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 .....
No comments:
Post a Comment