OLAS 467 October 25th 2009
It’s not often that I get inspiration for my OLAS column from my day to day work as a primary school teacher, but education has been on the front page of the news lately. A huge head of steam is building up around the demand to dump the SATs tests for 7 and 11 year olds that, for several years now, have been getting parents agitated and teachers tearing their hair out (and we don’t all have much to start with). These high stakes tests prevent our children from simply gaining pleasure from learning, from thinking, discovering, and imagining, without fear of failure or excessive pressure.
My union, the NUT, and the Headteachers’ union, the NAHT, are about to run an indicative ballot of their members to take forward the campaign to boycott the tests and hopefully put them where they belong, with lots of other failed “educational” ideas, in the dustbin of history. And if you get rid of the tests then you also get rid of the hated league tables. You only have to glance at the main arguments against league tables and to substitute a couple of words here and there to see how closely they apply to West Ham’s predicament.
1. Schools/football teams that are lowly ranked lose confidence and it is really hard to throw off the label of being a poor school/crap team. If everyone goes round telling you at every opportunity that you are shit, and you read headlines in your local paper that say the same, it isn’t long before you believe it yourself. Though, to be fair, in Jonathan Spector’s case it is both fair comment and true.
2. When you name and shame schools/football teams which don’t perform well against a narrow set of tests (winning games), it makes it harder for these schools/teams to improve because teachers and students/quality players not crap cast-offs, won’t want to go there.
3. When your ranking of schools/football teams is based on narrow test scores (how many games they win) it means that other subjects (how you play the beautiful game, the clever dummies, back-heels, nutmegs etc) get neglected and kids don’t get a rounded education (fans get less pleasure).
4. League tables don’t show the value you have added (by making the most of having fuck-all resources and building an exciting team with young inexperienced players). Instead, they treat every school/football team as if you are starting each year on a level playing field - as if we ever start the season on the same basis as the likes of Manure and Chelski.
5. And finally - and this is the thing that really gets my goat about the school league tables more than anything – maths is seriously not my best subject but I know enough about statistics to realise something that our dumbcluck politicians on all sides don’t get at all: that if you put schools/football teams in a league table, then someone has to come bottom. What’s more, half the schools/football teams, however well they do in circumstances that can be very taxing, and often with pitiful resources (they all went down with the Icelandic banks), will end up in the bottom half. That’s as inevitable as night follows day.
The other thing that gets my goat is when people get their metaphors mixed up and say: “Now the thing that really gets right up my goat…” I just don’t want to know, or have to think about, what gets right up your goat.
OK, let’s leave the goats on the backburner. Now, if you are like me, and you don’t like looking at the league table, since it just resembles a map of England with Man U right up there in the North and West Ham way down South with just Portsmouth further south, then why not sign up to my campaign against league tables? If you do you will never have to feel depressed or exasperated again this season.
Because depressed and exasperated must be what so many fans, and Zola as well, must be feeling. We had a golden opportunity to turn it around against Fulham last time here at Upton Park. Cole headed an excellent goal on 15 minutes from Daimanti’s top delivery. We made the chances to score more but didn’t take them. Nevertheless, as the first half wore on, our dominance became more and more established. Fulham did not really look up for it and when they had a player sent off just before the break, I know I wasn’t alone in honestly feeling at half-time that we were likely to win by two or three goals. A win here would have been so welcome. it would have lifted us out of the danger zone while condemning one of our rivals to that position instead. More selfishly I had put a small wager on with William Hill for a 2-0 correct score and at half-time I was already thinking how I would spend my winnings.
But then came the disastrous restart. Upson only needed to stand his ground on the edge of the penalty area but instead he needlessly pushed a player who was not in a threatening position, presenting a hopeless-looking Fulham team with a penalty and a chance to recover. Ten minutes later Greenie was all over the place at a corner, Fulham scored the softest of goals and we were suddenly chasing the game against a revitalised 10-man team. The psychological impact was immediate. Our morale went through the floor while Fulham’s lifted enormously, and we were lucky to scrape a point thanks to Junior Stan (and a deflection of a defender).
I would love to be wrong but I have a sneaking feeling that we will look back on that game at the end of the season as one we should have secured maximum points from to save us.
In know in my last column I avoided the “must-win game” cliché and suggested instead that the crucial thing was to not lose, but I hardly expected the game to be so patently in our hands at half-time. When the final whistle went I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I think I just let out a peculiar groaning sound. We may have not lost, we may have secured a point, but it felt like a crushing defeat.
A win would have given us confidence before our trip to Stoke, who are always a hard team to beat, though results against them in recent years have largely gone our way. We can moan about the Upson incident and how we should have had a penalty but at the end of the day we were let down less by the referee than by the failings of a midfield player unable to play like a right back. Faubert has generally improved this season, especially going forward and can deliver dangerous crosses, but we need someone who can defend as well. He was badly at fault with both goals. So what do we do next week? Put in Jonathan Spector? Against Arsenal? fuck no.
Above all we were let down by the financial movers and shakers at the club who knew that they had to take decisive action to ensure we started the season with a recognised right back, but did nothing except further deplete our defensive cover.
What was most disturbing against Stoke is that, apart from having Parker suspended and Dyer missing again (and again and again) we were playing with pretty much our strongest squad. This is it until January – and who knows what happens then? Stoke are hardly world-beaters and if that is all we can offer against them, then how will we fare when we play proper teams – like, well today, when we entertain the Arse who are scoring more freely that someone going on a weekend tour of Amsterdam coffee-shops?
Much as I love to see Arsehole Whinger getting a strop when things go wrong, I can’t see anything other than a heavy defeat for us today, even if we play well. The gap in class, confidence, movement and imagination is too large, even if we play with more consistency and concentration than we have until now. And if we don’t like the look of last week’s league table, the one at the end of today’s game may appear even less pretty. Portsmouth put on a spirited display against the Spuds last week and are a good bet to turn over Hull this weekend which could leave us propping up the rest of the table.
And talking of spirited displays – congratulations to Ginger Pele on his first goal for Villa against Chelsea and to George McCartney in helping Sunderland get one over Liverpool. Things must be getting seriously bad here when I’m having to scrape around so much in search of positives that I’m resorting to basking in the reflected glory of players that have long since left us.
Still, help may be at hand. The news that an alternative Hammers-supporting consortium to Messrs Porn Merchant and Shyster may be on the horizon, and will provide funds for the January transfer window, is the boost that we all need. Let’s hope that it is not media hot-air but real, and still a possibility by the time this is printed. Last year Zola did a fantastic job at protecting the players from the backroom disasters with his overwhelming positivity. This year, though, the players look as if they know only too well the gravity of the situation and it is weighing down on them. It is also weighing down on Zola, who clearly had been lied to about how bad things were financially and must be sorely tempted to walk away.
So I have no expectations from today. If we get anything, that will be a fantastic bonus and I’ll spend the week laughing my plums off. Just keep it all in perspective. Our fate this season will not be decided today. How we do when we are away to Hull and home to Burnley in November, away to Birmingham and Bolton and at home to Portsmouth in December, will be far more important than anything that happens on the pitch this afternoon. So enjoy the game and close your eyes and put your fingers in your ears when Arsenal get near our penalty box.
I’ll leave you with the West Ham SATs test before they and the league tables get dumped:
1. Which event is more likely to happen – Gordon Brown lays an egg or Keiron Dyer plays two games in a row?
2. In which century did a director of West Ham last tell fans the truth about the club’s financial position?
3. What is the point of Scott Duxbury?
Friday, 30 October 2009
Honouring the past
OLAS 466 October 4th 2009
I have a strange recurring experience. I go to an absorbing game of football where West Ham play Liverpool and we lose a high-scoring game. And yet, as the whistle goes and I start to walk away, I feel almost elated, as if we have won. It first happened to me at Cardiff in 2006 and it happened again at Upton Park a couple of weeks ago.
I’ve always admired the way Liverpool play football, battling to win every 50/50 ball then driving forward very directly with quick crisp passes on the ground, lots of overlapping movement, clever balls into space for runners, quality crosses right into the danger area…and partly my elation is that we have battled them at their own game showing that we can also play this kind of game even though our players are younger, less experienced and much less valuable on the transfer market.
To be honest I felt Liverpool deserved to win last time round at Upton Park (not at Cardiff though!) but only just, and a draw would not have been an unfair result. At 25 minutes in, with two of our top players having departed the field (Upson and Behrami) and already a goal down we could have been in for a hammering but we never lost heart. Players such as Zavon Hines and Diamanti on his home debut, gave their all, and showed a lot of skilful touches. For most of the game Faubert was a revelation, though he occasionally remembered that he was the kind of player who wins a tackle well but then give the ball right back to the opposition. The midfield and defence blocked shot after shot, and when we came forward we looked threatening. Zavon was very unlucky with the shot that came back off the post just two minutes in. Most of the time they had to foul him to stop him surging forward, and we made Reina work hard all day.
Where we failed was in giving the ball away cheaply when we relied on playing over-long, over-hopeful passes, and in not having players keeping close enough to Cole to benefit when he won and held the ball in threatening positions in the final third. Our other failure was in allowing any team whether it was Liverpool or Leyton Orient, to get a free header for a goal direct from a corner. Good defending should always prevent that from happening.
The other plus was the atmosphere. The crowd responded to the effort being shown on the pitch and really got behind the team, willing them to stay in contention, and rightly applauded their efforts at half-time when we were level and at full time although we had lost.
The only really gutting moment for me was before the game as we applauded three ex-Hammers returning in Liverpool colours – Benayoun, Johnson and Mascherano. I stood reflecting on the lack of ambition, the poor decisions and the financial disasters and that have enabled us to lose such talents and many others in the last few years, but chuckled to myself that when we did have a talent like Mascherano here, he was kept on the bench by Hayden Mullins dull but consistent performances and Pards’ lack of imagination.
I would love to say, with the optimists, that if we play like that against lesser teams we won’t have too many problems this year, but the facts so far don’t bear this out. Crap performances at Wigan and Blackburn, without a goal to show, and being dumped out the cup by a team as uninspiring and lacking in talent as Bolton puts our performance against Liverpool into perspective. We always seem to raise our game against Liverpool but somehow Zola and Clarke need to ensure that level of performance is not kept as an occasional surprise but reveals itself consistently.
Which is why our tepid showing at Citeh was such a worry too. For all the hype and the points they have amassed so far I don’t regard them as one of the top teams. OK, they have a billionaire who managed not to lose all his gelt in the credit crunch, and they have splashed out on bringing some top players but they are riding on a feelgood factor rather than properly gelling as a team, and having Bellamy in the pack is sure to inflame dressing room rivalries when they suffer a couple of defeats – which they will. We had no reason to fear them but surrendered so meekly. We gifted them the goals, the killer third being the worst giveaway, coming as it did after City had stepped off the gas and we had looked the brighter team after the break and done most of the pressing.
As Citeh were about to float in the free kick that Tevez nodded home our defenders took no notice at all of where any of their forwards were standing, and if Tevez had missed it there were two other City players waiting in the queue with no one remotely near them to challenge. If ever there was a moment that underlined the sheer stupidity and myopia of letting the Ginger Pele go, this was it.
Not only was Ginge a tower of strength in the air but also he showed tenaciousness and a desire never to be beaten on the ground that was lacking almost throughout the team on Monday. Apart from Diamanti and Scotty Parker, who was showing any determination in 50/50 tackles?
There were so few positives to take from that game except the fact that we looked much more dangerous at set pieces than we have for donkeys. Noble’s corners and Diamanti’s free kicks put the ball right into the danger area and gave us chances to profit from them. We didn’t and the rest was shit to put it mildly.
I thought I was going to have to watch the game in a pub, and round where I live its mostly Arsenal and Spurs fans – who would have been gloating – but it seems that Virgin have upgraded our TV package, and I now have ESPN at home. So when I am watching the Hammers I can throw things at my own TV in the comfort of my own living room. I’ll start collecting some things to throw now because I suspect this will not be the last of our abject Monday night performances.
Makes a welcome change for Virgin to come up trumps for once. My experience of them in every other regard has been deeply unsatisfying, not least on their trains, leaving me to rue how, somewhat ironically, if you rely on Virgin, you are truly fucked.
And so to our first crucial relegation encounter, an East End - West End battle with Fulham on October 4th. I didn’t think I would be writing that sentence with the season just a few weeks old. But it is better to face reality early on than wait for it to smack you round the chops later.
October 4th is a day with a bit of history in the East End – a day when a great victory is celebrated. It was on October 4th 1936 that East Enders poured onto the streets to send Oswald Mosley and his fascist Blackshirts packing. Thoroughly humiliated, they scuttled back west to their sewers. United in adversity, East Enders worked tremendously hard for each other that day. Let’s hope that the East End can honour the past and bring about a united success today and send Fulham scuttling back west as miserable as old Ossie was that day.
Fulham surprised a lot of people last year with their successful push for Europe and they showed the dizzy heights could be achieved with limited budgets and a manager with a funny face (as opposed to Spurs who unfortunately are showing what can be done with unlimited budgets and a manager with a funny face). I won’t be quite so gutted at seeing Fulham’s trio of ex-hammers, as I think we have found able replacements for them. None of them were great footballers but I still feel positively towards them. Paintsil was often played out of position here and not surprisingly didn’t develop consistency. Bobby Z always gave 110% but was always happier with a Rugby goal. Paul Konchesky was given a hard time by the fans and not treated at all well by that halfwit Curbishley. I rated Konchesky and liked the fact that he looked like Al Murray the Pub Landlord. Lots of left backs we have had here over the years have suffered mainly from not being Julian Dicks or the original Frank Lampard. I like our current incumbent – Herita Illunga – especially for the way he goes forward, but I can’t pretend that he makes fewer mistakes than Konchesky.
I am guessing that my fellow scribblers will over-use the phrase “must-win game” about today’s encounter, and being a trend-setter rather than a follower of fashion you won’t catch me doing that. For me this is not so much a “must-win game” as “must-not-lose-under-any-circumstances-you-useless-arseholes”. Like picking your nose/belly-button/ears/between your toes (delete as appropriate) losing become s a nasty, smelly habit and the first step is to break the pattern. Of course winning would be sweeter and is well within our grasp. Outside Left’s three steps to victory are:
1. Defenders - keep at least one of your eyes open when wandering aimlessly around the penalty area especially at set pieces
2. Midfield - look for the players in claret with a hint of sky blue to pass to and make sure it reaches in front of them not behind them
3. Attackers – don’t wait 5 minutes or stop to adjust your hair when you have a chance but go for it straight away and make their goalie work for his wages.
How I never became a football coach I just don’t know. One of life’s mysteries. Anyway, we’ll see how much they respond to my advice. Enjoy the game and don’t pick your belly-button. COYI!!!
I have a strange recurring experience. I go to an absorbing game of football where West Ham play Liverpool and we lose a high-scoring game. And yet, as the whistle goes and I start to walk away, I feel almost elated, as if we have won. It first happened to me at Cardiff in 2006 and it happened again at Upton Park a couple of weeks ago.
I’ve always admired the way Liverpool play football, battling to win every 50/50 ball then driving forward very directly with quick crisp passes on the ground, lots of overlapping movement, clever balls into space for runners, quality crosses right into the danger area…and partly my elation is that we have battled them at their own game showing that we can also play this kind of game even though our players are younger, less experienced and much less valuable on the transfer market.
To be honest I felt Liverpool deserved to win last time round at Upton Park (not at Cardiff though!) but only just, and a draw would not have been an unfair result. At 25 minutes in, with two of our top players having departed the field (Upson and Behrami) and already a goal down we could have been in for a hammering but we never lost heart. Players such as Zavon Hines and Diamanti on his home debut, gave their all, and showed a lot of skilful touches. For most of the game Faubert was a revelation, though he occasionally remembered that he was the kind of player who wins a tackle well but then give the ball right back to the opposition. The midfield and defence blocked shot after shot, and when we came forward we looked threatening. Zavon was very unlucky with the shot that came back off the post just two minutes in. Most of the time they had to foul him to stop him surging forward, and we made Reina work hard all day.
Where we failed was in giving the ball away cheaply when we relied on playing over-long, over-hopeful passes, and in not having players keeping close enough to Cole to benefit when he won and held the ball in threatening positions in the final third. Our other failure was in allowing any team whether it was Liverpool or Leyton Orient, to get a free header for a goal direct from a corner. Good defending should always prevent that from happening.
The other plus was the atmosphere. The crowd responded to the effort being shown on the pitch and really got behind the team, willing them to stay in contention, and rightly applauded their efforts at half-time when we were level and at full time although we had lost.
The only really gutting moment for me was before the game as we applauded three ex-Hammers returning in Liverpool colours – Benayoun, Johnson and Mascherano. I stood reflecting on the lack of ambition, the poor decisions and the financial disasters and that have enabled us to lose such talents and many others in the last few years, but chuckled to myself that when we did have a talent like Mascherano here, he was kept on the bench by Hayden Mullins dull but consistent performances and Pards’ lack of imagination.
I would love to say, with the optimists, that if we play like that against lesser teams we won’t have too many problems this year, but the facts so far don’t bear this out. Crap performances at Wigan and Blackburn, without a goal to show, and being dumped out the cup by a team as uninspiring and lacking in talent as Bolton puts our performance against Liverpool into perspective. We always seem to raise our game against Liverpool but somehow Zola and Clarke need to ensure that level of performance is not kept as an occasional surprise but reveals itself consistently.
Which is why our tepid showing at Citeh was such a worry too. For all the hype and the points they have amassed so far I don’t regard them as one of the top teams. OK, they have a billionaire who managed not to lose all his gelt in the credit crunch, and they have splashed out on bringing some top players but they are riding on a feelgood factor rather than properly gelling as a team, and having Bellamy in the pack is sure to inflame dressing room rivalries when they suffer a couple of defeats – which they will. We had no reason to fear them but surrendered so meekly. We gifted them the goals, the killer third being the worst giveaway, coming as it did after City had stepped off the gas and we had looked the brighter team after the break and done most of the pressing.
As Citeh were about to float in the free kick that Tevez nodded home our defenders took no notice at all of where any of their forwards were standing, and if Tevez had missed it there were two other City players waiting in the queue with no one remotely near them to challenge. If ever there was a moment that underlined the sheer stupidity and myopia of letting the Ginger Pele go, this was it.
Not only was Ginge a tower of strength in the air but also he showed tenaciousness and a desire never to be beaten on the ground that was lacking almost throughout the team on Monday. Apart from Diamanti and Scotty Parker, who was showing any determination in 50/50 tackles?
There were so few positives to take from that game except the fact that we looked much more dangerous at set pieces than we have for donkeys. Noble’s corners and Diamanti’s free kicks put the ball right into the danger area and gave us chances to profit from them. We didn’t and the rest was shit to put it mildly.
I thought I was going to have to watch the game in a pub, and round where I live its mostly Arsenal and Spurs fans – who would have been gloating – but it seems that Virgin have upgraded our TV package, and I now have ESPN at home. So when I am watching the Hammers I can throw things at my own TV in the comfort of my own living room. I’ll start collecting some things to throw now because I suspect this will not be the last of our abject Monday night performances.
Makes a welcome change for Virgin to come up trumps for once. My experience of them in every other regard has been deeply unsatisfying, not least on their trains, leaving me to rue how, somewhat ironically, if you rely on Virgin, you are truly fucked.
And so to our first crucial relegation encounter, an East End - West End battle with Fulham on October 4th. I didn’t think I would be writing that sentence with the season just a few weeks old. But it is better to face reality early on than wait for it to smack you round the chops later.
October 4th is a day with a bit of history in the East End – a day when a great victory is celebrated. It was on October 4th 1936 that East Enders poured onto the streets to send Oswald Mosley and his fascist Blackshirts packing. Thoroughly humiliated, they scuttled back west to their sewers. United in adversity, East Enders worked tremendously hard for each other that day. Let’s hope that the East End can honour the past and bring about a united success today and send Fulham scuttling back west as miserable as old Ossie was that day.
Fulham surprised a lot of people last year with their successful push for Europe and they showed the dizzy heights could be achieved with limited budgets and a manager with a funny face (as opposed to Spurs who unfortunately are showing what can be done with unlimited budgets and a manager with a funny face). I won’t be quite so gutted at seeing Fulham’s trio of ex-hammers, as I think we have found able replacements for them. None of them were great footballers but I still feel positively towards them. Paintsil was often played out of position here and not surprisingly didn’t develop consistency. Bobby Z always gave 110% but was always happier with a Rugby goal. Paul Konchesky was given a hard time by the fans and not treated at all well by that halfwit Curbishley. I rated Konchesky and liked the fact that he looked like Al Murray the Pub Landlord. Lots of left backs we have had here over the years have suffered mainly from not being Julian Dicks or the original Frank Lampard. I like our current incumbent – Herita Illunga – especially for the way he goes forward, but I can’t pretend that he makes fewer mistakes than Konchesky.
I am guessing that my fellow scribblers will over-use the phrase “must-win game” about today’s encounter, and being a trend-setter rather than a follower of fashion you won’t catch me doing that. For me this is not so much a “must-win game” as “must-not-lose-under-any-circumstances-you-useless-arseholes”. Like picking your nose/belly-button/ears/between your toes (delete as appropriate) losing become s a nasty, smelly habit and the first step is to break the pattern. Of course winning would be sweeter and is well within our grasp. Outside Left’s three steps to victory are:
1. Defenders - keep at least one of your eyes open when wandering aimlessly around the penalty area especially at set pieces
2. Midfield - look for the players in claret with a hint of sky blue to pass to and make sure it reaches in front of them not behind them
3. Attackers – don’t wait 5 minutes or stop to adjust your hair when you have a chance but go for it straight away and make their goalie work for his wages.
How I never became a football coach I just don’t know. One of life’s mysteries. Anyway, we’ll see how much they respond to my advice. Enjoy the game and don’t pick your belly-button. COYI!!!
Window dressing
OLAS 465 September 19th 2009
“It was a very successful transfer window. Despite high levels of interest and very tempting offers from top clubs, both here and on the continent, we managed to hold on to Nigel Squashy and Jonathan Spectator,” said West Ham Chief Executive Scoff Ducksbrain. excitedly. “We can definitely challenge for fourth place (from the bottom) now”
OK, I made it up, but it’s not terribly far from the grim truth. After the miserable experience of recent windows I vowed to myself not to become one of those “Brainless Barneys”, logging on to the internet every few minutes in the days just before the window ended, to see which ever-more-unlikely international star we were linked with only to end up being utterly disappointed and despondent. But there I was, eager for each new snippet of empty speculation. I wanted so much to believe that we were going to a splash many millions on players even though all seemed to be saying they would rather stick their head up a dead bear’s arse than play for us. I knew, or thought I knew, that any negative comments attributed to them would all be revealed as paper talk, and really they were dying to play for the happy hammers.
As the great American folksinger Peter Seeger said in 1963: “When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?” . Well I’ve learned fuck all it seems. Like my one-time addiction to sherbert lemons, I want to stop but I can’t. I’ve got to be strong. OK, next window I won’t pay any attention at all. I’ll just turn the other way and tell my compute to stop bothering me, then check it on February 1st to see if anything happened.
Or maybe I might check once or twice, or maybe…
The end result of the summertime to-ing and fro-ing is that while many of the teams we have to see realistically as our competitors were strengthening their squads, we have made little difference to ours. We’ve lost a truly tenacious and reliable centre back, popular with the fans despite his ginger hair, for a considerably higher price than we paid. In his place we have gained a younger model who has played for his country at under-21 level. And we’ve sold one of our stars of the future, an exciting young player with a lot of potential who, it would seem, never really settled in East London and brought in a more experienced player – Allesandro Diamianti – with, we are told, a sweet piede sinistro (left foot).
Hopefully he will turn out to be a real Diamanti geezer, and he certainly fills one important role – a player who can take wicked free kicks from 25/30 yards range. Mark Noble can and does take them from there but they are always over the bar or at the wall, so in that sense having Diamanti is a plus. But at the same time I can’t share the views expressed on various Hammers fans’ sites, who seemed more than pleased to see the back of our Ugandan-born purchase from Italy, Savio Nsereko.
Savio rarely got a look in, but the few times I saw him play I saw a skilful but unconfident player trying his best. I also had more selfish reasons for wanting him to succeed. If West Ham has been part of my life for nearly 45 years, Uganda has been a significant factor in my life since I first went there for five weeks work in 2001. I have been back since, maintain contact with friends there, and am learning Swahili – spoken by many Ugandans and more widely in East Africa. I’m also the proud owner of a Ugandan under-21 football shirt, though if I’m really honest I would have to acknowledge that I’m neither Ugandan nor under 21. (Unlike Dean Ashton I am under 21-stone though.)
It used to puzzle me how these two vital and indispensable aspects of my life could every possibly come together, and when we bought Savio, for a moment I glimpsed it. Anyway that dream has gone but I sincerely hope he succeeds back in Italy. Savio – bahati njema (“good luck” in Swahili). And I hope that his problems in settling down in London were down to him and not because the club wasn’t looking after him properly.
We could do with a bit of “bahati njema” ourselves. Of course, It’s early days, but four points from four outings mainly against struggling clubs and providing such little threat in front of goal, despite Zola’s attacking ambitions, is a piss-poor start to what could turn out to be a long, tough season. Having Behrami back in contention is an enormous plus. Having Dyer out of contention with an injury is just par for the course. We have missed Behrami’s skill, pace and drive. He may need a few more games before he is back to his best but that can’t come soon enough.
It seems ages since we’ve played at Upton Park but that last outing was a rather intense, controversial even! It was the Millwall game We were second best for 85 minutes playing slow, predictable, unimaginative football, against determined opponents who didn’t have a great deal of skill but compensated for what they lacked with lots of ambition and spirit. We eventually came to life with the equalising goal, then put on a much more stylish performance in extra time. And in that last period of the game the players that can be especially proud of how they performed were the infant trio of Junior Stan, Zavon Beans and Frankie Noodle – with a combined age of about eleven and a half.
Of course the real drama was being acted out on Green Street and Priory Road and later spilled on from the stands to the pitch. In typically sensationalist and superficial fashion, the media managed to conglomerate three very different episodes into one, and seriously distort what really took place.
The pitch invasions were nothing to do with violence. They were expressions of pure exuberance and relief – stupid but harmless. Lots of energetic youngsters were joined by middle aged geezers (and occasional geezeresses) with far too many pies in their tummies than is good for their hearts. Trying to sprint the length of the pitch, they were a danger only to themselves, no-one else. They were running for joy to hug their heroes and, yes, they enjoyed getting one over Millwall, just when Millwall thought they were going home with our cup scalp. I wasn’t one of the invaders – it would have been quite a leap down to the pitch from the Dr Marten’s Upper – but I truly shared their ecstasy. I don’t mean that I shared their…I can get my own…Oh, you know what I mean.
Earlier, in Priory Road, some Millwall fans who found themselves in the wrong place were chased by a small group of West Ham boneheads and one got stabbed. That terrible incident involving a handful of fans happened well away from the main fights involving many hundreds near the pubs in Green street.
As I was walking to the game I was pretty shocked to see far more “fans” heading in the opposite direction just to get involved in a fight they weren’t involved in but heard was happening down the road. And the look on their faces said it all, anxious, desperate, full of pent up venom. No doubt their counterparts form South London came with the similar emotions in their otherwise empty heads.
They weren’t the only ones without brains though. The incredibly stupid decision from on high to halve the number of tickets available for Millwall fans meant that many had no chance at all of getting a ticket, and were only going along for the battle outside. There has been lots of speculation on whether the fight was organised by both sides in advance. The question is irrelevant. It hardly had to be planned in advance.
I was very interested in Merion’s piece last OLAS locating the historical justification for the enmity in the events of the General strike of 1926. He explained how the shipyard workers/dockers on the Millwall side had scabbed on their comrades on the West Ham side. I’ve regurgitated this in my discussions with friends about the events that night. There we’ve been, discussing it at length, shaking our heads at the mindless violence, discussing levels of alienation and the desire for group identity and empowerment and such-like bollox, then coming back to the point that lots of alienated people who yearn for a sense of identity don’t need to walk along scraping their knuckles or chucking sticks and bottles. But then I’ve chirped up at the end with, “Mind you, there are of course very sound historical reasons why we hate Millwall…” and then reflected on the importance of memory, only to be brought up short by my friends commenting, “Yeah, Dave, but most of those who were fighting last week probably couldn’t remember what they were doing before their last pint , let alone what their great-granddads did in 1926,” which is a fair point.
But, at the end of the day, Millwall are still a bunch of scabbing bastards south of the river.
I see that the Evening Standard published some mug-shots the other day of those the police want to “interview” in connection with the events outside the ground. I’m full of sympathy for those who ran on the pitch. I’ve got no time for those who just wanted a ruck, though if they end up in court they might try what is coming to be known in legalistic parlance as the ‘Gerrard defence” which runs along the lines of “Yes I was there and I was hitting out but so were my friends, and my name is Steve Gerrard, and I’m a rich and famous footballer though I sound like a no-mark from Brookside Close, and it was all my mates’ fault and the fault of the guy I hit, who kept battering my fists with his face, is that all right, m’lord, our kid? Which way is the exit?”
Which brings us nicely to today when we entertain the likely lads of Liverpool. On paper it looks like men v boys (we’re the boys in case you are wondering) but we do usually raise our game against Liverpool, even if we don’t always pull off the result. And I’m clinging on to that to feel that we have a chance of taking a vital point from today. Although all this clinging on and pulling off is making me a bit tired.
I remember once hammering them 8-1. Sadly that was in a game of subbuteo about 30 years ago. But if we take all three points well, I’ll consider taking that leap on to the pitch from the Doc Marten’s Upper. So if you see a 51 year old somersaulting through the air as the whistle-blows, you’ll know who it is. If we lose and you still see a 51 year old Hammers fan somersaulting above you – take no notice at all as that’s definitely not me.
“It was a very successful transfer window. Despite high levels of interest and very tempting offers from top clubs, both here and on the continent, we managed to hold on to Nigel Squashy and Jonathan Spectator,” said West Ham Chief Executive Scoff Ducksbrain. excitedly. “We can definitely challenge for fourth place (from the bottom) now”
OK, I made it up, but it’s not terribly far from the grim truth. After the miserable experience of recent windows I vowed to myself not to become one of those “Brainless Barneys”, logging on to the internet every few minutes in the days just before the window ended, to see which ever-more-unlikely international star we were linked with only to end up being utterly disappointed and despondent. But there I was, eager for each new snippet of empty speculation. I wanted so much to believe that we were going to a splash many millions on players even though all seemed to be saying they would rather stick their head up a dead bear’s arse than play for us. I knew, or thought I knew, that any negative comments attributed to them would all be revealed as paper talk, and really they were dying to play for the happy hammers.
As the great American folksinger Peter Seeger said in 1963: “When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?” . Well I’ve learned fuck all it seems. Like my one-time addiction to sherbert lemons, I want to stop but I can’t. I’ve got to be strong. OK, next window I won’t pay any attention at all. I’ll just turn the other way and tell my compute to stop bothering me, then check it on February 1st to see if anything happened.
Or maybe I might check once or twice, or maybe…
The end result of the summertime to-ing and fro-ing is that while many of the teams we have to see realistically as our competitors were strengthening their squads, we have made little difference to ours. We’ve lost a truly tenacious and reliable centre back, popular with the fans despite his ginger hair, for a considerably higher price than we paid. In his place we have gained a younger model who has played for his country at under-21 level. And we’ve sold one of our stars of the future, an exciting young player with a lot of potential who, it would seem, never really settled in East London and brought in a more experienced player – Allesandro Diamianti – with, we are told, a sweet piede sinistro (left foot).
Hopefully he will turn out to be a real Diamanti geezer, and he certainly fills one important role – a player who can take wicked free kicks from 25/30 yards range. Mark Noble can and does take them from there but they are always over the bar or at the wall, so in that sense having Diamanti is a plus. But at the same time I can’t share the views expressed on various Hammers fans’ sites, who seemed more than pleased to see the back of our Ugandan-born purchase from Italy, Savio Nsereko.
Savio rarely got a look in, but the few times I saw him play I saw a skilful but unconfident player trying his best. I also had more selfish reasons for wanting him to succeed. If West Ham has been part of my life for nearly 45 years, Uganda has been a significant factor in my life since I first went there for five weeks work in 2001. I have been back since, maintain contact with friends there, and am learning Swahili – spoken by many Ugandans and more widely in East Africa. I’m also the proud owner of a Ugandan under-21 football shirt, though if I’m really honest I would have to acknowledge that I’m neither Ugandan nor under 21. (Unlike Dean Ashton I am under 21-stone though.)
It used to puzzle me how these two vital and indispensable aspects of my life could every possibly come together, and when we bought Savio, for a moment I glimpsed it. Anyway that dream has gone but I sincerely hope he succeeds back in Italy. Savio – bahati njema (“good luck” in Swahili). And I hope that his problems in settling down in London were down to him and not because the club wasn’t looking after him properly.
We could do with a bit of “bahati njema” ourselves. Of course, It’s early days, but four points from four outings mainly against struggling clubs and providing such little threat in front of goal, despite Zola’s attacking ambitions, is a piss-poor start to what could turn out to be a long, tough season. Having Behrami back in contention is an enormous plus. Having Dyer out of contention with an injury is just par for the course. We have missed Behrami’s skill, pace and drive. He may need a few more games before he is back to his best but that can’t come soon enough.
It seems ages since we’ve played at Upton Park but that last outing was a rather intense, controversial even! It was the Millwall game We were second best for 85 minutes playing slow, predictable, unimaginative football, against determined opponents who didn’t have a great deal of skill but compensated for what they lacked with lots of ambition and spirit. We eventually came to life with the equalising goal, then put on a much more stylish performance in extra time. And in that last period of the game the players that can be especially proud of how they performed were the infant trio of Junior Stan, Zavon Beans and Frankie Noodle – with a combined age of about eleven and a half.
Of course the real drama was being acted out on Green Street and Priory Road and later spilled on from the stands to the pitch. In typically sensationalist and superficial fashion, the media managed to conglomerate three very different episodes into one, and seriously distort what really took place.
The pitch invasions were nothing to do with violence. They were expressions of pure exuberance and relief – stupid but harmless. Lots of energetic youngsters were joined by middle aged geezers (and occasional geezeresses) with far too many pies in their tummies than is good for their hearts. Trying to sprint the length of the pitch, they were a danger only to themselves, no-one else. They were running for joy to hug their heroes and, yes, they enjoyed getting one over Millwall, just when Millwall thought they were going home with our cup scalp. I wasn’t one of the invaders – it would have been quite a leap down to the pitch from the Dr Marten’s Upper – but I truly shared their ecstasy. I don’t mean that I shared their…I can get my own…Oh, you know what I mean.
Earlier, in Priory Road, some Millwall fans who found themselves in the wrong place were chased by a small group of West Ham boneheads and one got stabbed. That terrible incident involving a handful of fans happened well away from the main fights involving many hundreds near the pubs in Green street.
As I was walking to the game I was pretty shocked to see far more “fans” heading in the opposite direction just to get involved in a fight they weren’t involved in but heard was happening down the road. And the look on their faces said it all, anxious, desperate, full of pent up venom. No doubt their counterparts form South London came with the similar emotions in their otherwise empty heads.
They weren’t the only ones without brains though. The incredibly stupid decision from on high to halve the number of tickets available for Millwall fans meant that many had no chance at all of getting a ticket, and were only going along for the battle outside. There has been lots of speculation on whether the fight was organised by both sides in advance. The question is irrelevant. It hardly had to be planned in advance.
I was very interested in Merion’s piece last OLAS locating the historical justification for the enmity in the events of the General strike of 1926. He explained how the shipyard workers/dockers on the Millwall side had scabbed on their comrades on the West Ham side. I’ve regurgitated this in my discussions with friends about the events that night. There we’ve been, discussing it at length, shaking our heads at the mindless violence, discussing levels of alienation and the desire for group identity and empowerment and such-like bollox, then coming back to the point that lots of alienated people who yearn for a sense of identity don’t need to walk along scraping their knuckles or chucking sticks and bottles. But then I’ve chirped up at the end with, “Mind you, there are of course very sound historical reasons why we hate Millwall…” and then reflected on the importance of memory, only to be brought up short by my friends commenting, “Yeah, Dave, but most of those who were fighting last week probably couldn’t remember what they were doing before their last pint , let alone what their great-granddads did in 1926,” which is a fair point.
But, at the end of the day, Millwall are still a bunch of scabbing bastards south of the river.
I see that the Evening Standard published some mug-shots the other day of those the police want to “interview” in connection with the events outside the ground. I’m full of sympathy for those who ran on the pitch. I’ve got no time for those who just wanted a ruck, though if they end up in court they might try what is coming to be known in legalistic parlance as the ‘Gerrard defence” which runs along the lines of “Yes I was there and I was hitting out but so were my friends, and my name is Steve Gerrard, and I’m a rich and famous footballer though I sound like a no-mark from Brookside Close, and it was all my mates’ fault and the fault of the guy I hit, who kept battering my fists with his face, is that all right, m’lord, our kid? Which way is the exit?”
Which brings us nicely to today when we entertain the likely lads of Liverpool. On paper it looks like men v boys (we’re the boys in case you are wondering) but we do usually raise our game against Liverpool, even if we don’t always pull off the result. And I’m clinging on to that to feel that we have a chance of taking a vital point from today. Although all this clinging on and pulling off is making me a bit tired.
I remember once hammering them 8-1. Sadly that was in a game of subbuteo about 30 years ago. But if we take all three points well, I’ll consider taking that leap on to the pitch from the Doc Marten’s Upper. So if you see a 51 year old somersaulting through the air as the whistle-blows, you’ll know who it is. If we lose and you still see a 51 year old Hammers fan somersaulting above you – take no notice at all as that’s definitely not me.
Welcome back
OLAS 463 August 23rd 2009
Several players booked, one sent off, fans drinking before and after the game like there’s no tomorrow, fists and missiles flying outside Upton Park tube at 5.15, police horses charging at the crowd and truncheons in full swing – and this was just a friendly game, a sort of gentle reminder to whet our appetites for the season ahead. Every summer I instantly forget the passions that are aroused just strolling down Green Street on a Saturday afternoon, but on the day of the Napoli game it all came flooding back - and only just missed my head!
Oh yes, it was also the day we reminded ourselves of the silken skills and gentlemanly conduct that make the British game what it is today, as we inaugurated the Sir Trevor Brookin’ Stan’ (that’s “Brooking Stand” if you are not from North East London/Essex and you think it is necessary to pronounce the final letter in words after the ‘n’). Trevor had his own inimitable way of enlivening and rousing the passions of the fans – a drop of the shoulder, a clever dummy, a curling shot in the top corner, not getting pissed as a fart and having a fight with the nearest Italian/cop/lamppost he could find. As a player he had a lot more composure than that.
Still it’s good to be back. I think. Usually at this point I have some idea as to what kind of a season we are in for, but this year I’m flummoxed. I’m writing this just after the Napoli game before heading off camping in France for a couple of weeks. While I’m there I won’t have access to the internet and will miss the comings and goings during what is likely to be the more fast and furious period of the transfer window. I’m hoping that when I come back to Blighty, Carlton Cole will have at least one pacy, powerful, experienced striker to have a 1:1 with here at West Ham instead of the 1:0 at the moment. But realistically, I won’t be too surprised to find that we have only managed to pick up an on-loan striker at the fag end of his career, while we have lost Neill and Upson from the defence. And sure, we will be told that every penny we pick up for them, will be reinvested in the January window. And, what’s more, we’ll all believe it, only to find that it has disappeared like last year’s funds to service our debts.
I’m not blaming Zola and Clarke for this; they are doing a fantastic job in the circumstances. Their hands are tied by our current owners, whose hands are tied by those they owe money too, whose hands are probably tied too… However, I also have a theory that the less time I spend looking at the internet praying for a transfer miracle the more likely one might happen (I know, completely unscientific) so by the time you read this it may all look very different, and who knows who will be stepping out in the Claret and Claret?
I nearly said “Claret and Blue” but that beautiful sky blue has all but disappeared from the Home kit – and that makes me feel kind of blue! As for the Away kit, well, let’s not go there. Aren’t these the shittiest kits that could have been dreamt up? I know we are hard up, so I am assuming these were “designed” on the cheap. But, fuck me, if we paid more than 5p each for those drab designs we were totally mugged.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not philosophically opposed to minimalist art and in many ways prefer a Rothko or an Ad Reinhardt to a Jackson Pollock. But, these shirts really are the pits. I’m not saying the kit has to be all flashy, but we ought to look the part. And back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, when Trevor was showing his silken skills, he did so in kits that were ahead of his time.
Have we ever thought of running an OLAS kit design competition and presenting it to the club? We couldn’t do any worse than the tossers they employed to do the job.
There was a rumour that Deano was going to feature on the ads for the new kit but pulled a couple of muscles putting on the shirt. Still a full recovery is expected within five years. Sorry for being cynical but all the claims we were fed last year that he would surely be back for a full pre-season have proved very wide of the mark. Either the club were not aware or not acknowledging the scale of his injuries or they were deliberately treating us like mushrooms: keeping us in the dark and feeding us bullshit. And all so that they could stretch the time-frame before they would have to dig deep into their pockets and finance the loan or purchase of another striker with real knees and ankles that all work.
It is very sad for Deano but my suspicions are not only that we won’t see him on the Upton Park turf again but also that I don’t think he will return to football at this level, despite the alleged interest of Stoke City. For his sake and ours I hope I am very wrong but, in any case, I think the club has accepted that they need at least one more reliable striker now.
All right I’ve had my moan. Now the brighter sides. Because there are very bright sides. Firstly we can only marvel at the number and quality of the youth players that are coming through. Some of these are young players we have bought in with Nani’s help – like Savio, Daprella and Nouble, others are home grown like Tomkins, Noble, Collison, Stanislas and Hines. They may not all make their mark this season but a few of them surely will. And, of that group, Noble seems like an old-hand but in reality he is still very young and learning his trade. He looked particularly sharp against Napoli and his efforts for the England under-21s have surely contributed to raising his game.
I don’t think many clubs, even among the top four, can boast such a crop of talented youngsters coming through. They could turn us into a bit of a surprise package this season and help us pull off some unlikely results, or they could really struggle with their confidence if the early results go against us. And if that is the case we will rely heavily on some of the more experienced hands like Scotty Parker and Keiron Dyer, both of whom are very capable and talented players but more likely to get through a season without serious injury than I am likely to be sitting down having tea with the Queen, discussing the price of Brussels sprouts. On the other hand, we’ve also got Gabbidon back from injury now and looking his old assured self and Valon Behrami soon ready to train again. Valon was outstanding before he was crocked, and is still relatively young.
The other bright star on the horizon is our new-boy - Jimmy. Against Napoli, Jiminez looked a clever and skilful player, who plays the West Ham way. I’m sure will set up some goals for us this year, and hopefully put some away himself. Jiminez, Behrami, Noble and Collison can all play those killer balls through a defence. But all the clever ball players in the world won’t make a difference if we are too shot-shy to hit the target. There was lots of clever approach work against Napoli but little final product. We only managed 42 goals in 38 games last year. If we don’t shoot very often we don’t score very often. Simple as that. It’s like the fella who prays to God and says: “Please God, let me win the lottery.” and God replies: “OK, I’ll see what I can do, but meet me halfway – buy a ticket!”
Several players booked, one sent off, fans drinking before and after the game like there’s no tomorrow, fists and missiles flying outside Upton Park tube at 5.15, police horses charging at the crowd and truncheons in full swing – and this was just a friendly game, a sort of gentle reminder to whet our appetites for the season ahead. Every summer I instantly forget the passions that are aroused just strolling down Green Street on a Saturday afternoon, but on the day of the Napoli game it all came flooding back - and only just missed my head!
Oh yes, it was also the day we reminded ourselves of the silken skills and gentlemanly conduct that make the British game what it is today, as we inaugurated the Sir Trevor Brookin’ Stan’ (that’s “Brooking Stand” if you are not from North East London/Essex and you think it is necessary to pronounce the final letter in words after the ‘n’). Trevor had his own inimitable way of enlivening and rousing the passions of the fans – a drop of the shoulder, a clever dummy, a curling shot in the top corner, not getting pissed as a fart and having a fight with the nearest Italian/cop/lamppost he could find. As a player he had a lot more composure than that.
Still it’s good to be back. I think. Usually at this point I have some idea as to what kind of a season we are in for, but this year I’m flummoxed. I’m writing this just after the Napoli game before heading off camping in France for a couple of weeks. While I’m there I won’t have access to the internet and will miss the comings and goings during what is likely to be the more fast and furious period of the transfer window. I’m hoping that when I come back to Blighty, Carlton Cole will have at least one pacy, powerful, experienced striker to have a 1:1 with here at West Ham instead of the 1:0 at the moment. But realistically, I won’t be too surprised to find that we have only managed to pick up an on-loan striker at the fag end of his career, while we have lost Neill and Upson from the defence. And sure, we will be told that every penny we pick up for them, will be reinvested in the January window. And, what’s more, we’ll all believe it, only to find that it has disappeared like last year’s funds to service our debts.
I’m not blaming Zola and Clarke for this; they are doing a fantastic job in the circumstances. Their hands are tied by our current owners, whose hands are tied by those they owe money too, whose hands are probably tied too… However, I also have a theory that the less time I spend looking at the internet praying for a transfer miracle the more likely one might happen (I know, completely unscientific) so by the time you read this it may all look very different, and who knows who will be stepping out in the Claret and Claret?
I nearly said “Claret and Blue” but that beautiful sky blue has all but disappeared from the Home kit – and that makes me feel kind of blue! As for the Away kit, well, let’s not go there. Aren’t these the shittiest kits that could have been dreamt up? I know we are hard up, so I am assuming these were “designed” on the cheap. But, fuck me, if we paid more than 5p each for those drab designs we were totally mugged.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not philosophically opposed to minimalist art and in many ways prefer a Rothko or an Ad Reinhardt to a Jackson Pollock. But, these shirts really are the pits. I’m not saying the kit has to be all flashy, but we ought to look the part. And back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, when Trevor was showing his silken skills, he did so in kits that were ahead of his time.
Have we ever thought of running an OLAS kit design competition and presenting it to the club? We couldn’t do any worse than the tossers they employed to do the job.
There was a rumour that Deano was going to feature on the ads for the new kit but pulled a couple of muscles putting on the shirt. Still a full recovery is expected within five years. Sorry for being cynical but all the claims we were fed last year that he would surely be back for a full pre-season have proved very wide of the mark. Either the club were not aware or not acknowledging the scale of his injuries or they were deliberately treating us like mushrooms: keeping us in the dark and feeding us bullshit. And all so that they could stretch the time-frame before they would have to dig deep into their pockets and finance the loan or purchase of another striker with real knees and ankles that all work.
It is very sad for Deano but my suspicions are not only that we won’t see him on the Upton Park turf again but also that I don’t think he will return to football at this level, despite the alleged interest of Stoke City. For his sake and ours I hope I am very wrong but, in any case, I think the club has accepted that they need at least one more reliable striker now.
All right I’ve had my moan. Now the brighter sides. Because there are very bright sides. Firstly we can only marvel at the number and quality of the youth players that are coming through. Some of these are young players we have bought in with Nani’s help – like Savio, Daprella and Nouble, others are home grown like Tomkins, Noble, Collison, Stanislas and Hines. They may not all make their mark this season but a few of them surely will. And, of that group, Noble seems like an old-hand but in reality he is still very young and learning his trade. He looked particularly sharp against Napoli and his efforts for the England under-21s have surely contributed to raising his game.
I don’t think many clubs, even among the top four, can boast such a crop of talented youngsters coming through. They could turn us into a bit of a surprise package this season and help us pull off some unlikely results, or they could really struggle with their confidence if the early results go against us. And if that is the case we will rely heavily on some of the more experienced hands like Scotty Parker and Keiron Dyer, both of whom are very capable and talented players but more likely to get through a season without serious injury than I am likely to be sitting down having tea with the Queen, discussing the price of Brussels sprouts. On the other hand, we’ve also got Gabbidon back from injury now and looking his old assured self and Valon Behrami soon ready to train again. Valon was outstanding before he was crocked, and is still relatively young.
The other bright star on the horizon is our new-boy - Jimmy. Against Napoli, Jiminez looked a clever and skilful player, who plays the West Ham way. I’m sure will set up some goals for us this year, and hopefully put some away himself. Jiminez, Behrami, Noble and Collison can all play those killer balls through a defence. But all the clever ball players in the world won’t make a difference if we are too shot-shy to hit the target. There was lots of clever approach work against Napoli but little final product. We only managed 42 goals in 38 games last year. If we don’t shoot very often we don’t score very often. Simple as that. It’s like the fella who prays to God and says: “Please God, let me win the lottery.” and God replies: “OK, I’ll see what I can do, but meet me halfway – buy a ticket!”
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