice of it all to West Ham, he was poor for both sides, and at least he didn't deny us an obvious penalty as he did Fulham.  But outside the area he bought every theatrical collapse as a foul.

But we were poor from the off.  Lacking energy and drive, giving the ball away needlessly and struggling to string passes together other than backwards or sideways.  Clearly, little Fulham couldn't motivate the team or the crowd like Big Club Tottenham (they're in the Champions League, you know).  It was inevitable that Fulham would score and that we would contribute to it by switching off.  Equally inevitable, given the tiresome abuse Rob Green receives from opposition supporters about that England mistake, it had to be Dempsey of the USA.  At least Green was faultless and able to respond to the abuse with a pantomime yawn.  And, yet again, he made some very good saves.

Amazingly we were able to equalise but never looked like winning - or even, to be truthful, holding on for the draw.

At the end, my son, Jack, sitting two seats away from me was of the opinion we had been the better side.  And today, Avram Grant has praised the team.  So maybe it's all relative and weren't shit, relatively speaking.  But we are still bottom of the league.

Home Again

I've spent the last week on holiday at our house in Norfolk.  It hasn't conformed to the usual idea of a holiday.  First, there's the odd timescale.  As a traditionalist, holidays are two weeks from Saturday to Saturday.  Admittedly, I haven't had such a holiday for years, but the idea remains.  We came on Sunday afternoon.  Second, holidays are relaxation.  When we're in Norfolk relaxation often takes the form of route marches planned in absolute detail by the Controller with fixed and not-to-be-missed start times, but it's definitely relaxation.  Well it is compared  to this week.  When I arrived on Sunday late afternoon, I had to take up an old carpet from the downstairs room as well as underlay and edge grip.  Rather than the parquet floor of dreams underneath, there's warming concrete.  Later in the week, there was a room to decorate - celings to paint, walls to paint, old curtains to remove and numerous visits to the dump to get rid of the rubbish.  There were also blinds to order and the oak for the hardwood floor downstairs to unload so that it can acclimatise before being laid next week.  So not much relaxation and I'm feeling knackered, but tomorrow it's home again for Fulham.  Let's hope I can keep awake.

Back to the Future: West Ham 1 0 Tottenham; 25 September

It's nice to feel euphoric on a Saturday night for the first time this season.  And it's the culmination of  a very decent week.  I followed Tuesday evening's fizzy-pop cup win at Sunderland via the rolling news updates at the bottom of the TV screen as I watched the second half of the Spurs-Arsenal game, resisting the temptation to turn to Sky Sports News on the ludicrous grounds that if I did, West Ham would stop winning.  But hey, it worked.

And in the perverse way of the perennial pessimist, did I rejoice that two (count 'em) non-scoring forwards had scored?  Of course not, I simply assumed that in some way we would now inevitably lose to Spurs.

So come today, my optimism meter was on empty.  After all, we haven't beaten Spurs home or away for years, and if there's one team I'd like to beat more than any others, it's them.  When we do paste them, they blame the pasta (Lasagna, geddit?)  And 'Appy 'Arry has never brought a team to Upton Park and lost since he did one.  And, again, if there's a manager I'd love to beat, it's the one that bought Big Titi Camara with (some of) the proceeds of the sale of Rio to Nasty Leeds.  A well-greased sale, I'm sure.

But in the event, we won.

We played some football and Rob Green made one stupendous save.  Scotty Parker showed why Spurs were desperate to buy him and Kieron Dyer went off injured before the first half was completed.  My daughter Jessica attended her first game of the season and now maintains she is the essential ingredient.

The natural order is restored and all is right with the world at least until next Saturday.

And we've drawn Stoke in the fizzy-pop cup so I can reminisce about Bobby Moore in goal and Geoff Hurst missing a penalty so that Stoke went tio the final (and in the close season, Geoff went to Stoke).

Back to the future it is.

DISRUPTIONS TO THE NATURAL ORDER: Stoke 1 -1 West Ham; 18 September

I watched the West Ham game at our house in Norfolk.  This is normally not allowed by the Ruler, who quite rightly sees the house in Norfolk as a change from the house in London.  In Norfolk we go out (together even), we take long walks on beaches and through woodland with our dogs, we watch television together.  Watching football on the television is not in the brochure.

I watch football (usually) in the company of member(s) of my family - my elder daughter, Jessica, my two sons, Joel and Jack (all named in chronological order with no implication of any favouritism).  As well as sharing the delights or - more usually - pains of a West Ham performance there is the constant commentary and opportunities to express jointly profound derision for the referee, opposition, and most often, it has to be acknowledged, the efforts of several West Ham players.  On my own I do my best to keep up the volume, frequency and amount of bile, but often lapse into fatalistic acceptance of the general incompetence of the referee, opposition and several West Ham players (although I try to make an exception for Spector).

Despite the numerous abominations Sky television has brought to football coverage (along with, I admit, a degree of passion and expertise in the coverage that the BBC never did and hasn't yet managed), a match at Saturday lunchtime while eating in front of the telly alone is not the way it should be done.  The fact that my two dogs are quite willing to be excited when I am does not compensate for their need to slink away when the incompetent defending leads to a relatively short-lived tirade of abuse.

And, of course, for this game the Manager was absent for reasons of religious observance.  As was one of his purchases (on loan) requiring a fourth centre back partner for Matt Upson in as many games.  Since the absolute foundation for teams to be successful is to have a strong defence and build from it, as the brilliant efforts of Roy Hodgson at Fulham demonstrated, and that very ordinary players (John Pantsil, Aaron Lennon, Paul Konchesky) can, if well coached, be a good defence, so many changes do not bode well.

But, above all else, the biggest disruptions to the natural order were that West Ham didn't concede three goals, were not bullied out of the game, and gained a first point of the season. 

Good job I'm not superstitious - it would be impossible to replicate those circumstances.

Weary, stale, flat and unprofitable: West Ham 1 - 3 Chelsea; 11 September

One of the joys of Shakespeare is that he can supply a quote for every occasion.  The apocryphal American lady who responded to seeing 'Hamlet' for the first time by saying it was full of quotes was right, but in the wrong order.

Nobody felt any great sense of anticipation going to the match yesterday.  The usual level of vitriol reserved for Fat Frank wasn't required as he wasn't playing.  Not that he was being saved by his manager from the terrible abuse he would receive.  It was the hernia wot did it.  And he always relishes the abuse, using it to spur him on to score against us. 

But our lamentable start to the season, combined with Chelsea's early goal-scoring sprees, meant the talk was on whether we would be able to keep the score respectable.  In our favour was, well, not a lot really, except that Chelsea have a European game coming up in midweek and they would presumably want to conserve their energy for that.  And we, of course, have a whole host of new signings eager to show just what we haven't spent any money on in the transfer window, more for the Foreign Legion who, according to co-owner and erstwhile pornographer David Sullivan, don't give their all for the cause.

In the event, Jacobsen, a free transfer from Blackburn' s reserves, Ben Haim, a loan from relegated Portsmouth, and Obinna, loaned from Inter.  Now, according to Pravda, Jacobsen is Denmark right back ever-present for his country in the World Cup, and Obinna a lively Nigeria international.  So lively he was loaned to Malaga last year and now to us.

All of this was academic as we had conceded a goal before 2 minutes.  A routine corner, don't mark and there we go.  We followed that with Rob Green's slippery hands presenting Matt Upson the chnace to hoof a clearance straight against Kalou and into the net on 17 minutes.  After that, Chelsea went from trotting to strolling and allowed us to look ok because they had the game won.

It's interesting to study our team in that situation.  Scott Parker never stopped trying and nor did Mark Noble, but his passing was wayward.  Behrami was full of shrugs and grumbles that seemed to give credence to the view that he'd rather not be here.  Mind you, there were plenty in the crowd who felt the same way.

Obinna is another non-scoring forward who made Marlon Harewood look accurate and the substitute Piquionne could give Mike Small a run for his money when it comes to missing sitters.  I mention Marlon and Mike because West Ham is a club with traditions, and one in particular is that we apparently buy (and play) forwards on the basis of their lack of skill with a banjo when placed near a cow's arse.

So why Carlton Cole gets such stick is beyond me.  A non-scoring centre-forward? Check.  But at least he keeps going.  As will I, no doubt, but more in expectation (of defeat) than hope.

International breaks

Like most club supporters, my concern with the national team is lukewarm at best.  If there's a West Ham player in the team, the temperature of the interest rises a couple of notches.  If it's an important tournament, and there's a West Ham player in the team, it might reach tepid .

Mostly, it's depressing because of might-have-beens for the England team.  Not what the all-that-glitters-is-not-golden generation might have achieved, but how many England players could have been in the West Ham team.  There are those that seem authentically to be West Ham players, like Joe Cole, Michael Carrick, Glen Johnson, Rio Ferdinand and Fat Frank.  There are those that have played at West Ham like David James, Rob Green, Carlton Cole, Matthew Upson and even Super Scotty Parker.  And then those passing through (like little shits) on their way to 'big clubs' like Jermaine Defoe.

Some are really West Ham, went away and came back and then moved on, like Bobby Zamora.

But it's quite a contribution from a chronically underachieving club.

Other clubs will have more in the we-bought-them-to-play-for-us international category.  Many of the players who started with us improved out of all recognition in their new clubs (from Fat Frank to Bobby Z).

Some started with us and left without troubling the senior squads such as John Terry and Kieran Richardson (and wasn't the first one a bonus whatever his footballing capability).

But for a corner shop kind of outfit, Tony Carr and his set-up is something special.  Shame about the rest of organisation.

Chilean defenders, Chilean Miners: Manchester United 3 - 0 West Ham: 28 August

Many years ago West Ham had a Chilean defender named Javier Margas.  He endeared himself to supporters for a variety of reasons.  He seemed more than slightly mad.  He died his hair claret and blue. He disappeared back to Chile. But he had been a Chilean international and championship winner in his own country. He later established a hotel in Chile and famously (barkingly?) invited West Ham supporters to stay, claiming he was still a West Ham supporter.

He popped into my head because there has been much in the news of Chilean miners found trapped underground and who, it is reported, will not be freed until nearly Christmas.  Not surprisingly, experts on the surface are monitoring their physical and emotional health since the miners were given the news of how long it will take to rescue them.  They have detected signs of depresssion and are using the limited communication bore hole they have established to find methods of keeping their spirits up.

One of the things they are proposing to do is record football matches and give the miners access to watching them.

I hope none of them has followed Margas's example and become a West Ham supporter.

No recording is likely to lift their spirits if they have.  Instead, they might prefer to stay down a bit longer than Christmas in the hope that West Ham might have won a game by the time they surface.

But not if they play as they did against United.  The plan seemed to be to keep ten men behind the ball at all times, passing across the pitch to each other when they had the ball, desperately hoofing it up, up and away if they could intercept when they didn't, and try to keep the goals against column as low as possible.  Avram Grant probably thinks only conceding 3 to Man Utd away is progress after conceding 3 at home to Bolton and 3 away to Villa already this season and taking until the 93rd minute to score against Oxford with the West Ham goalkeeper the man of the match.

None of his oh-so-many signings started the game and he picked a third player as right back in as many matches.  And he was just as bad as the previous two, giving away the needless penalty that started the goalscoring.

Jonathon Spector - a Chilean mine has a place for you.  Please take your manager with you.

Exodus - Movement of Gia(nfranco) People

Yesterday Allesandro Diamanti was sold.  Popularly known with us as Shopping Channel (Diamante = Cubit Zircon = Tacky Shopping Channel Jewelry), he was an intriguing player.  Because he was Italian (with the complete repertoire of histrionic shrugs and hands-together-in prayer chopping motions), Pravda regularly invoked Paulo Di Canio whenever writing about him.  Not that he was ever in the same league (except that, last season, he was, in fact, although at a different time).

He was a near-perfect example of what the former Chief Executive, Scott Duxbury, and Gianfranco Zola used to refer to as The Project.  One aspect of that was to make a virtue of not having any money to spend, but developing young players instead.  Another was to look to the Italian League for bargains.  When there was some money, it was spent (£6m reportedly) on reinforcing the team where it least needed reinforcing. 

Definitely need a striker?  Buy a wide midfield player (Diamanti).

Definitely need a right back?  Loan a midlfield player (Jimenez).

And, to have the money to do this, sell a commanding central defender and replace with a young player to develop.  And then ship lots of goals.


That's a plan. Not a very good one, but a plan.  Now we need to try to discern what Avram's plan is.  At least he bought a striker, but Piquionne is apparently one of those curious non-scoring strikers.  Heskey a la francais?

As to The Project, Jimenez went back after half a season of failure and Diamanti is sold at £4.5m loss after a season.


But he still took a better penalty than Carlton Cole.