It's the same old song: West Ham 1-2 Aldershot; Carling Cup 1st round: 24 Sugust

One of the numerous things that can reduce my son Jack to frothing rage in a nano-second is the sight of fans leaving matches early.  This usually initiates a rant about the folly of beating the traffic instead of watching a potentially deciding match-winning (or, at West Ham more likely match-losing goal) allied to questioning why bother coming in the first place.  This was fully exemplified some years ago in a Premiership (sob!) match against Liverpool when Mark Noble scored a penalty on 90 minutes to win us the game.  My Liverpool season-ticket holder friend, John Sinnott, noted with commendable grace after the match, that was the reason why you should never leave a match early because you denied yourself the chance of the sweetest of flavours, the winning goal at the death.

Mind you, Jack's rantometer is set to start on a very low threshold.  He once harangued the screen of children's TV programme Tobermorey over its inclusion of a character in a wheelchair and others from different ethnic backgrounds in a small Scottish fishing village.  The burden of his critique was that this was unrealistic (in a children's TV programme - go figure) occasioned by a specious desire for 'political correctness' (why is correctness so wrong anyway?)  Meanwhile, my grandson and his nephew, Connor, switched his wide-eyed gaze between the programme and the ranter in awed amazement.

Anyhow, West Ham has clearly been inspired by such rants to take action to remedy this unacceptable state of affairs (the fans leaving early, rather than the diverse range of characters in Tobermorey - although, who knows, that could be next).  To demonstrate the folly of their ways -

 walking out when there's still minutes to be played, West Ham has hit on a new ploy.  It has been decided that a goal will be scored at the end of every home match.

Now, there is much to commend this.  It means that we'll get our full money's worth in these hard times, by having action right to the end of the game.  It keeps the officials focused to the end.  It means that blood pressure of my son Jack is not unduly raised.

But there is a flaw in the process.  West Ham has been unable to engage the opposition in support of this admirable campaign.  Not one of Cardiff, Leeds or Aldershot has been willing to concede a goal at the end of the game.  So, in these circumstances, it has fallen to West Ham to take brave and decisive action.  Boldly, West Ham has gifted a goal to the opposition in each home match so far - to the evident delight of these fans:

 Now it's very clear, the only people who leave West Ham matches early are those actually supposed to be playing.