I could become convinced of malign forces at work where West Ham is concerned.
Consider this week's instalment from the wacky world of The Irons. The week began with the 'Avram's going, whoops, no he's not' saga as perfectly orchestrated as a silent comedy featuring the Keystone Cops careering from disaster to disaster at breakneck speed. Eventually, the Manager got the resounding vote of confidence expected from the board, with an unbelievably insouciant statement about how we all needed to get behind the manager in this trying time. Yeah, well, who was leaking to the press about how many games he had to save his job, and how Martin O'Neill was going to take over? The saga has achieved the seemingly unachievable - a feeling of pity for the manager who, let's not forget, has presided over a season of towering ineptitude.
Then there was the deafening silence in the transfer window. None out - not even Behrami, who is fit but not playing so he can't be injured and not available to permanently not play. Last weekend Fiorentina was a done deal, supposedly, but not now. And, ominously, none in after Wayne Bridge, star of 'Nightmare on Green Street: the Arsenal'. With his loan and £90k a week wages we don't have space for the other loan we could have or the money to pay the wages, supposedly, of Joe Cole (prodigal son of this parish). We're keeping the space for the priority of signing someone, anyone, as a striker. Where's Big Benni when you need him? Not gone to QPR, that's for sure, who have taken a fair time to have a look at him (well, there is a lot to take in) before deciding no thanks.
And then there was the West Ham bid for the Olympic Stadium. It seems many West Ham fans are coming round to the idea because it would stop Spurs getting it, but it remains a very, very, very bad idea on so many levels. The whole Olympic bid was based on lies (just look back at how much it was supposed to cost) and a rosy presentation of 'Legacy' for the youth of Britain's multiethnic tomorrow. But after every Olympic Games in modern history, active participation in sport has declined rather than increased. Across the world, herds of white elephants of different stadia occupy former Olympic cities. Beijing's Bird's Nest was architecturally stunning but it's not been used much since 2008. And football in a stadium with a running track makes the crowd even less of a participant in the experience and more of a spectator of the entertainment. Great for the world-class Madonna concerts, though (when was a Madonna Concert ever world-class?)
And so, at the end of the week, to the football, which I didn't and haven't seen. But it was yet another hard-luck story compounded by self-inflicted idiocy. To go ahead six minutes from the end and be unable to win is par for the course. To handicap the team by leaping a barrier into the crowd and getting a second booking is stupidity, even if Piquionne had just scored. But even with ten men, you'd have thought, any team other than West Ham would have held on. Although, with every forward substituted, all we were going to do was defend, and we all know how good at that we are.
Still bottom, still going down, still no new players and still hoping to move to the Olympic Stadium. At least we have losing the second leg of the semi-final to watch this week .... with no available fowards except Big Benni. Cometh the hour, cometh the man-mountain?
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