Walking on air

OLAS 470 November 8th 2009

So fortune doesn’t always hide. Sometimes it favours the brave – and we will see few performances this year as brave as the one on Wednesday night when we should have got mullered by a superior Villa team. A coolly taken penalty just before half time by Mark Noble gave us an unlikely lead in a game in which we were being outthought, outmuscled and thoroughly outplayed. Not surprising since we had lost two key players to injury early in the match. When Villa were generously handed a penalty three minutes after the break the omens did not look good but Greeny made a miraculous save. He may show more fear of crosses than your average vampire at the moment, but he also made two stupendous saves to keep us in the game n the first 45 and added a couple more in the last 45.

His penalty stop was only respite though – a few minutes later he was clutching air as Ashley young’s wonder strike hit the roof of the net. But we refused to lie down and die and the second period was much more even. West Ham never lost hope and when Villa were reduced to 10 men we sniffed an inconceivable victory. No one deserved the winner more than Zavon who had played magnificently substituting for Carlton. He chased every lost cause, gave defenders a torrid time and won the penalty as well as conjuring the winner.

There were a few other heroes out there as well. Behrami and Collisson were magnificent using power and skill to drive us forward. Da Costa had a shaky first half but was a tower of strength in the second. And little Scotty Parker did not want to be on the losing team and didn’t stop running. We kept our shape and our spirit and, against the odds, got our reward.

I hope Zola had a peaceful, sweet sleep before he had to wake up to the stark reality of our rapidly thinning squad shedding more bodies. At this rate he’s going to have to raise Ashton from his slumber, give him a couple of crutches and tell him to get out there.

More hammer blows arrived with the news that Alan Curbishley won his case for constructive dismissal. I hope we pleaded guilty as fuck. Yes he was stitched up and encouraged to go – because he was boring and shite, and Alan, even if you pick up a couple of million we can ill afford, you still can’t buy a personality. According to the papers Hull are interested in him. They deserve each other.

Still Wednesday night belonged to West Ham and its ever loyal fans – an unforgettable night, to set us up nicely for the visit of Everton.

It was at a West Ham versus Everton match rather than through some strange druggie experience or an experiment with levitation that I first discovered what the term “walking on air” meant. We’re going back a few years now to 1980 and the cup semi final replay at Elland Road - at that time home ground of a cheating, boring but successful top league side called “Leeds”. Remember them? Now they top the same league that contains Leyton Orient, Milton Keynes Dons, Yeovil (need I go on? Ha ha ha! – the harder they come the harder they fall, one and all).

Anyway, back to the Everton game. We had been fortunate to secure a replay as Everton had the better of the first game at Villa Park and deservedly took the lead through Brian Kidd but we came back pressing hard for an equaliser and Clever Trevor laid one on for Stuart Pearson. If I remember rightly there was a couple of sending offs but my only other real memory of the first game, played at Villa Park, was of a little toerag of a Villa supporter running off with my West Ham scarf which was hanging out of our car window as we stopped at lights near the ground. He’s probably about 40 years old now and I hope he feels thoroughly ashamed of himself and that his act of wanton theft brought some suitably bad karma (eg Wednesday night’s result!)

While we were struggling to get back into the game, the other semi-final was taking place – Arsenal v Man U – so even if we won we had a mountain to climb at Wembley. Arsenal got the better of Man U that day and we went on to the replay at Elland Road with the prospect of a London derby cup final. A whole division below – few gave us a chance.

Leeds - the town - was a place I was very familiar with at the time. I had spent three happy baked beans, curry and beer-consuming years at university there between 1976 and ’79, watched West Ham there a couple of times (we won once!) and spent many a Saturday outside rather than inside their ground leafleting against the National Front/BNP who had a big and ugly presence there at the time. As well as attempting to twist the minds of impressionable youngsters living hard lives, against some of their fellow citizens purely on the colour of their skin, they also engaged in violent unprovoked attacks on those they saw as opponents. One night they turned up on the university campus and randomly attacked a student with a fire extinguisher leaving him with a fractured skull. On another occasion a maths lecturer, known to them for his anti-fascist activities was attacked with a broken glass while drinking in a pub, and nearly lost an eye. Young Asians in the town were frequently abused and attacked. Eventually the police came down on them and several of their street fighters ended up doing time.

Their gang was led by particularly scary and rather gaunt guy, strangely called Steve Gaunt. I was always curious what happened to him, and found out many years later that he had hired himself out as a mercenary to Croatia during the wars of the former Yugoslavia and managed to get his foot blown off. Doing a bit of googling it appears that nearly 30 years on he is still posting on the websites of far right loons who believe that some members of the human race are less than human, which suggests that my inkling that his brains were located mainly in his feet, might have been spot on.

I met up with some of my mates from the Leeds days recently and we got talking about Steve Gaunt. After I told them about the fate of his foot, my mate Dave, quite deadpan, says, “Well, I guess he needs only one jackboot these days!”

Anyway, back the Everton game. The atmosphere in Elland Road that night was electric and the game was completely end-to-end. But After 90 minutes the teams could not be separated. As we reached the end of the second period of extra time there had been a goal apiece – Bob Latchford headed in for Everton and Alan Devonshire scored a gem for the hammers. The last player anyone would have imagined would win the game with a header was our left back – the original Frankie Lampard - but that’s what happened in the 118th minute and he ran straight for the corner flag to engage in a bizarre celebration ritual. We counted down the seconds, the whistle blew, and we were at Wembley! (Well, actually we were still in Leeds, but you know what I mean).

It was coming back to Leeds Station that I experienced walking on air. I just couldn’t feel my feet touching the ground; it felt like we floated all the way. There were terrible problems on the line on the way back and we were held in no-man’s-land for ages, pulling into Kings Cross around five in the morning – but hey, who cares, we were going to Wembley, where we famously beat Arsenal 1-0 to win the cup.

What’s the odds on one of our defenders heading in the winning goal this afternoon (in the right end)? Me, I’d settle for any Hammer putting in the winner, even Ashton with his crutch. COYI!!!!!