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!!!