The Agony and the Ecstacy

It's Monday morning and my voice is getting back to normal.  My heart rate has (probably) just slowed to the correct rate.  But even so, there's a kernel of joy in my stomach as every , oh, couple of seconds or so, I think 'We are Premier League'.

What a season, what a day.  

Even the Champions League result was a no-lose for West Ham.  Chelsea lose and we can continue to enjoy EB&LJT having missed that  penalty in Moscow and Fat Frank never winning t' Big Cup. Chelsea win and 'Appy Arry's blue and white army miss out on Champions league football.  So the anointment as England Manager fails to materialise, and Spurs fade and die. And, although Chelsea won, how sad is EB&LJT to change into full kit and  shinpads to take part in the celebrations for the result of a match he didn't play in?  Because, lest we forget, he deliberately kneed a Barcelona player in the back of the leg and was sent off.

But, despite the acres of press coverage, that's a side show compared to winning the Championship Play-off Final at Wem-ber-ley.  I finished the day in, I am sure, a greater state of exhaustion that the players.  I also manage to sustain an injury (although, fortunately, I was able to finish the match!) with an enormously swollen and painful knee that meant on Sunday morning I could hardly walk.  That necessitated The Controller taking the dogs for their morning walk, to their surprise.  Her sympathy for my plight was tainted by her forcefully expressed view (not that any of her views ever expressed in any other way) that it was self-inflicted and caused by association with West Ham.  This made it, therefore, evidently less eligible for sympathy as there has been a massive run on West Ham related sympathy in recent years and there is as much left on deposit as there are Euros in Greek banks.  

However, my painkiller of choice is promotion.

But what a way to get it.  In discussing the game with The Controller in advance (in the brief window of disdainful attention she was prepared to devote) I had expressed a wish for two early West Ham goals followed by another just before half time so that the second half could be one of rapturous pleasure.  The Controller professional storyteller instincts for a compelling narrative prompted her to construct a version where West Ham took the lead, only to concede a goal just before half-time and then score the winner at the end of a tense and very close second half.  Even that was a concession as the only real spark of excitement she had shown was when discovering that there was the prospect of penalties if the match was undecided at the end of extra time. But oh to have such foresight! 

So, in the aftermath, what to make of the season?

Well, BFS promoted we’d be promoted and he was as good as his word.  He was given a great deal of stick at times by some supporters because of their perceptions of his style of play.  Now, of course, all is forgiven and I can be a little smug because I never joined in (although some of the play was somewhat agricultural – but, hey, it got us back from 3 goals down against Birmingham).

The Pornographers gave a very strong impression of knowing what they were doing as owners (finally).  After their disastrous appointment of Avram Grant (and even more disastrous decision to stick with him having cocked up a ham-fisted attempt to replace him with Martin O’Neill at Christmas), they got a proper appointment.  They followed that up with some measured spending in August and January – especially the signing of Kevin Nolan to be skipper.  They even – noticeably – shook up the marketing side with new products and merchandise for every occasion.  I still have a sneaky belief that they hoped for the play-offs as a chance to sell more stuff.  They even had a bash at selling the fragrant Karren Brady’s autobiography. The one subtitled ‘ambition, grit and a great pair of (wait for it …..) heels’.  Ho ho, nudge, nudge.  According to Lord Sugar, an inspiration to women everywhere.  Yeah right.  How I turned my start selling advertising for pornography into a career highlight of sneering at wannabes on TV.

So now the future is bright with the rosy glow of Premiership football seen from miles away in the Olympic Stadium.  As long, of course, as we manage to stay up long enough.

As I was saying .....

As members of my family, among others, have pointed out more than several times, my posting has gone into abeyance.  The reasons have been various.  Partly it was resistance to being programmed to post.  But only partly.  It was also something to do with the difficulty of summoning up enough bile when West Ham were doing (relatively) well.  The usual football supporter's superstition that one's own actions can effect the results (except for improving them, obviously).  However, when the Ides of March came and went with West Ham (predictably) throwing away automatic promotion, I had more than enough material to get back into the groove.  But still not enough impetus.  Then there was the added focus of my impending retirement.  In my usual fashion, I denied that this could possibly construed as a big deal.  This was, of course despite (because of?) everybody asking me how I felt about it, what plans did I have and so on.  

But of course, it is a big deal and now it's (almost) done - I'm still on the payroll until the end of July but my successor is in post and I have leave to spend my time gardening, walking dogs, irritating the Controller and anything else I'm good at (but none at the scale of irritating the Controller).

So it's time to resume blogging as a chap needs an occupation.

So where are we?  Wem-ber-ley, that's where, and the season ticket family (distinguished from the non-season ticket family by obsessiveness off the scale) is all going.

And I certainly wished to be playing Blackpool rather than Birmingham.  Putting aside the sage advice to be careful what you wish for, The Pornographers have a lousy record against their former side (even though they rarely play), whereas we beat Blackpool 8-1 on aggregate in the league.  Which means zilch except as a comfort blanket.

It could even be Julien Faubert's last game for us as his contract ends.  Perhaps he could manage a Tommy Repka style fuck-up in his last appearance?  Whatever, the possibility of his appearance is a suitable antidote to over-confidence, but, what the hell, I THINK WE'RE GOING TO WIN.

Retirement surely does funny things to one's mental state.... 

Fatherly Love: West Ham 1 - 0 Barnsley; 17 December

Last week my wife had an old VHS tape converted to DVD.  Like many people, we had spent time intermittently over a long period videoing family gatherings as my son Jack was growing up.  By the nature of my jobs, I had access to a video camera and Christmases, Easters, Birthdays and other occasions were taped until they weren't.  We watched Jack go from two to ten, while Joel went from seven to teenage fifteen, Becky from ten to leaving school eighteen and Jessica from a humpy thirteen year old to an adult.  We also saw The Controller's father (the only person I've ever known her to be afraid of) and my father, both of whom are now dead, and, of course, as these things are, viewing it was joy and sadness mixed.  As well as a reminder of the way we were.  Towards the end of the tape, there's a section at West Ham of the gates to Upton Park after the death of Bobby Moore, with my dad, Joel and Jack.  The first game Jack ever saw was the home game against Wolves the Saturday after Booby Moore died which was extremely emotional (and, of course, was his misleading reference point for what it was like to see live games.  He must have thought all games began with a wreath laying ceremony in the centre of the pitch!)

Whenever I see my children, I'm immensely proud of them and their achievements.  Even more, I like the people they've become (and believe me, for some of them - they know who they are - that was definitely not a foregone conclusion) and I enjoy spending time in their company.  For some of them, that is often at Upton Park, as it was on Saturday as West Ham looked to stop a third wheel falling off after losing at home to Burnley after leading 1-0 and away to Reading, having two players sent off in the process.  If our manager had been 'Appy 'Arry we'd have heard the 'bare bones' cliché trotted out as with two players suspended and six players injured, Abdouleye Faye got injured in the warm up and was also unavailable.

It didn't look promising with Faubert the faux-fullback, McCartney moved to central defence and a 17 year old making his first appearance ever at fullback just after signing his first professional contract.  We were also pressed into playing Carew, Cole and Piquionne who are usually used to replace each other.

And we didn't look very secure for much of the game, but Papa Bouba Diop was immense (as he is physically) in midfield - and how the sponsors made Kevin Nolan man of the match rather than him when he even scored as goal for the first time in years I cannot fathom - and the debutant fullback played good.

He is one Danny Potts, son of the West Ham legend Steve Potts (denied his 400th league appearance by the ratfaced Roeder).  More to the point, he recovered from leukaemia two years ago to do well enough as youth player to get his professional contract and yesterday to make his début.  He played really well, and I bet his dad is as proud of him as I am of my kids. 

Lost November?

My last post was 29 October. While in no way would I accept allegations of superstition, it's much harder to hold forth when things are going well.  Except, of course, to exult, gloat, celebrate, revel or rejoice with unseemly glee.  With the almost inevitable, karmic consequences of the laws of hubris.  So from the dull point at home to Bristol City, through the away victories at Hull and Coventry (oh, how those cities are redolent of the championship doldrums!), to the comfortable dispatch of Derby and the gritty away conquest of Middlesbrough, I was moored in silence.

But the (this season at least) atypical, careless loss at home to Burnley, has set my bile free.

I see that BFS has said it was 'one of those days'.  Well, I hope it was not one of those days, as I think we should have no more of them.  While BFS saw a team that dominated and was unlucky to lose, I saw a team complacent that it would win.  Of course, that was fuelled by a first half of easy superiority that did not translate into goals.  

And, by the way, why does a misplaced pass from Carlton Goal get greeted with groans, while missing an open goal by Kevin Nolan gets him applauded all around the ground for the way he lay prone in theatrical despair having missed said barn door?  Julien Faubert should take lessons from him - his sponsor's man of the match award for the last home game led to a catalogue of errors in this.

Of course, I tried to console myself with the thought that it was the third game in a week and tiredness was inevitable, and that we have a cushion on the third placed team, and that with Southampton losing we hadn't lost any ground.  But tiredness didn't seem to affect Burnley in the same way, the seat is more comfortable with a cushion that we now don't have, and although we didn't lose any ground, we lost the chance to give a full-throated rendition of 'We are top of the league (say, we are top of the league)', which, let's face it, we don't get very often.

So, reasons not to like Burnley bursting our bubble:

1.   Alastair Campbell.  Enough said.

2.   Connor was absent for his own birthday party.  Why? It's not his birthday until Wednesday and he could have had a party on Sunday.

3.   Jessica was absent for Connor's birthday party.  As well as the other whys above, why not leave the party duties to her Man U supporting partner?

4.   Uriel came on Jessica's ticket.  So Connor and Jessica cannot miss any more games (which will be difficult for almost-seven-years-old Connor for evening games) and Uriel can't come again because he puts the bock on it.

5.   There should be no doubt as to who is the premier claret and blue team.  Not Villa, not Scunthorpe and definitely not Burnley.
 So now on to Reading and Barnsley.  The pulse races. So let's hope there's a bit more determination next time.
 

Foxes run to ground: West Ham 3 -2 Leicester; 29 October

First, an apology.  In recent (and, indeed, not so recent) posts, I have appeared to express the opinion that, if Julien Faubert had a very large banjo firmly held in both hands, with a bovine arse tethered straight in front of him, he would be unable to hit it.  I have also expressed the view that, faced with barn door of the dimensions that would enable said barn door to be the opening of a barn within which could comfortably be parked a fleet of Boeing 787 planes, he could contrive to hoof any football over or around said door.  However, I now realise this is an unfair calumny on his goal-scoring prowess following his second ever goal for West Ham today after 23 minutes.  Admittedly, when presented with an equally good opportunity later in the match he reverted to his Wall-Eyed Dick persona, but those prayers before kick-off were today answered (his, not mine.  I don't bother the non-existant deity with supplications way beyond the miraculous.  Faubert not conceding a penalty is hope enough).  Allahu Akbar, as they don't chant on the terraces.

I spent the game honing my commentating skills for Connor, although it's much harder than it appears.  I can do alright until there's the chance of a goal, when I forget to speak through concentrating on the game, until I get prodded by Connor to resume explanations.  Mind you, much of Mr James Linington's decisions as referee were impossible to explain so I just went with the flow and abused him like the rest of the home support.  

.
Still, as you can see above, it didn't detract from our enjoyment, and my son Joel even managed to partake of the entertainment despite a massive hangover.

Let's hope there are no  hangovers on Tuesday night.  The Controller is cautioning against my burgeoning optimism.  Having spent recent years complaining about my bitter negativity, you'd think she'd be happy.  But I guess she can see the bigger the upswing, the further the downswing.

But bugger that, October's over and we're still second, so why not allow a smidgeon of hope?  After all, we not only won today, we actually played some good football, and if we let two goals in, the tension only made the end even more enjoyable.  


It's always like that if you win (as far as I can remember).

Going South: Southampton 1 - 0 West Ham; 18 October; Brighton 0 - 1 West Ham; 24 October.

Two excursions to the south coast produced a mirror image in results.  The first I followed via text updates from Sky and Joel.  This was supplemented by Hannah (his significant other) complaining about West Ham ruining her Monday evening as well as Saturdays and Sundays and asking plaintively why it was so difficult to score.  She obviously needs to watch Julien Faubert more.  

The second was anchored in front of the telly in the downstairs room, with The Controller descending from her lofty television-watching eyrie (where she'll watch anything but West Ham and a subtitled foreign film), to check once in a while on score and mood.

It was the classic scattered family communion.  Jessica was watching at her home in Walthamstow where her partner Joe was no doubt still curled into a sobbing ball in the corner following the Manchester Derby game the previous day.  I mean we've had some pastings at Old Trafford, but it's not our ground and we're not a multi-million pound team that was in the Champions League final last year.  Or next year or any year, Pornographers please note for the bullshit-ometer.  So she probably couldn't be too celebratory as misery loves company.  Jack was watching in a pub in Brighton, rather than on the terraces in Brighton, having failed to, ahem, source a ticket.  And given the local sensibilities, he also probably had to keep the enjoyment reasonably constrained.  Joel was, I assume, using my SkyGo log in to feed his obsession (and not ruin Hannah's Tuesday evening as well) in Wapping.

Whereas I was in Brentwood environs, accompanied by two Golden Retrievers who respond well to enjoyment and slink away at the abuse that unfailingly appears at moments of tension (like Julien Faubert missing another cow's arse with his super-sized banjo).

But there was relatively little to get excited about.  We scored and never looked like conceding even when the ref gave 8 minutes added time working on the theory that if we always concede in 90 plus minutes, that was long enough for us not only to let in one goal, but more likely two.  But we didn't and the dogs could happily wag their tails in appreciation of the result, if not the play.

But who cares, what we need is promotion and winning will get us that if we keep it up.  And 0-1 away from home will do nicely, thank you very much.  As The Controller sagely commented, 'Good result'.

Now, about that home form .... 

Into the Groove: West Ham 4 - 0 Blackpool

In the week leading up to the game the news, as far as West Ham are concerned, was that the Olympic Stadium deal was off.  My moment of joy that I was to be spared needing to take binoculars to see future games in White Elephant Running Track Stadium with distant seating around it was rapidly dashed, however, when it became clear that West Ham is still likely to bid to be tenants, and still most likely to be successful.  Apparently we'll be 'anchor tenants' which is not cockney rhyming slang, but a phrase to indicate we won't even be exclusive occupiers.  So we'll no doubt sell Upton Park for another supermarket and move into rented accommodation, as they recommend for those who can't pay their mortgages.  Still it'll be a legacy like that nice former Tory MP Lord Coe promised (I always preferred watching the Steves Ovett and Cram, anyway) - or just something you inherit that you're stuck with, and that you paid for anyway.  At least when Terence (sack the board, sack the board, sack the board) Brown came up with a whizzo scheme whereby we gave him lots of money to build a stadium and in return he gave us the right to spend even more money going to watch matches in it, everybody saw through it - even Danny Baker and he's a Millwall supporter. This way, it's built with our taxes, we're lumbered with it and we have to pay to be miles away from matches in it.  Mind you, for some of West Ham's matches, the further away the better.  

But not this one.

My mother lives, as she has always done, in rented accommodation.  Her recent accommodation, though, is extra-care sheltered accommodation.  On Friday I had to be there while a social worker did a care assessment.  This included making an assessment of her mental state by asking her questions.  As she has Alzheimer's, from which only Ernest Saunders has ever recovered (after being diagnosed while serving a gaol sentence for fraud and therefore released, only for a miracle to happen), this is done simply to illustrate how she can't care for herself and is therefore entitled.  Her short term memory has been gone for a few years, but now her longer term memory is also in decline and she is unable to remember my father to whom she was married for more than fifty years.  I was thinking about him leading up to this week's match, because today would have been his 91st birthday and, after his death, his ashes were scattered at Upton Park.  Will his ashes also become 'anchor tenant' at White Elephant Stadium Next to Westfield Shopping Centre?  Thought not.  But now my mum can't remember him and I only ever think of him infrequently, nearly 14 years after his death.  


But he was responsible for taking me to West Ham as a 7 year old.  And he once took me to Arsenal as a kid because Stanley Matthews was playing in his last season, and he wanted me to be able to say I'd seen the greatest English footballer.  Obviously this was before Bobby Moore, so now I can say I saw both although, rather like my mum, I can't remember anything of Stanley Matthews playing at Arsenal.


So yesterday was a birthday treat for my old dad, even though he wasn't there (except as ashes in the pitch), but two of his grandchildren and his great-grandson were able to enjoy a sunny autumn day and a comfortable win that lifts us to second in the table.  With Carlton Cole not playing there was a vacancy for the chosen boo boy of the numpties behind us, but not even Kevin Nolan could measure up in a four-nil home win.  And even with Andy D'Urso performing to his habitual level of incompetence we couldn't let a goal in in five minutes added time at the end.


So now it's off to the South Coast for Southampton and Brighton.  You can tell that, just as the sunny weather is due to end, something's bound to go wrong.  Promotion can't be that simple, can it?  This is West Ham.

The International Break: West Ham 0 -1 Ipswich; 27 September; Crystal Palace 2 - 2 West Ham 1 October.

The ennui is almost overpowering, so I need an international break to recharge my faded batteries.  After losing to Ipswich (which BFS noted was a disappointment), I wondered at my air of resignation.  After all, we had a whole game at home and didn't manage a shot, and in the ninetieth minute we failed to mark at a corner, either for the cross or the midfield player to whom the ball eventually fell.  Now while Kevin Nolan is a pointer and gesticulator in the Ian Bishop class (and a real leader of men according to one of The Pornographers), that didn't translate into doing the marking.  But hey, it's another lesson to be learned.

Which we hadn't, apparently, four days later when we went away to Crystal Palace.  Since the last time we played them, at the Millennium Stadium we managed to let the barrage balloon in waiting that was Neil Shipperley score to put Palace and not us into the Premiership Promised Land (from whence Iain Dowie led them at the end of the following season, never yet to return), this could have been a grudge match if anybody could be arsed.  But nobody could be, as was obvious from the 'defending' that BFS castigated.  Well, you trains 'em Big Boy.  And at least we came back for a draw.

But we're ten games into the season and doing OK. Unbeaten away from home, but at home as safe at the back as a seven year old left alone with Gary Glitter.  In (almost) a quarter of the season we're nicely tucked into fourth place and only two points of BFS's magic figure of two points a game.  If only you could get two points a game instead of none, one or three ....  The defence, apart from the time between the 85th and the 95th minute, has seemed to be more secure than for some time with two centre halves who can head it and tackle and two full backs who mark the wide men and tuck in when necessary.  BFS did the necessary in replacing Ilunga (now gone on loan to Doncaster) and realising Faubert was only ever a faux full-back.  The midfield has not looked terribly secure without the Superman (and how Spurs fans suddenly appreciate him) and while Lansbury is class, Bentley, so far, is dross.  Faubert is a better midfield player than he is full-back, but that's not high praise, Taylor is variable and Jack not yet getting a run to prove his worth.  Despite the grumbles of home fans who don't readily appreciate one of their own, Mark Noble remains dependable.  If Nolan performed as well as he struts he'd be some player.

But we're still lightweight up front. Carlton Cole has high balls played up to him and Carew gets them played into the channels when he replaces Cole.  You'd almost think Carlton couldn't run and Carew couldn't jump.  One of those things is true.  Baldock it's too early to judge and Piquionne's best days are way behind. 

So, all-in-all we've not done bad to be where we are.  BFS says the team will get better over the next ten games, and then better again.  I hope so.  I'm enduring the Championship but not liking it.

And I could do without The Pornographers and Lord Sugar's Suck-up dreaming up the publicity stunt of suggesting King Carlos comes back on loan.  It only reminds me what we're missing.  If it wound Neil Warnock up again, it might be worth it.  But after losing a derby 6-0, wind-up might be unnecessary to make him self-combust.  You can but hope.

Buckle my shoe: West Ham 1 - 0 Peterborough; 24 September

Do you get shoes with buckles any more?  Once upon a time they used to be de rigeur for small children who could not manage shoe laces, but they have been superseded by the ubiquitous Velcro, as, come to think of it, have shoe laces.  So has the counting rhyme gone as well, I wonder?

Such musings were more likely to hold my attention than the game, though, featuring as it did a meandering West Ham performance that always looked good enough to beat a Peterborough side that looks set to struggle.  Not even playing 6 minutes of added time could allow then to score as, for once, we didn't concede at home in the dread zone from 87 minutes on.

But that's two home victories on the bounce.  Joel is relieved as he's managed to destroy the theory that Jessica and I were proposing that West Ham could only win at home when she, Connor and I were in attendance and Jack and Joel weren't.  With Jack having become a part-timer and given up his season ticket (The Premiership or nothing, my dear), the theory didn't concern him.  But Joel might have been permanently excluded from the Chicken Run if this result had not transpired.

So all that was left was to think of children's rhymes, and ponder why it was, when Carlton Cole was playing, he was sent a succession of high balls to battle for, but when John Carew, Carew (who is definitely bigger than me and you - and probably would be if we were combined - plays in the claret and blue, doesn't wear a buckled shoe) came on, balls were played into channels for him to chase.  Carew is bigger and better in the air, and Cole is faster.  Am I missing something?  But, hey ho, we won and we're still in fourth and the object of the exercise this season is to get promoted - which means winning and we did.  

So that's alright then.

Missing: Millwall 0-0 West Ham; 17 September

On Saturday, The Controller and I went with my daughter, Jessica and grandson Connor to Maldon.  Joel and Hannah went to IKEA.  So we all missed the game (just as David Bentley missed an open goal to win it), and given the crap mobile phone and mobile internet access in rural Essex Jessica and I relied on text updates from Joel - which were as rare as David Bentley goals.

So nothing to say about the game, but Maldon on Regatta Day was nice to visit.

Which is more than can be said - ever - for IKEA

57 Varieties of Emotion

This year I have been supporting West Ham for 57 years.  In that time, what started with my Dad taking me to stand (and, in the misty-eyed way beloved of memoirs) be passed to the front of the Chicken Run, has morphed into a lifetime's defining obsession which has been passed on to my children.

In that time, to reprise Elizabeth Barret Browning, let me count the ways that West Ham has made me cry.

There have been tears of exhilarated joy on (too few) occasions.  When I were but a nipper (all of 17), we won the cup against Preston and I watched on grainy black and white telly at the Barber's shop where I worked as a Saturday boy.  No tears, but definitely moist eyes.  Then we won the European Cup-winners Cup and, of course, the World Cup - all experienced at second hand on the telly but with intense joy.

I was working abroad when we beat Fulham in the Cup and listening on the BBC World Service (when it was a proper World Service on short wave with the Lily Bolero theme tune), all alone but overjoyed.

I experienced anguish followed by joy when we beat Arsenal with Sir Trevor's (only?) headed goal and I spent the rest of the game watching the clock as much as the game.  I was there with my Dad and we floated back to our car on an uplift of delirium.  The next day, I took Jessica, Rebecca and baby Joel to see the team bus bring the cup back.

My dad and I also cried after the death of Bobby Moore at the West Ham gates.  Only Jessica remembered seeing him play but everybody was caught up in the emotion.  Jack came to his first game the Saturday following Bobby Moore's death, when Wolves fans laid tributes in the centre circle and thought that all games might be surrounded with this level of intensity.

I wept copiously when my Dad's ashes were scattered at Upton Park in a lovely ceremony by the then Chaplain (even though my Dad was a determined atheist, reserving his worship for socialism, West Ham and his family, although not necessarily in that order) which made much of West Ham being a family club.

With my children I experienced the Cardiff extremes - beaten in a play-off final one year and winning it the next while we all managed to be there, followed by the Scouse Robbery Cup Final with Joel even winging back from his job in the USA! USA! having complete faith in dad to blag a ticket.  Which I did.

And today is the latest day the West Ham have made me cry - with more than a little assistance from my son, Joel.  He presented me with a book of all my blogs from last year, printed in a fabulous design and with a cover photograph of a brick from the porch of my mum and dad's old flat (that my mum moved out of to sheltered accommodation early this year) in which  I'd gouged WHUFC and crossed Hammers when I was a kid.

I was, and am still, overcome.

An Open Invitation: West Ham 4-3 Portsmouth; 10 September

Last week I got an invitation sent to me from West Ham.  I was invited to meet Big (Fat) Sam in luxurious surroundings for a glass of champagne and a seafood buffet.  I would also see the match (with only the slight drawback that I would have to do that in the company of Pornographers and a fawning Reality TV star that would not be reputationally advisable).  And all I had to pay for this invitation was £99!!

I'm duty bound to reply.  Good manners demands it.  So I've got an invitation of my own for Sam.  He can come for a cup of tea and a biscuit and can sit in my garden to enjoy it .  Guaranteed no Pornographers or Fake Peer suck-ups to put up with - just two large, hairy dogs.  The dogs may bounce around a lot, though and rush about all over the grass with evident enjoyment, a frantic desire to please and little sense of discipline or purpose.

Midfield Terriers? Slippery pitch?

Which neatly brings us to West Ham in BFS's latest incarnation, post Super Scott.  The sponsors' man of the Match was Henri Lansbury, newly arrived from Arsenal Reserves on a season-long loan, but Rob Green was essential in us winning at home for the first time since March.  Two of his first half saves were stunning and the reason why the second half goals from Lansbury, Noble and Cole (to add to Matty Taylor's first half equaliser) won the match.  

Now why would that lovely Arsene Wenger lend Sam Allardyce a player?  Ever since BFS's Bolton days, they've not been bosom buddies.  When Arsene was in full conflict with Sir Apoplex of Manchester (before Sir Apoplex took to patronising him from the lofty heights of yet another league championship) BFS was like one of those annoying kids who hang around the big bully sniggering at their 'witticisms' while repeating their last few words for emphasis.  I thought all that meant we might get Man Utd loanees, like Sunderland and Wigan got Welbeck and Cleverly last year, but instead Arsene gave us a current star of England U21s.  So, either he doesn't like Lansbury, or his recent tribulations have changed more than the age at which he'll sign players.  Now he wants to toughen up his youth to go with the prettiness, perhaps.

Nevertheless, he contributed a (deflected) goal and won a penalty when his ball-juggling induced a handball.  So, a decent contribution.  Unlike that of David Bentley, the not-so-super-sub.  He kept trying to do the showboat or the killer ball and it never came off.  Of course he has talent, but I'm not so sure he has bottle.  And that's a quality the the departed Super Scott had (has) in abundance and that showed in the way that Portsmouth could run through our midfield to score three goals.  Normally, three goals away from home would be a victory, but tough.  It's about time we won, about time we came from behind, and more than about time we stopped conceding goals in injury time.  We managed two out of three.

When I got home and recounted to The Controller the self-mocking chant of the fans:

            We're winning at home

            We're winning at home

            How shit must you be

            We're winning at home

Her response was that was typical of the nasty bitter character deformation that is supporting West Ham.

So, please, BFS, accept my invitation and show her it isn't so.  And I won't even charge you £99 that was the price for your open invitation

Superman flies off: Scott Parker transferred to Spurs

So being voted Hammer of the Year for three years on the bounce, returning to the England squad because of performances in claret and blue, and being named Footballer of the Year by Sports Writers despite being in a team propping up the Premiership were not enough to convince Scott Parker to give West Ham continued service in the Championship so he's waved us goodbye.

That's a bit of a change from the end of the season when Scott sent me a personal email urging me to renew my season ticket because, if we all stuck together, we could come straight back up.  He said that's what all the players wanted and were determined to achieve.

So I'm really pleased that Demba Ba, Zavon Hines, Matthew Upson, Thomas Hitszlsperger, Pablo Barrera, and now Super Scott have demonstrated that togetherness.  After all, it's not their fault we were relegated, they were only on the pitch - it's the twelfth man in the stands that didn't pull his weight obviously.  And The Pornographers made it plain that it was unfair to expect England internationals to play in the Championship.  Whereas it's perfectly fair for the fans to be expected to pay almost the same amount to watch the Championship.

But good luck to Scott at Spurs.  I devoutly hope his experience of an unsuccessful fight against relegation comes in useful for them and is repeated this season.

On The Road Again: Nottingham Forest 1 - 4 West Ham; 28 August.

For a final summer break, The Controller and I have been to our house in Norfolk.  This required and early morning start on Sunday so that I could be assured of being in front of the TV screen by 1 pm.  For someone so apparently jaundiced about West Ham, it's nigh impossible for me to miss the opportunity to see a game unless there are overwhelming forces ranged against the possibility by The Controller (such as friends for lunch).

I was duly indulged and allowed my fix as The Controller sought solace in the Collectables Fayre in Blakeney (for which read over-priced old tut  that was displayed at the all of the last twenty-five Collectable Fayres) and while she returned empty-handed from said Fayre, West Ham collected three points from the very old tut that was Nottingham Forest.  

The scoreline makes it seem a very comprehensive victory.  Actually, the scoreline makes it a very comprehensive victory (like Hamlet, the league tables 'know not seems').  But we would do well not to count promotion achieved just yet.  It was more than somewhat worrying that, without Super Scott, Nottingham Forest seemed to be able to get at our back four through midfield rather too easily, even if Rob Green was the equal to whatever was thrown at him - especially the more-than-a-year-old tedious abuse for  the mistake against USA! USA! USA! at the World Cup.  But as, apparently Super Scott has his heart set on a move to the Spuds (no, really) we may have seen the last of him.  And just at a time when BFS can't spend any more money, so unless his old Codgers friendship with Sir Alex conjures up some loanees, what we see is what we've got.  And Julian doesn't inspire great confidence, even with his French international cap and loan spell at Real Madrid where he is mostly famous for falling asleep while warming the bench.

Anyhoo, BFS told me in his personal email to me that it was an outstanding result which will do wonders for our confidence and we can all forget about Aldershot, Leeds and Cardiff.  

He signs his email to me (and everybody else, I assume) "Big Sam".

What's that about?  Did Mrs and Mrs Allardyce senior really register him as Big?  Or is this just an adjective he's arrogated to himself?  And to what does the adjective refer?  His achievements in football - surely not, 'cos I can think of many much more substantial, like people who've won things.  The number of 'bung' allegations made against him by Panorama?  But he surelt can't compete with the likes of 'Appy 'Arry for dodgy signings possibly guided by the agents' willingness to contribute to the pension pot.  His size, perhaps - but then he's left out the second adjective "Fat" which is universally applied to him.  Perhaps it's just his own opinion of himself.  He has, after all, claimed he is more suited to manage Real Madrid or Inter and should have been appointed England Manager both when Capello and, before him, McLaren got the job.  Now there's McLaren and Allardyce managing two Championship teams, but at least Allardyce won this competition.

Get us promoted and he can Big himself up as much as he likes - I'll even join in.

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.

Keep going to the end? West Ham 2-2 Leeds 21 August

This week The Controller exerted her control.  Some time ago she had invited friends for Sunday lunch - having first checked the all-important home fixture list.  And so it came to pass that the Murdoch Corporation, in the guise of Sky Sports, turned aside from hacking phones into hacking marital harmony by rearranging the game from Saturday to Sunday at the very same lunchtime.

So there was no way I was going to be able to go.  I offered my season ticket to my son, Jack, but having given up his following relegation, it was not tempting.  My other son, Joe, brought his significant other, Hannah, to the last home game and she obviously saw enough not to want to repeat the experience.  So it was difficult to give the ticket away.  Not a problem West Ham have as far as goals are concerned.

I did, of course, record the game, and between courses of lunch (intercourse?) found an excsue or seven to check on the score.

But I haven't watched it in its entirety and won't now, since, for the second home game in succession, the team managed to concede in the 91st minute.

What a shame that that nice Mr Bates (who gave it as his opinion that the riots last week were caused by not enough emphasis on human responsibilities as opposed to rights.  Like the responsibility to pay your taxes, maybe, Mr Bates of Monaco?) will have enjoyed the result.

Big Fat Sam needs to tell the team that the game lasts until it's over and that keeping the ball at the other end is a good way of stopping the opposition scoring.  So is stopping crosses and marking people in the box, but let's not carried away.

Good game to miss. 

Elton John, Graham Taylor, John Barnes, Ross Jenkins, Kenny Jackett, - your boys took a hell of a beating:Watford 0 - 4 West Ham; 16 August

It's a little bit funny this West Ham side
Plenty of players who can easily hide

Paid too much money but if they played

We'd be a big team making the grade

If I was a Pornographer, but then again, no
Or a woman who sucks up on a TV show
I know it's not much but it's the best I can do
My gift is my song and this one's for you

And you can tell everybody this is West Ham
It may be quite simple but that's West Ham 

I don't care if you mind
I don't care if you mind the words I put down 

How wonderful life is while you're 4-0 down

I pretend every season I don't give a toss
Well a few of the players well they get me quite cross
But the game's been quite kind while I changed this song
It's for the Irons to keep it turned on

So excuse me forgetting but these things I do
You see I've forgotten when we last won two
Anyway the thing is what I really mean to say
How great it is to win away

And you can tell everybody this is West Ham
It may be quite simple but that's West Ham 

Reality Bites: Doncaster 0-1 West Ham; 13 August

This weekend the papers and the TV sports programmes were full of the first weekend of the Premiership season.  I thought I was inured to all of that.  After all, when West Ham were in the Premiership, the previews were all about how they would struggle, their indebtedness, how their best players would move on because the bigger clubs would snaffle them at will.  Meanwhile, the transfer window only seemed to operate as an escape hatch and an opportunity for owner-bollocks about trying to sign any over-the-hill marquee name in need of a pension top-up you could name.  Including Carlos Kick-a-ball, naturally.  Followed by a free transfer of someone only the most obsessive anorak trawl of released ex-South American internationals or serial loanees could identify.

So the start of the Premiership for us wasn't exactly a time for giddy anticipation of glory.  More, an opportunity for anxiety and bile about the failures of the owners to live up to my unrealistic expectations (as well as their own season-ticket selling hyperbollocks).

And this season we are, after the inevitable relegation that followed the lamentable Avram's appalling demonstration of incompetence (as well as the Pornographers' and Lord Sugar's Suck-up's comprehensive failure of stewardship - to their own massive expense), to compete at a level more in keeping with our capability (if not our sense of our own importance).  A season, I've been looking forward to after the appointment of a Manager with a record beyond what we have any right to expect.  Although, by-the-by, noting that he signs his programme column 'Big Sam' is worrying.  I'm sure his mum and dad didn't register him as an adjective and proper noun, so he's adopted the soubriquet, but left out the other adjective - Fat - obviously for reasons of vanity.

We even had a close season transfer coup (in the context of a relegated severely indebted team) with the signing of Kevin Nolan.  And only one of our England players has left.  Those whom it would be unfair to expect to play in the Championship (according to a Pornographer), even though their performances were in large part responsible for us now being in said Championship - Super Scott honourably excepted.  And the departed Matthew Upson most West Ham fans would have, if asked, contributed to a whip-round for his fare out after his non-performances last-year. As well as that, a healthy amount of dead-wood has gone (goodbye Keiron Dyer, Luis Boa Morte).

So I thought the big-build up would pass me by.

Wrong again.

I felt like the dispossessed outside the opulent restaurant, inside the windows of which the sleek, rich, beautiful people dined on all manners of delights and enjoyed a cornucopia of pleasures.  Meanwhile, in the cold of inattention, the poverty of our fare was driven home by the Championship fixture list.  Doncaster Rovers for the first time in 53 years.  And on the back of the let-down that was last Saturday's failure (ten losses on the trot carrying on from last season), away from home so even the weary trudge was not leavened by the bonhomie (or acid commentaries) of fellow-sufferers.

I tell you, the emotions make it clear why the dispossessed want to smash the windows and pillage what lies within - metaphorically speaking, of course.

But optimism will surface.  We won, after all.  And to add the pleasure that only the suffering of others can, Neil Warnock's promoted QPR got stuffed, Dyer limped off after 7 minutes with yet another injury while Gabbidon scored an own-goal.  As my daughter, Jessica, suggested the covert revenge for Warnock's part in the Tevez Affair seems to be going well.

And as my son, Joel, pointed out, it's the first time for ages we've been out of the bottom three, and it's Watford away on Tuesday.

Now that has really set the pulse racing....

Here we go again: West Ham 0-1 Cardiff; 7 August 2011

So today is the first day of the new season.  A game against Cardiff to rub home the point that we're in the Championship now following last season's relegation.  The Pornographers acted decisively and got rid of the dreaded Avram at least five months too late and appointed Big Fat Sam.  This was followed by the genuine coup of signing Kevin Nolan from the Barcodes and it looked possible that we might make a fist of going for promotion.  Certainly BFS played it up.  He recruited former Bolton players in Faye, Taylor and O'Brien, tried to recruit Gardner who refused and tried Jlloyd Samuel before deciding no, so we're definitely onto recreate Bolton.  And no problem for me, as he got them promoted and a regular top ten side with players like Djorkaeff and Okocha giving the lie to the long ball mythology.


And both BFS and Kaptain Kevin have given it large in pre-season about immediate promotion and making Upton Park a Fortress [(c) Lazy Journalism Co].  Then all of the pundits made us favourites to go up because we've recruited well and retained our big players (those who got us relegated last year).

So it was almost inevitable it would go tits up.

As it duly did when we dominated the game, couldn't score and gave away a soft goal with no time to see if there was any improved fighting spirit in the team when in adversity.

So that's the first of eight game that BFS says we can afford to lose if we are to be promoted gone on Day 1.

The Controller thinks nothing has changed because I came home grumpy again.  Maybe she's right.

The Longest Days of the Year

Having recently moved to a new house in rural Essex (well, a village outside Brentwood feels pretty rural to me), we've yet to acquire curtains.  As a result the sunlight comes streaming through the windows by 4.30 and its sound accompaniment is both the dawn chorus and the distant crowing of a demented cockerel.  We've either had or are about to have the longest day of the year and next season's fixtures have just been announced.  Seeing a home game against Doncaster brings home the reality of relegation, and much as Pornographer No.1 says he's looking forward to the new season, the fixture list hardly sets the pulse racing.  Although Cardiff, Leeds, Birmingham and Millwall promise a level of violence to a season not seen since I were nowt but a nipper.

It's also the time of year when the scrolling news of transfers is fascinating.  No surprise that Demba Ba is off after half a season to the Barcodes.  More surprising is Kevin Nolan coming the other way, and it's a better piece of transfer business than we managed last season when we had aspirations to retain a Premier League place.  If Scott Parker goes (and the talk has turned to 'if' rather than 'when' of late), he's a more than adequate replacement on paper - unfortunately, games are played on grass rather than paper, as our last squad too good to go down proved -  and if The Superman stays they should be more than a match for any other Championship midfield.

And, of course, we have our new manager.  He seems to me a brilliant appointment when you look at the alternatives available and his track record with Bolton and, to my mind, Blackburn.  Of course there is the little matter of his half-season at Newcastle but I'd not derive anything from that shambles.  Funny the connections, though.  With Alan Pardew their manager - and the rumours that his low basic salary is supplemented by a percentage of transfer business income certainly give a fresh perspective on the transfers of Andy Carroll and now Nolan - and us having previously bought Super Scott (the good), Lee Bowyer (the bad) and Kieron Dyer (the absent), as well as selling Demba Ba.  But if the next connection is an instant return to the Premiership, I shan't complain.

Just one thing, though.  Big Fat Sam obviously likes people he's worked with before - Nolan, Faye signed, Gardner would have but failed a medical, and Macdonald as the assistant manager.  Please no El Hadj Diouf.  I sit too close to the front of the Chicken Run to escape the gobbing.