Saturday Night Fever

OLAS 420 SEPTEMBER 15TH 2007

Saturday night is not complete without Match of the Day, an Indian take-away and Casualty. What a disappointment when Casualty went off screen for its annual break. Never mind, a new series of that old favourite, Casualty at West Ham, was just starting.

The title of the first episode, Faubert’s Folly, was a bit pretentious but it soon became obvious what it was about. Faubert is a down-at-heel Frenchman who finds himself literally, er, down at heel. That registrar, “Curbs", the one with the vacant expression, is a bit of a misery guts. He seems to thinks that each case he comes across every week can be put down to “bad luck”. And Nurse Mervyn seems totally clueless. Can she speak?

They seemed a bit more animated in the next episode: Knees up Scotty Parker, which had elements of slapstick as, first, Lucas Neil, and then Scotty Parker, and then Freddy Male-Model all do their knees in. One straight after the other – oh, how we laughed.

Then, in walks Magnus Eggontoast, Chair of the Trust, with his ultra-trendy shaved head. He doesn’t quite get what an NHS casualty department is all about. Did you see how he looks at Ljungberg laid out on the bed after over-exerting himself playing one game and counting his wages? Magnus examines him, as if he’s a doctor, and comes up with his solution: “We need different patient. Here’s 10 mill. We buy one.”

In lots of these soaps some of the real characters have the more menial roles, like those porters – Muggins and Bowyer – neither of them very competent or intelligent but always willing to do errands and run around, even in circles.

Casualty at West Ham is growing on me and you wonder who’s going to cop it next. Occasionally the plot line is a little too obvious, like at the beginning of the Keiron Dyer episode when he leaves Newcastle for the East End and says he could really do with a lucky break or two in his career. Well, the scriptwriting was pretty poor because we all knew what was going to happen next. And it did.

But if that’s the soap opera, then the tragic-comedy must be Transfer Deadline. Funnily enough Magnus Eggontoast plays a role in that one too. He is not the Chair of the Trust in this one but a kind of Mystic Meg figure with a shiny head, though less sparkling balls.

In this programme he stands on a mountain making pronouncements, each more ridiculous and unbelievable than the previous one, like: “We are going to attract world-class players to West Ham.” And before you say “pull the other one,” there’s something about how he says it that sucks you in.

Then they flash to these balding pear-shaped geezers, who you just see from behind, filling ash-trays and collecting lager empties as they sit frantically in front of their computers on the night of the deadline. The minutes tick by, as they click every West Ham or sports website they can find, desperately hoping to see which world-class players, which great new prospects, we have signed. Every so often you hear a grunt or a burp interspersed with names: Mancini…Shorey…Adriano…Barnes…

The belly laugh is at the end – there never were any world-class players, there were never going to be, and Magnus stands up on the mountain again saying, “Solano, good evening and welcome. While you sit like lemons in front of computers, we secretly film you. You just been on Candid Camara. Goodnight.” And then he legs it down the mountain and disappears.

And there it was – goodnight to the transfer window until January. Now, quite a few players changed hands over the summer. They seemed to fall into certain categories and, with the exception of Faubert – who had no history of major injuries – we bought ours from the list headed: “Injury-prone, has-beens and cast offs at prices you wouldn’t believe.” I hope we choose them from a different category in January – like the one titled: “young, energetic, creative, determined and proven quality in their position.”

Eggs and Curbs – don’t wait until the last minute but start focusing on your targets now. Clearly some of the better players on the move over the summer were snapped up at reasonable prices by teams of pretty much the same calibre as West Ham like Citeh, Newcastle, Villa and Portsmouth. If those teams are able to repeat that exercise in January and we don’t, then we will fall behind, however well our current squad play. If other teams are strengthening in depth, making more competition for places and giving themselves more options, we need to do so as well.

At the same time, I hope that Eggs’ longstanding promises to put resources into the youth academy are fulfilled. Because whatever our activity in the transfer market I would still like to see us bringing through our youth talent. To start giving them run-outs as substitutes rather than suddenly throwing them into the fray when we are in crisis and half our team are busy rehearsing for Casualty at West Ham.

Mark Noble is doing a great job out there and Anton is showing signs of returning to the form we know he is capable of. But perhaps there are other Nobles and Ferdinands nearly ready to step out on to the premiership stage, if we have that as a goal and we prepare them for that possibility. And, if we maintain our reputation of being a team where youth team players can make it and show that we are putting resources into the youth set up, we will continue to attract a great crop of youth prospects.

Meanwhile there have been one or to things happening out there on the pitch. We started slowly against Wigan but once we got into gear we battered them for 30 minutes playing crisp attacking football. As we got close to half-time though, with nothing to show for it (not helped by the denial of a clear penalty), the nervousness crept in and Wigan started to look dangerous. The second half was appalling. We lost our shape completely and ran out of ideas. I was just coming to terms with the disappointment of a 0-0 draw when Wigan scored out of the blue. We rallied enough to pull one back but didn’t deserve to win. And we didn’t.

The cup-game at Bristol Rovers was a potential banana skin that we disposed of very effectively – though obviously at the cost of Keiron Dyer who, in his brief spell on the pitch since he signed, was developing a healthy understanding with Bellamy. Again, once we settled, we showed some very good touches and deserved our 2-0 half-time lead. We took our foot off the gas a bit in the second half and Anton was done up like a kipper for their goal but we were comfortable winners.

I watched the game with a mate of mine from Bristol (a City supporter) at one of my few locals that regularly shows the footie – the Boston Arms in Tufnell Park. It’s a funny old pub. At this time of year it is very quiet; its mostly Irish clientele head home for the summer leaving a few waifs and strays talking to themselves and occasionally falling off chairs near the bar. About three quarters of the way through the match one of those struggling to prop up the bar turns to me and my mate and says: ‘Now I don’t follow football really but would that be Blackburn Rovers?” Well, a reasonable question – he probably heard the commentator say “Rovers”, and Bristol played in Blackburn-like colours. But then came the surreal clincher: “Only I t’ort I saw Craig Bellamy out dere.” “Yes,” I said, “but he’s wearing a West Ham shirt. And no, that’s Bristol Rovers…”

The events of that night churned up many a Hammers supporter. Hardly anyone wanted Keiron Dyer at the club but we were just starting to believe he could be an asset when he’s out for the season, having been bought to replace Faubert who’s out for six months. There were only three more days till the transfer deadline and our right wing spot was beginning to resemble the Bermuda Triangle.

Saturday morning and I’m like a bear with a sore head – angry at Curbs, angry at Egghead, but mostly angry at myself for believing their lies about transfer targets and about Scott Parker having a fitness test (they told us that one the week before too and I believed it.) I was convinced we were going to lose by at least two goals against a Reading team who are hardly lighting up the league this year, and then we put in a fantastic performance and win 3-0. There must have been good odds on Mattie netting twice but I doubt if even he had that flutter. Time for a new West Ham series. I don’t know, we could call it Surprise, Surprise.