Interview with the one and only Billy Bragg

OLAS 481, March 22nd 2010

Billy, it’s a great pleasure to talk to you for OLAS. We know some of your music heroes and legends - like Woodie Guthrie, the Rolling Stones, and the Faces, but who have been your West Ham legends?

I guess I’m pretty old school. My American company, which gathers in the revenue from my gigs out there, is called Moore, Hurst & Peters, Inc. The Yanks have no idea of the significance, but the guy who oversees my US record contracts, ex-pat, massive Hammers fan, gets a kick out of it.

Growing up in Barking what part did West Ham play in your life?

My first football memory is seeing them bring the FA Cup up the Barking Road in 1964. Next year they won the European Cup Winners Cup and the year after that, they won the World Cup. What other club can claim such a run?

What about now? How attached do you feel to West Ham the football club, and Barking the place?

I’m very attached to Barking. My family still live in the house I grew up in and I’m often over there. By contrast, it’s been a long time since I was last at Upton Park, but being a Hammer is a cross that I willingly bear.

I know that you are currently very concerned about Barking for reasons other than football - what are those concerns?

I am worried what might happen to the town if the BNP are successful in the coming elections. Nick Griffin, their leader is standing for MP and the party are hoping to win a majority on Barking & Dagenham Council.

Why have people in a traditional Labour-voting working class area been turning to the BNP?

I think that part of the problem has been that New Labour has taken the working class vote for granted, believing that places like Barking & Dagenham will always vote for their candidates, no matter what. New Labour’s strategy for the past 13 years has been to target ‘Middle England’ at the expense of its traditional heartlands. When you couple that to the general distrust of politicians that has arisen because of the expenses scandal, then people begin to feel betrayed.

In the 1930s Oswald Mosley built up support among East Londoners, who felt neglected, by blaming all their problems on an immigrant minority who were just as poor. Is something similar happening in Barking & Dagenham?

Something very similar. The BNP have simplistic answers to complex problems. When I left school, Fords employed 35,000 making cars in the area. Those jobs are gone now and nothing has yet come to take their place. House prices in the borough are the lowest in London. Can the BNP bring back the jobs and make the house prices rise to levels comparable with Ilford and Romford? If the BNP were to win control of the local council with its £250m budget, the damage they could inflict on the town would be enormous. Teachers and doctors would leave the borough, prospective business start-ups would look elsewhere, and house prices would fall even further.

What is your message for West Ham fans who can vote in Barking/Dagenham?

Nick Griffin was elected as an MEP in the North West Region last year, although his personal vote went down. Why? Because people in that region didn’t bother to get out and vote. The BNP can be stopped, but only if people are willing to go out and vote against them.


West Ham were among the first teams to have black players in their team – John Charles in the 1960s, Clyde Best and Ade Coker in the 1970s – and football unites communities. How can fans square that with support for a racist party?

I don’t think that they can. Our team were pioneers of fielding great foreign players. Even our manager is an economic migrant!

The BNP boast of being proud of their country but how supportive can they be of England’s national football team which is so multi-racial?

The BNP hate the idea of a multi-racial England team because it reflects our society as it actually is – united, no matter what colour we are. Anyway, it would be impossible for the BNP to field a team that matched their ideals - they would all want to play on the far right wing.

I know you are involved in a new project about identity– a drama called Pressure Drop. Can you tell us a bit about that

It’s a play about how racism can not only pit communities against one another, but families as well. I’m supplying the songs. We didn’t realise when we were putting it together that the run would coincide with the election, nor that Nick Griffin would be standing in Barking.

It is going to be a testing time in May both for West Ham fans and for local campaigners against the BNP. What results are you hoping for and how can we bring those results about?

The stakes are pretty high. I’d like to see the BNP soundly defeated in Barking & Dagenham and the Hammers pull clear of the bottom six. How can we do that? Solid team-work, a belief that we work better as a community and as a team when we work together.

Pressure Drop - a drama of passion and prejudice about English identity, written by Mick Gordon with songs written for the play and performed live by Billy Bragg and his band – will run at the Wellcome Collection on Euston Road most nights between 19th April and 12th May. Tickets are £20/£15. Phone 0844 412 4318 or visit:
http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/the-identity-project/play-pressure-drop/tickets.aspx

Superannuated twats

OLAS 480, March 6th 2010

In the age of glory-hunters when those with no previous tradition of following football suddenly become “fans”, as the money swishing round gives football a bit more cache amongst the parasitic classes than it once had, it is not surprising that the new fans follow the big teams – Man U, Chelsea or Arsenal rather than Crewe, Darlington or Barnet. But it can make you feel that bit more marginalised as a West Ham supporter, that bit more of a minority.

I remember when you would meet other Hammers fans in the most unlikely contexts far from the Upton Park area. West Ham had a certain allure, a style, a kind of glamour about them that attracted genuine support and admiration from far afield. These days when you wear your claret and blue scarf, you are more likely to met with a sneer and disdain, or even worse, as happened to me on an East London bound tube, for Chrissakes, the other day, when I was asked, “Are you a Villa fan too?” – to which the correct reply is “No I’m fucking not you inbred Crossroads Motel arsehole.”

Reading the papers lately it seems that without knowing it I have become part of another minority too – that tiny group pf people who have not had sex with Ashley Cole, John Terry or Tiger Woods. Have I become so old and wrinkly and undesirable? Time was when football stars were known for their physical prowess on the pitch, and when a “player” meant a skilful footballer rather than a serial shagger, but these days it’s all about their positional play in the bedroom. Call me old-fashioned but I’ve always preferred to be recognised for what I can do on a football pitch than for being a sex symbol, but maybe that’s just a personal preference. All I know is that Ron Greenwood wouldn’t have put up with it…

Eavesdropping on conversations about Cole and Terry, and Tiger and his favourite wood, has been interesting and entertaining if not especially enlightening. From the wry observation “Well, whovever expected footballers to be paragons of virtue?” through to a disdainful “well, what do you expect, that’s typical” attitude, it seems that, out there, the majority opinion on today’s footballers as human beings is pretty damn low.

In a way it is easy for footballers as a whole to be tainted by the actions of the Terrys and the Coles, but actually when you consider the interviews that we see in OLAS week in and week out – where most of the players come over as pretty decent guys - you realise that they are being seriously let down by a few superannuated twats who are an absolute dream for second rate scrotes who scribble the “sports” pages in the dailies.

I can’t help noticing, though, that there haven’t been any recent football sex scandals involving West Ham players. Are we too depressed to get up to no good? Or is it that our form on the road is so atrocious that the mere thought of “playing away” feels our heroes with dread and paralyses them?

As for that money swishing around football, the developing situation at Portsmouth is a serious wake up call to all who profess to care for the game. Like most areas of life where money get injected in, whether it is business, the health service or education, overseas “aid” or premier league football clubs, if you really want to understand what is happening in terms of motivations, winners and losers, you’ve got to look through the right end of the telescope. Don’t focus on where the money goes in, and don’t believe any of the spin by those responsible for injecting money in, but focus on where it comes out again and ask who the real beneficiaries are. I know this only too well from the education sphere I work in. Governments may tell you how much they prioritise education and how much more cash they have put in than previous administrations, but at the end of the day, schools are struggling for resources, our classrooms are too crowded, we don’t have enough qualified and motivated teachers, but the empires around education – the construction industry, publishers of exam-related materials, the inspection services - have been growing mighty fat on their riches.

Though if you want a silver lining for the crisis in football finances, you only have to look at clubs in trouble like ourselves, Portsmouth, Bournemouth and Southampton to see a common denominator – called Harry – or rather ‘arrry - so Spurs fans riding high on their temporary “success” this season ought to be seriously getting the willies! Your day will come.

Well it was a decent enough weekend for West Ham, wasn’t it? When things are going form bad to worse my instant reaction usually is to want to be pro-active to find a way to change it, but sometimes the most sound advice when you are in trouble is ‘do nothing, wait and see”. which is what we were forced to do last weekend as our match with Man U was brought forward, leaving the teams around us to play catch up. We managed to not concede much ground at all, with Wigan, Wolves and Burnley all losing and Sunderland huffing and puffing to a 0-0 draw to make it 14 games since they last won. There is usually a premiership team that starts the season well and then descends into the drop zone – and by a quirk of geography they are usually from the North East. Sunderland have taken on that mantle this year. Good on you - or howay the lads.

So although our 3-0 collapse at Man U, after what sounded like a spirited first half performance, was a disappointing follow up to two very sound home wins, we remain well placed to pull away from the teams below us. With Bolton, Wolves, Wigan and Sunderland all due at Upton Park over the next 8 weeks it really is even more in our own hands than Tiger’s wood. And without being in any way complacent I think most of us Hammers are beginning must be feeling much more confident than we did a few weeks ago. And although we haven’t won away from home since the first day of the season, we have at least a couple of team in the mix who have managed to get to March without winning away even once.

I would fee even more confident if only Bolton weren’t such a bogey team for us. We certainly do struggle against them, but player for player there is no reason why we should really. And in Zola and Clarke we surely have the means to provide more effective managerial input than Bolton can get from neanderthal Fat Sam – as far as I recall the first caveman to actually become a premier league manager (though a few have played in the premiership)

On the subject of managerial ineptitude from great northern bastards, we really ought to record some big thanks to Phil Brown for his magnificent contribution to Hull’s collapse at Upton Park. To use all your subs with 25 minutes to go and when you are already down to 10 men was suicidal. Ok, we have not been at our best when facing 10-man teams, but when Hull were reduced to 9 players after further injury, there really was no way back for them. And Faubert’s smashing third goal emphasised the point. As we saw last weekend, in their “see how many ex-West ham players can score” debacle against Man City ,even Chelsea are pretty ineffective with 9 players. Nice to see an assist by Joey Cole though.

Well we’ve got to fancy our chances today given our home league form since we lost to Notlob in mid-December. We’ve had 5 games at Upton Park in that period – won three of them, drawn the other two, scored 8 goals and only let in one – a dubious penalty by Big Fat Frank. Upton Park has become something of a fortress again and we – the crowd – have played our part. Given that Bolton, like ourselves, are also down there in the brown messy stuff, the stakes could not be higher. And we could really do with the win not just to keep them swilling around in the crap, but also to give us that bit of confidence before our away games at Chelski and Arse.

So, West Ham – you know what you’ve got to do. It’s time to send Fat Sam and his crew packing, and it’s high time I got on the scoresheet with a correct score bet this season. I’ll put my money on 2-1, though I’m willing to settle for 4-1 if necessary.

Enjoy the game! COYI!!!

Sweat and blood

OLAS 479, February 20th 2010

Somewhere in the house I’ve got a copy of the Thoughts of Chairman Mao knocking around. This “Little Red Book” as it came to be known, sold millions and millions of copies across the world. Some of the quotes in it are very sound and surprisingly subtle. Others are totally banal and laughable and, although it was a pretty strange thing for young people to do to get their kicks, back in the 70s, me and a couple of mates used to play this game of making up quotes that could have been in it and the others had to guess whether they were genuine or not. Anyhow, the numbers of those who bought a copy far exceeded the numbers of those pledging any allegiance to Mao’s ideas. Many people were interested in what Mao Tse Tung had to say about the problems of the day. Somehow I don’t think there is going to be quite the same market for the “Thoughts of Chairman Sullivan”.

To be frank, his post-hoc justification for his antics before the Birmingham game absolutely stinks. Far from seeking to galvanise the team through “reverse psychology” this was a pre-meditated action as part of his business strategy conducted in his typically blunt manner. He thinks West Ham will be more successful under a different manager so he tried to undermine Zola and make him walk. Chairman Sullivan was also giving early notice to other clubs that, although one transfer window has just closed, they can start looking in the West Ham shop window today for their summer additions. I fully expect Sullivan and Gold to try their hardest to force out some of our higher earners next summer, even if these players feel inclined to stay, none of which bodes that well for next season even if we do stay up.

Forget the “competing for the Champions League in seven years” bullshit. Their actual plan is much less ambitious for the club, though possibly a bit more ambitious as far as their own pockets are concerned. In the period during which they are genuinely aiming to get the club back on a sound financial footing I don’t believe they are setting their sights much above hovering between mid table and the drop zone on a young, thin, cheap squad. They want to cut the wage bill and sell some of our big current assets, as they look for a host of ways that they can claw back their initial outlay and profit from the opportunities afforded by a fantastically loyal fan base and the valuable land that Upton Park sits on.

Should we survive this season in the premiership – a season in which we as fans have really suffered because of the mismanagement at the highest levels of the club – we surely deserve a bit more serious ambition for the club and the team to be shown.

While Matty Upson is reaching the point in his career where we will perhaps only have the summer to get a decent price for him, and Rob Green might come to be seen in a similar light, this is certainly not the case with the likes of Carlton Cole, Scott Parker, Jack Collison and others that the new owners would love to place in that shop window. But our new owners are using the threat of cutting their wages to unsettle our players and encourage them to seek pastures new.

Any truly ambitious plan to transform West Ham into a club that can compete in the top half of the premiership has to be built around keeping our best players, ensuring that they are playing for us and not for rival teams during their peak years, while using their experience to bring on the younger emerging players. I have total confidence that we will continue to develop excellent youth players, but they need guidance and support from top class older players.

Of course we would like to think it is different at West Ham, but premier footballers inhabit a dog-eat-dog world where loyalty counts for nothing, and the desire to make massive amounts of cash before your premier legs fail you soon after your 30th birthday dominates their decision-making processes. If we have got an untypical and truly committed set of players who swim against that tide and genuinely love playing for this club and its fans, even at the expense of their material ambitions, that is something we are going to discover next summer.

The integrity and team spirit of the players, their commitment to the fans, and their desire to play for this particular manager, will be sorely tested at the end of the season. I suspect that Gilbert and Sullivan are actually a little worried that we may have an unusually loyal set of players here, which may be the reason they are trying to undermine Zola now. His friendliness, support and one-to-one rapport with the players, the personal loyalty and sentiment he shows to them, may, in the eyes of our owners, be seen to militate against taking hard-nosed business-based decisions.

The players response to Diamanti’s thumping free kick against Birmingham must have been galling for them. Instead of the celebrations focusing on the player who scored, they wrapped themselves around Zola. And Diamanti himself led the charge. The message was clear – they scored that goal for their manager whom they perceived was under unwarranted assault by the owners and they were standing shoulder to shoulder with him (well shoulder to head as he’s only a little fella). It was a very emotional moment for everyone in the ground.

The team performance as a whole against Birmingham was so uplifiting after the Burnley debacle. Every single player showed a determination to get the result that was needed against a team with one of the tightest defensive units in the league, and we were clearly aiming to win out through strength, skill and attacking flair, rather than sitting tight and hoping for a lucky break. Zola’s team selection was spot on. He took my advice (or coincidentally came to the same conclusions) that Noble and Collison both had to drop to the bench and sent out a team that had the right balance of strength, pace and creativity, Daimanti, Behrami and Faubert made sure we used the width of the pitch, Kovac gave one of his most assured performances to date, and though I find it hard to write, I have to admit that Spector did not put a foot wrong after he came on for injury–prone Rita. Birmingham arrived in confident mood and spread the ball about well, but in the end they were out-fought and out-thought.

Carlton Cole was declared man of the match with about 15 minutes to go. Interesting, as he had not won one ball in the air the whole game, but on the ground his improved close control and dominating presence made him so hard to pay against. Mido worked well with him on his home debut, continually finding good positions and opportunities although his final product lacked sharpness and was disappointing. Ilan showed nice touches when he came on – and what a relief it was to have quality options on the bench. This will surely make a difference as we enter the final third of the season and will need to deploy substitutes effectively to attempt to swing tough games in our favour.

Scott Parker had another storming game, always driving forward with tricky runs, and constantly looking to thread that clever pass through the defence. But the player who really caught the eye with a terrific performance has to be Faubert. He is finally justifying the fee West Ham paid for him and played a key role in the second goal taken so well by Carlton, that wrapped the game up. At the back Tomkins had a nervous first half but an excellent second. Upson seemed a little off the pace but the way the defence operated as a unit nullified any threat Birmingham posed.

If we can repeat this level of team performance today, without the evening atmosphere under the floodlights, we should emerge as confident winners. Hull have pulled off a couple of impressive and surprising results at home recently but they travel badly and their defence this season has been considerably less organised and resilient than Birmingham’s.

At this stage of the season we still have one big advantage over our closest rivals – our goal difference, which is effectively worth a point to us. We can expect that statistic to be challenged by our forthcoming visits to Chelsea, Arsenal, Manure and Liverpool and even if we fail to get a single point form these outings it is essential that we don’t allow ourselves to be tanked.

The team selection today should not be difficult for Zola. He must surely be tempted to start with the team that performed so admirably against Birmingham. The one possible change is that he might give Benni McCarthy the nod over Mido. I would be happy with that as I feel that Benni is more of a goal poacher but Mido is highly motivated and can be brought on as an impact sub if Benni fails to unlock Hull’s defence. Ilan ought to get some time on the pitch too when legs begin to tire.

Well, as Chairman Mao said (or did he?) “We must thoroughly clear away all ideas of winning easy victories through good luck, without hard and bitter struggle, without sweat and blood…give full play to our style of fighting – courage in battle, no fear of sacrifice, no fear of fatigue…and before we shoot we must show full awareness of where the goalposts stand.”

OK, the last bit was made up. Enjoy the game today. COYI!!!

Karma chameleon

OLAS 478, February 10th 2010

Of course you shouldn’t stereotype people but I never had David Sullivan down as a Buddhist. His discussions of noble truths have tended to indicate more of an East End philosophy than an Eastern one. Still it is reckoned to be the world’s fourth largest religion with up to 500 million followers, so you are bound to encounter one of them when you least expect it. They don’t all wear robes and sit with their legs impossibly crossed and their feet resting on their knees, humming “om”. And as any Buddhist worth their reincarnation will tell you: “The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.”

Sullivan’s meditation after the nauseating Eidur Gudjohnsen affair was pretty crystal though: “What goes around comes around. I believe in karma.”

And didn’t we get a taste of karma at Burnley. The stats may show that we had twice as many attempts on goal as them, hit the woodwork twice, and had a goal disallowed for offside, but the final result does not lie. And it felt like payback time for that strange game back in November when we ghosted into an undeserved five-goal lead and then almost contrived to throw it all away in the final 20 minutes to the point where we were desperate for the ref to blow the final whistle to save us from any further embarrassment. It is hard to believe we would have held on for a further 10 minutes without conceding more. Despite Burnley’s defence being asleep for the first hour, a very ordinary bunch of players, just up from the championship, ran us ragged near the end and there was little to choose between the teams even though we emerged as 5-3 victors.

What has happened especially in the last couple of weeks ought to have lifted the whole club. Given far more financial security than seemed possible, and having dipped into new funds to emerge with more players after the transfer window, we had every reason to look forward to the Burnley trip with hope and expectation. Only I had a sneaky feeling it would all come back to bite us on the arse. And so it proved; our cockney backsides were well and truly munched.

Like alternative comedians and politicians, Buddhists like to go in for mystical one-liners. One renowned Buddhist quote is: “The greatest effort is not concerned with results”. Somehow I don’t think that is the after-match comment that Sullivan would have been sharing with his partner in grime David Gold.

More likely they would have been discussing how much patience they were really willing to show in a management team that has undoubtedly been operating under severe external pressures, but have now got an opportunity to prove themselves, and so far are coming up short. Zola might say he’s always going to come up short but I don’t mean Iike that. I like Zola and Clarke and remain confident they will prove their worth but they seem to have inexplicably retreated from the refreshing and dynamic approach which they began with last year. They need to remember who they are and what they believe in.

Zola and Clarke inherited a club of stupendous attacking tradition that had been reduced to a soporific bore by the deadweight of Curbishley – possibly the most boring and expressionless person on the planet. He had them playing sideways and backwards and sideways and backwards, with the occasional long hopeful punt to huff and puff and chase after.

The Italian Job and the Flying Scotsman offered an exciting alternative. They bought back the traditions of fast, skilful attacking play for which we were rightly renowned. And although early results went against them they persevered and took us forward. We only just missed a European place, which given how thin the squad was, was probably a mercy, but that is precisely what we should have been challenging for this year instead of fighting a relegation battle.

But our management team have made a giant leap backwards this season. The approach play they direct is stilted and so predictable. There has often been a lone striker with no-one remotely near them, and no passion or excitement in our play save for flashes from Diamanti, and when he’s not been injured, from Zavon Hines. More often than not they have started with four central midfielders, with no pace on the wings and little width at all.

I can’t speak from personal experience of the away games, but at Upton Park, the only game this season where I’ve seen us play with genuine attacking flair was the 3-2 home defeat to Liverpool. And the wrong conclusions were drawn from it. Instead of relishing an exciting attacking performance that merited at least a share of the spoils against a team with vastly more experience and resources, Z&C seemed determined the tighten things up rather than take risks of losing more points. So we became less threatening to any opposition of any level, and the toll of injuries reduced our options even further.

But even given these limitations beyond their control, Zola and Clarke have also been responsible for disastrously bad decisions about which eleven players to put on the pitch, not least when that eleven has included Kojak and Spectator.

The most charitable comment you can make about Kovac is that he tries hard, but his skill is in inverse relationship to his height – and he’s a tall bastard. Spector is a pile of shite (at best), and even if Ilunga has been frequently injured and unavailable, it is clear we should be going with Daprella, a young but more skilful defender who can also attack with confidence.

On the fans’ websites the siren voices are stepping up their calls for Zola’s head. But some of their anger and frustration is completely misdirected. He has been seriously let down by two key members of our youth brigade whom we had come to regard as rising stars, and I have personally had immense faith in. Collison, consistently played out of position on the right flank, has put in several under-par performances and, with a couple of exceptions, Noble has been atrociously slow and poor every game he’s played this season. Perhaps now that the squad has been strengthened both could do with a period on the bench to recover their motivation and come back sharp and more determined.

Horrible though this season has been, our situation is not as bad as it could be and the transfer window has definitely left us in better shape. At the beginning of January I was resigned to losing at least one of our (underperforming) stars. I wouldn’t believe Scott Duxbury to accurately, and with honesty and conviction, describe the colours of a Zebra, let alone believe any of his claims that no-one is going anywhere. Gilbert and Sullivan have confirmed that without their input, the club’s finances could have gone totally tits-up, so to speak, and players would have been sold, despite any of Ducksbrain’s “promises”, to service the ever spiralling debts.

Naturally, speculation by journalists linked us to any number of unlikely players during the transfer window, but we all hoped we might end up with one or two new faces. To grab three experienced forwards, all capable of finding the net, at the fag end of the window and without breaking the bank, was a triumph. To believe, though, that we could afford to put all our efforts to recruit new players in the striker department though was surely a mistake – and it was surprising that more determination wasn’t apparently shown to capture a solid right back or give more experienced back up for Green in goal.

Despite or perhaps because of his desperation to be noticed by Capello, Green’s form has been pretty erratic and maybe he could do with a rest. And while I admire his quick reflexes and shot-stopping agility I could certainly do with a rest from watching him flap about when it comes to crosses. I’ve also got my health to think about. Sure he is pretty resilient physically and tends to shake off injuries quickly, but we are placing a lot of unwarranted faith in that situation to continue.

So far I’ve avoided commenting on the Blackburn game. I worry that if I start I won’t stop. Suffice to say that it was one of the worst and most tepid and pathetic performances I have ever seen at Upton Park since our last relegation season. Except for the fact that the final whistle eventually blew and we could all go home, it was without one redeeming feature. But I know that my fellow righteous monk Sullivan will want me to follow the mantra that states: “Do not speak unless it improves on silence,” and say no more about that dreadful afternoon.

That’s quite a handy mantra though - one that some of our politicians like Blair at the Chilcot enquiry, might have followed too, come to think of it.

And so to tonight where our new boys have a chance to shine under the floodlights in front of our home crowd. I would dearly like to get one over Birmingham, if only to wipe the smarmy smile of Lee Bowyer’s boat. I’ve no regrets about him going and didn’t want him here in the first place. He’s certainly landed on his feet there, and Birmingham are sitting comfortably where we ought to be in this league. They are a tight defensive unit and have proved to be hard to beat this year. They have also nicked several games by a single goal. But, firing on all cylinders, we should be more than a match for them.

My final meditation tonight. Try wrapping your toes round your shoulders and whispering this:” Do not pursue the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. The past no longer is. The future has not yet come. We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late.”

And you better believe it because if you end up down in the championship basement there is no reincarnation. Enjoy the game. And come on Zola – defy the doubters, play the attacking game you know so well and we will start to celebrate some victories. Ommmmmmm….COYI!!!!

Partners in grime

OLAS 477, January 30th 2010

As if there are not already enough Daves or Davids writing for OLAS we’ve now got two of them running the club. One smiles like a Cheshire cat who doesn’t just lick the cream but seems to own all the cream, and the other looks more like a Goliath than a David but has considerably worse dress sense than his biblical counterpart. That claret blazer Sullivan was pictured in the day the two David’s took over was almost as embarrassing for any observer to look as it must have been to wear. Money can do a lot of things but it can’t make Sullivan look any different.

It is high time that sociologists, anthropologists and scientists put their heads together and started to study the “Dave” phenomenon and find out whether it is really true that being given this moniker makes you more likely to support West Ham. My hunch is that it does, but it is not inevitable. And when you consider the implications if it was an inevitable process then we’re rather fortunate. You seriously would not want every David out there – even if they were paying good money. I’ve started compiling a list of Daves and Davids who we don’t want anywhere near Upton Park: My top 7 Dave’s to keep away are the following

David Cameron – smug Tory bastard
David Beckham – Brainless ex-Manure git
David Koresh –loopy Texan fundamentalist leader currently residing in heaven or hell
David Icke – loopy conspiracy theorist (and crap goalie)
David Duke – ditto (don’t know what he’s like in goal)
David Irving – ditto plus Holocaust denier and general wanker
David Brent – not funny at all and general wanker too

My definition of hell actually is having to choose a companion for a long walk out of David Cameron and David Irving…

Just in case any of my fellow OLAS-scribbling Daves are worried that I’m turning against people bearing this wonderful name, (which after all means “beloved”), I hope I can reassure them by stating that I have also begun to draft my list of David’s I would like to be West Ham supporters (Please feel free to add sensible suggestions):
David Bowie – I still love Ziggy Stardust.
David Gilmour – I still listen to Dark Side of the Moon and look for it on a clear night.

So what are we to make of the latest Daves we’ve got on board, or rather, running the board? “They’re family, they’re community, they’re West ‘am”. Do me a favour. We’ll need to get past any sentimental twaddle if we are going to have any serious assessment of what they will do either for or to the club.

I guess it’s a case of having to draw up the plusses and minuses. The club was, and still is at this point in time, probably very close to going under and they have at least delayed that possibility and given us a breathing space to draw up a recovery plan. The debts won’t disappear overnight, and these two know what they are up against and what they will need to do about it. They are experienced in running a football club and adding value to it. Whatever significant amounts of money they generously splash out on new players this month will most likely be more than balanced by departures in the summer of some we, as fans ,would not like to see on their way.

But Gilbert and Sullivan, our Pirates of Plaistow, are undoubtedly West Ham fans and want the club to succeed whether they are running it or not. And now they have put themselves in the driving seat they have an even greater stake in wanting to succeed.

And talking of driving seats, there’s a story about a guy, not unlike David Gold, who takes his roller, not unlike David Gold’s, to the garage and asks them to clean it inside and out. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he shouts at the lowly attendant. “Make damn sure it looks smart inside and outside. Got it, my man?”
“OK, guv,” says the attendant, “Inside and outside”.
Well he puts his heart and soul into cleaning it and when the owner, not unlike David Gold, comes to pick it up he's standing there next to the gleaming roller. He collects his payment and then says to the owner:
“one thing, guv, I found this on the front seat – what is it?” – and he holds up a golf-tee.
“Don’t you know anything? It’s to rest your balls on when you drive off,” barks the owner.
The attendant replies: “Blimey, these Rolls Royces really have got everything.”

Our new owners may not have everything but they have got serious dosh. These “Mags to Riches” entrepreneurs are not taking a salary for themselves and are paying the salary of Karren Brady out of their own very deep and very murky pockets. They have got their beady eyes on the Olympic Stadium – or rather on the profit from selling that rather large and valuable piece land that sits under our Upton Park stadium.

Of course we should be grateful that anyone had the sense of adventure or humour to take on such a shambolic business as West Ham PLC. But whatever impulses anyone has to welcome Dave and Dave with open arms as our saviours, without any conditions or hint of scepticism, we need to let Del boy and Rodders know in no uncertain terms that we want Upton Park to remain our home. If they want to get some money back out of their gamble of running our club they are going to have to find a different method of doing that. They don’t look like the type of people who are short of ideas of how to screw money out of others. In fact Gold looks like somebody who would screw money out of his own granny And Goliath looks like he would be cheering him on as he does it.

On the plus side, if it has taken the heat off our financial emergency, it has also take the sting out of the overwhelmingly negative press coverage we have endured over the last few years. Amazing what a couple of lovable east end rogues can do. And unless I was dreaming I do believe we were positively praised on Match of the Day for our rugged performance up at Villa Park where we snatched a very valuable and unlikely point from a team who just a few days later put six goals past Blackburn.

We rarely threatened to get more than a point from the game but there were several pleasing aspects. Tomkins gave a first class performance and at the other end Nouble gave a much better account of himself than he had in that nervous debut in the cup against Arsenal. At Villa Park he held the ball well, made things difficult at times for experienced defenders, showed a lot of determination and a better awareness of where other players were, so that he could pass more often.

All being well we’ll have Cole back today – and maybe even a new face with him. But if he cant’ manage a whole game Nouble will fill the role more confidently now.

Greeny was also notable against Villa for three very good saves and the worst possible decision of when to try and dribble the ball past an attacker. We were lucky to get away with that but his other heroics were crucial in earning the point.

Blackburn have been playing with more style lately and will be tough opponents but we certainly need to beat them to drag as many teams as possible into the relegation fight. It would have been hard for the players not to carry the burden of worrying whether the club would survive during the financially stormy months we have been passing through, but now some stability is returning they ought to show how that worry has lifted and play with freedom and desire.

So as we reach the end of January, this weekend, as I’m sure you will all know, is the Big Garden Birdwatch organised by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. But somebody ought to tell Dave and Dave before they get too excited and get their cameras (and anything else they can lay their hands on) flashing, that it’s not those kind of great tits and not that kind of swallow.

In honour of the birdwatch maybe we’ll revive that old terrace favourite: ‘if I had the wings of sparrow, if I had the arse of a crow…). anyway, enjoy he game – let’s hope we use our wings well and end up soaring high. the only way is up. COYI!!!