Regrets, I've had a few

OLAS 454 8th February 2009

One of my great regrets in life was giving in to the weather and packing up our tent at the Cambridge Folk Festival a few years ago hours before Joe Strummer was due to appear on stage with his Mescaleros band. It proved to be almost his last gig.

My other great regret was when I decided I couldn’t be bothered to come to a less than glamorous match at Upton Park in October 1983. I was probably washing my hair instead. It was the second leg of the League Cup or as it was known that year – the Milk Cup. We had won the first leg, 2-1, at Bury, and the second leg at home against inferior lower league opposition seemed a formality, so why bother? But what a formality! We buried poor Bury 10-0 that night, in front of less than 11,000 lucky fans. Tony Cottee scored four of the goals.

Well, with a bit of luck and a less agile goalkeeper we could have repeated that score against Hull in our last home match. Not that Hull were that bad but this was West ham’s cleverest and classiest attacking performance this season. The ball was pinging around in neat triangles and diamonds and we created enough chances to win very handsomely. Their goalie was magnificent stopping four or five certain goals. He pulled off two wondrous saves from Mark Noble, the first a powerfully driven penalty, the second an exquisite Yossi Benayoun-style chip. We hit the woodwork three times and Di Michele and Cole – who played magnificently throughout – both missed a couple of sitters each.

The team spirit, with every player making runs for each other, appreciating and applauding each other’s efforts - was there for all to see. And, to be honest, it needed Bellamy’s huge ego to be displaced for this team spirit to reveal itself. His constant moaning at other players, never mind the ref, was actually very undermining. Now we are truly West ham “United”. And what cheered me up no end last weekend was knowing that although Bellamy scored on his debut for Citeh during the week, he also knows what it’s like to lose to 10 men at Stoke, while we were glowing after picking up a point at Arsenal!

And what a point that is. One to add to the points already chalked up at Liverpool and Chelsea. And given the way we are playing at the minute, it wasn’t a big surprise. That afternoon, when some of you were in the Emirates, I was over in poncey Chelsea – not to see football, but art. We took my mother in law to “Unveiled” – a very powerful exhibition of Middle Eastern art – at the new Saatchi gallery at the top of Kings Road. We eventually found a free parking space after declining the opportunity to leave our car in the car park for a mere £12.20 for two hours.

Anyway we got home around 4.40 and immediately I switched on my computer on the Sporting life site – my footie site of choice - to catch the score. It was 0-0 with less than 10 minutes to go. Magnificent. I was in no doubt we would hold on. Now either I was dreaming or, even the anally retentive Arsene Wenger praised West Ham’s resolute defensive display. Something must be happening here.

Well, like wiping your bum, playing Man U is rarely pleasant but is one of those things you just have to do. Their current form may be completely awesome but we have no reason to fear them. Can West Ham beat Manure today? Well, it depends whether the historians or philosophers are right.

Historians base their methods on inquiry, explanation and argument. They gather information and evidence from the past and look for patterns to explain what has happened. On that basis they can claim to make a fair judgement about what is likely to happen today.

And if you look at West Ham’s results at home to Man U since the beginning of the 1990s you would expect to find a pattern of victories by the superpower that is Man U over the mini-statelet of West Ham – but Upton Park has been the great leveller where Alex Ferguson has failed time and again. In 14 attempts during that period Man U have won only four times. On the other occasions we have won three (including last year and the year before) and every other game has been a draw. And they have never beaten us at Upton Park two years running throughout that time. So if you go in for historical patterns, then even if they win this year they won’t next year.

Philosophers would no doubt disagree. They concern themselves with the nature of truth, reality and meaning. And let’s look at the reality, player for player. We love our team to bits but if you were Alex the Red Nosed Alky, is there one player in the Man U team you would swap for their West Ham counterpart? Rooney or Berbatov for Cole? I don’t think so. Ronaldo for Noble? Gary Neville for Lucas Neil – nope? And take a look at truth. It is clearly true that despite Robert Green’s heroics we have conceded 31 times this season while Manure have let in only 10.

The meaning of all this, from a philosophical point of view, is surely that this weekend after a great run, we are well and truly fucked. We should look forward to it only as an opportunity to witness a glorious defeat by the best team in the land.

Fuck philosophy – lets be historians this weekend and continue the fight for a better past. Because history tells us that we can do it. In those dark days last autumn I made myself feel better by counting a few matches we might scrape points from before we had to play the likes of Arsenal and Man U again. I had no inkling that we would go into this game unbeaten in league and cup for two months. But that is what we have done – and when I say “we”, I mean we, the fans who have kept faith and kept positive as Zola and Clarke have attempted to improve the team, and we the players and coaches who have never let their heads drop when things were not going our way. it is also pleasing to know that whatever the result, at worst we’ll stay in 8th place this weekend.

In my column a few weeks back I prematurely described the top six as a closed shop in which none of those posh clubs were going to be dislodged by the lower classes. Now we are within spitting distance of Everton (and it would be nice to spit at them after their daylight robbery here when we dominated the game for 80 minutes). If we keep our heads high, whatever the result today, and stay free of injuries with what is, still. a relatively thin squad, we might catch them. That would be an enormous achievement. There are no easy games in the last third of the season – many of the teams we will face will be worrying about relegation but we have momentum. Let’s keep it going.

Today, let’s remember to give Carlos and Rio a warm welcome, but let’s also use our volume as fan to encourage the team and put pressure on our visitors. In all honesty, I don’t think we will win today, but neither do I think we will lose. A hard fought draw, 1-1 or 2-2.

A final comment. I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon on the inside pages of OLAS these days. A bit like the way the pollen count goes up at certain times of year, the “Dave” count has also gone up. A recent issue had 6 or 7 of us (I was disguised as David). Perhaps a philosopher might look at this and surmise that if you happen to be called Dave their is a certain inevitability that at some time in your life you will write for OLAS. Or they might suggest that, if you continue to write for OLAS, your name might change to Dave. Alternatively it could prove something I have suspected for some time – that the world is essentially divided between Daves and non-Daves, and that the proportion of Daves are growing.