OLAS No 449 December 20th 2008
In the last two years I have been invited to run some sessions on History teaching for trainee primary teachers on a course at London Metropolitan University. It is challenging and rewarding work, and it also means that I get invited to the departmental Christmas lunch. At the lunch last week in a posh French restaurant I sat chatting to a serious academic. One minute we were discussing theories of knowledge; the next we were lamenting the recent sad demise of Oliver Postgate, who dreamt up and made possible the ever-reliable and comforting, “Ivor the Engine”, the always entertaining, “Bagpuss” and the whacky but formidable “Clangers”. My academic friend expressed everyone’s feeling around the table when he said that “Ivor the Engine” was truly excellent but, he then confided in me, “I didn’t get Clangers. I just didn’t get it.”
As the Chelsea - West Ham match unfolded I had an inkling of what he meant and how he felt. Having watched West Ham for the last 42 years I still don’t understand them. The night of the debacle against Spurs I went to bed feeling frustrated and low, slipped into a deep sleep and dreamt about West Ham playing Chelsea. My brain played tricks on me and I woke up happy believing that we had scraped an unlikely draw (0-0). Then I realised it was only Tuesday. There have been times when I’ve cashed my football dreams in on correct score bets, but I’ve had a few duff ones too, and some nights I don’t dream about footie at all, so I’ve learned not to trust my dreams. And, besides, what kind of a person dreams of watching 0-0 draws? All right, apart from Alan Curbishley, George Graham or Alistair Darling, what kind of ...
After ‘orrible October our mini revival brought very welcome points against Portsmouth, Sunderland and Liverpool. But what worried me though, was how poor our forward line was in each of these games. Against the Spuds we hit rock bottom – and it was back to the drawing board. To be honest, even if we had beaten Spurs we would have still feared an away match at Chelsea. I was there when Paulo di Canio masterminded our last victory at Stamford Bridge but since then it has been back to back defeats. A case of “Welcome, Hammers, how many would you like to lose by today? Would you like us to score first half goals or all in the second? That’s fine. Thank you for being so obliging.”
Last Sunday I sat in the pub before the game, staring at the screen as they showed the line-ups and, to be honest, their subs bench frightened me almost as much as the 11 we would start against. Zola obviously felt similarly. Ten minutes into the game still looked essentially like a frightened rabbit.
I felt reduced to considering what kind of defeat would leave us with some hope in our game against a free-scoring and very competent and confident Villa side? I concluded that a one-goal defeat with us scoring would be best, so my sights were set on losing 2-1 or 3-2 and claiming that as some kind of moral victory.
On that basis our result was stupendous. And, like at Anfield, it could have been more. Carlton Cole made a great opportunity for himself in injury time when Behrami put him through and he shook off his marker. He had several options of how to finish but almost inevitably chose the wrong one. Even Iain Dowie might have put that one away. Well, maybe not.
Carlton Cole featured prominently on various West Ham forums on Sunday night. The full spectrum of opinions were voiced from hero to villain, 90- minute menace to totally useless spare part. The way I look at him is that he gives away far too many free kicks, he is slow, he wins the ball in the air but can’t direct his headers, doesn’t do a lot of tracking back, his first touch is often woeful but he’s got a nice smile. It is not enough really. Nelson Mandela’s got a nice smile but you wouldn’t want him playing up front for West Ham. (Winnie Mandela maybe.)
Zola evidently feels that Carlton Cole is a project worth pursuing and has given him a spanking new five year contract. Many of us voiced similar doubts about Bobby Zamora. We let him go and now he’s doing pretty well for a team that currently sits six places above us in the table.
Maybe the style we need to adopt for away games requires the large holding front player. But when it comes to home games, and with Villa next up, I would prefer to see Cole on the bench and the far more skilful Freddie Sears taking his place.
Sears scores goals for fun in the reserves and will only need one or two premiership goals to set him off at that level. He is quick thinking and direct, though somewhat diminutive. Against Everton a few weeks back, his pairing with Bellamy looked very promising. As for Bellamy – the guy is a complete head case who looks like he hasn’t quite evolved, but he’s powerful and talented and with great determination. He fully deserved his goal at Chelsea, well set up by Nobes, and took it with a coolness and calmness that seemed to contradict his personality. You can’t tell a book by its cover. Oh, yes you can actually, Vinnie Jones.
But what really made the difference against Chelsea was the midfield. We’ve been hunting a ball winner with great distribution. On Sunday we actually had three of them in Nobes, Collison and Scotty Parker. Meanwhile Behrami (my Hammer of the Year to date just ahead of Greenie) is fast becoming the creative one, starting to thread through those killer passes to the front men and also ghosting into good scoring positions himself, in a manner reminiscent of Martin Peters..
The glaring deficiency though is any strength in depth and if one or two players get injured we are fucked. Let’s hope that some serious long-term thinking is in place for the January transfer window.
Well, I tell my teacher trainee students that in History the facts are less important than he interpretation. When the demon Thatcher got elected is less important than why the demon Thatcher got elected. Of course you need to know what has happened but the key to understanding is asking the right questions and providing a plausible interpretation.
The facts show that we were undefeated at Anfield or Stamford Bridge, that we’ve picked up 6 points form our last five games, but we have only scored two goals in those five matches. My interpretation is that digging six points out of every 5 matches from here to the end of the season, will keep us in the premiership – but only just. Our current weakness is our inability to score, or even be remotely threatening in the penalty area for large chunks of games. How hard have opposing goalies had to work in those 5 games to keep us out, compared with how hard Greenie has had to work to keep out our opponents?
Our visitors today are a good role model. Fast, direct, free scoring, entertaining and with excellent team spirit. They are truly a credit to the claret and blue. If we see Marlene and Reo-Joker today we should give them respect. They are doing the business for Villa.
Their last five league games have brought Villa three wins, two draws and nine goals. We have to have a go at them, unsettle and intimidate them from the first minute to the last. Playing for a 0-0 against a free-scoring confident team like Villa will be disastrous. We would be like the Clangers – just whistling in the wind.
Monday, 22 December 2008
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
Beyond Enfield
OLAS 448 8 December 2008
When a game ends 0-0 there is usually not much to write about. So with two of our last three games ending 0-0 that either doubles or halves how little there is to write or not write about it. I never was that good at maths. As the song goes from Porgy and Bess, we “got plenty of nothing”. Only a 0-0 at Anfield is a little bit more intriguing than any old goalless draw, and certainly more intriguing than a 0-0 at Enfield. Full credit to the team for a very organised display, crucial saves as usual from Greenie, and thanks, too, to Steven Gerrard, who unlike King Midas turned everything he touched into crap. We could have passed the ball to him all night – well, we did actually – and he blew every opportunity. Pity he was more accurate at Cardiff the other year in the 90 millionth minute.
And it might have been even better at Anfield (shit – I can’t write that now without thinking of Enfield). We had four or five good chances ourselves. The post and the side netting took two of them from us the others we wasted all by ourselves. And so the long wait for our first win at Anfield since 1963 continues for another year. I had the opportunity to preview the game for the Observer and have to eat some of my words now, along with some humble pie. “Liverpool will be too strong” I opined. Not at all. This was a pretty tepid display from the league leaders as they ran out of ideas and wasted most of their shooting opportunities. I did add, though, that “we would take the game to them in the spirit of ‘63”. And we did after a fashion, carving out some good chances while spending most of the game in our own half. We played the ball out of defence confidently, made some good interchange of passes in midfield but lacked any bite up front. Carlton Cole’s crucial contribution was clearing off the line after a Liverpool corner. At the other end he was hopeless and looked way out of his depth.
When we won in ‘63, our goal scorers were two players bound for glory – Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters - but the programme for the next game recalled the outstanding debut of a young centre half called Dave Bickles. I saw him play a couple of times. And while Hurst and Peters (and Bobby Moore) went on to lift the World cup, Bickles played around 30 times for West Ham, transferred to Crystal Palace, then hung up his boots early to become a PE teacher.
I don’t have much time for PE teachers myself, having endured several incredibly stupid and irritating examples of the genre, but I have sympathy for Bickles because he died young – in his 50s. My PE teacher at primary school – Miss Gilbert – was a complete monster, though she also suffered, and the last I heard had multiple sclerosis. At secondary school we had two PE teachers. One used to be a footballer – for Darlington, if that counts. He was just one of those Great Northern Bastards. If you took a moment to stand with your hand on your hips (instead of having your knuckles scraping the floor) he’d bellow your name followed by: “Where’s your ‘andbag, ladddie?”. He was called Noel Martin and saw himself as a bit of a wordsmith. I remember his rationalisations for people like me who, in those days, had long hair and needed to trim it. “Don’t permit your hair to grow long laddie,” he explained “it impedes your peripheral vision.”
These days my peripheral vision is just dandy.
Our other PE teacher Martin Jenkinson, was the total opposite of an intellectual. He used to pick on my Polish friend Marek who was less than enthusiastic about PE. Once he fired off that oh so reasonable question at Marek: “You lad, where are your family from?”
“Poland”, Marek Replied
“Didn’t we fight your lot in the war?” – Well, Marek just laughed. And the answer is no, Mr Jenkinson.
Still it could have been worse. My friend Mike grew up in several countries as his dad’s engineering job took him from place to place. He spent some of his childhood years in Spain under Franco’s regime. At that time every school was obliged to have at least one member of staff who was a paid up member of the Fascist Party. In Mike’s school it was the PE teacher. Life is full of surprises. Imagine if every school here had to have some gruesome, loathsome half-wit from the BNP on their staff. Apparently, after the leaking of a certain list, it seems that a few do.
Anyway, as far as I’m concerned PE teachers are right down there with the scum of the earth, alongside estate agents, hedge fund speculators, OFSTED inspectors, and other useless or parasitical creatures.
Now talking of the scum of the earth I reckon old Harry will find he’s gone from Hero to Zero when he steps out there tonight with his (ho, ho) “boyhood team”. Lots of fans reckon he’s really done the dirty by taking charge at Spurs and are baying for his blood. Me – I still like him really. I can’t just turn off the memories, like a tap, of the good times we had when he was here, when he brought exciting players like Paulo Futre and Paulo di Canio; when he groomed Joe Cole and Michael Carrick for stardom, when he threw a plate of sandwiches at our hapless defenders (they probably didn’t even stop that). So, Harry, you are a mercenary bastard who has sold his soul to the devil but you are still up there among my heroes.
Spurs came unstuck against Everton last week but their general trajectory under Harry is upwards and they will be tough opposition. Our model for approaching this game ought to be the first 75 minutes we played against Everton when we were sharp and creative, playing at pace, getting to the by-line and putting chances on a plate for our strikers. And our strikers against Everton were Bellamy and Sears – no Cole. I want to see him and Tristan on the bench ready to come on to add a little height and weight to the attack if necessary in the final 20 minutes, but let’s start with our vertically challenged duo.
Midfield is a more difficult one to call now that Nobes is fit again. Behrami and Parker have been outstanding in the last three games, but Mullins has also looked really solid. Collison deserves to be in the mix too after his performance against Everton. And we could do with Mattie - motivated to perform against his old club - to give us width.
Behrami may have missed a chance against Sunderland that my friend’s half-blind, zimmer-framed granny would have scored, but he has been our star performer this year and is proving to be really versatile. I wonder if he is our captain in the making . Lucas Neill’s commitment might not stretch to signing a contract on less incredibly and unjustifiably lucrative terms. Like Harry, Lucas is another mercenary bastard, but playing rather well at the moment in a very solid and settled back four.
if we can keep our back four free from injury and resist the poachers for Robert Green in January we will continue to be hard to beat but with the league so tight we are not going to guarantee our safety by drawing 0-0 too often. I’ll take that score against the big guns, but when we are playing everyone else we need to be winning and, sometimes, even winning handsomely. That is why we need to bring in, on loan if necessary, a creative midfielder in the Benayoun/Berkovic mould and a quick witted and powerful goal scorer during January. if one of these is someone who can take corners or free kicks, that would do us no harm either.
A fully fit Keiron Dyer is going to take time to readjust to the demands of the premier league and, even then, he will always be a disaster waiting to happen. And I doubt if we’ll see Deano back until the final few weeks.
So if anyone on the official website promises their return and says “It will be like having two new players”, we’ve got to say “Bollox, it is. These two would be hard pressed to walk round Beckton Asda doing their shopping without getting injured again.” (Though maybe that should be on their training schedule – Steve Clarke take note).
If they both come back in the new year and stay free from injury until the end of the season I’ll eat some more words and humble pie. But what is absolutely clear is that we can’t wait until next season to see the best from Dyer and Ashton because they’ll be doing it against the likes of Blackpool, QPR and Sheffield Wednesday instead of against Man U, Chelsea and Liverpool.
Enjoy the game tonight – time for us to remind Harry why East London is wonderful. COYI !!!
When a game ends 0-0 there is usually not much to write about. So with two of our last three games ending 0-0 that either doubles or halves how little there is to write or not write about it. I never was that good at maths. As the song goes from Porgy and Bess, we “got plenty of nothing”. Only a 0-0 at Anfield is a little bit more intriguing than any old goalless draw, and certainly more intriguing than a 0-0 at Enfield. Full credit to the team for a very organised display, crucial saves as usual from Greenie, and thanks, too, to Steven Gerrard, who unlike King Midas turned everything he touched into crap. We could have passed the ball to him all night – well, we did actually – and he blew every opportunity. Pity he was more accurate at Cardiff the other year in the 90 millionth minute.
And it might have been even better at Anfield (shit – I can’t write that now without thinking of Enfield). We had four or five good chances ourselves. The post and the side netting took two of them from us the others we wasted all by ourselves. And so the long wait for our first win at Anfield since 1963 continues for another year. I had the opportunity to preview the game for the Observer and have to eat some of my words now, along with some humble pie. “Liverpool will be too strong” I opined. Not at all. This was a pretty tepid display from the league leaders as they ran out of ideas and wasted most of their shooting opportunities. I did add, though, that “we would take the game to them in the spirit of ‘63”. And we did after a fashion, carving out some good chances while spending most of the game in our own half. We played the ball out of defence confidently, made some good interchange of passes in midfield but lacked any bite up front. Carlton Cole’s crucial contribution was clearing off the line after a Liverpool corner. At the other end he was hopeless and looked way out of his depth.
When we won in ‘63, our goal scorers were two players bound for glory – Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters - but the programme for the next game recalled the outstanding debut of a young centre half called Dave Bickles. I saw him play a couple of times. And while Hurst and Peters (and Bobby Moore) went on to lift the World cup, Bickles played around 30 times for West Ham, transferred to Crystal Palace, then hung up his boots early to become a PE teacher.
I don’t have much time for PE teachers myself, having endured several incredibly stupid and irritating examples of the genre, but I have sympathy for Bickles because he died young – in his 50s. My PE teacher at primary school – Miss Gilbert – was a complete monster, though she also suffered, and the last I heard had multiple sclerosis. At secondary school we had two PE teachers. One used to be a footballer – for Darlington, if that counts. He was just one of those Great Northern Bastards. If you took a moment to stand with your hand on your hips (instead of having your knuckles scraping the floor) he’d bellow your name followed by: “Where’s your ‘andbag, ladddie?”. He was called Noel Martin and saw himself as a bit of a wordsmith. I remember his rationalisations for people like me who, in those days, had long hair and needed to trim it. “Don’t permit your hair to grow long laddie,” he explained “it impedes your peripheral vision.”
These days my peripheral vision is just dandy.
Our other PE teacher Martin Jenkinson, was the total opposite of an intellectual. He used to pick on my Polish friend Marek who was less than enthusiastic about PE. Once he fired off that oh so reasonable question at Marek: “You lad, where are your family from?”
“Poland”, Marek Replied
“Didn’t we fight your lot in the war?” – Well, Marek just laughed. And the answer is no, Mr Jenkinson.
Still it could have been worse. My friend Mike grew up in several countries as his dad’s engineering job took him from place to place. He spent some of his childhood years in Spain under Franco’s regime. At that time every school was obliged to have at least one member of staff who was a paid up member of the Fascist Party. In Mike’s school it was the PE teacher. Life is full of surprises. Imagine if every school here had to have some gruesome, loathsome half-wit from the BNP on their staff. Apparently, after the leaking of a certain list, it seems that a few do.
Anyway, as far as I’m concerned PE teachers are right down there with the scum of the earth, alongside estate agents, hedge fund speculators, OFSTED inspectors, and other useless or parasitical creatures.
Now talking of the scum of the earth I reckon old Harry will find he’s gone from Hero to Zero when he steps out there tonight with his (ho, ho) “boyhood team”. Lots of fans reckon he’s really done the dirty by taking charge at Spurs and are baying for his blood. Me – I still like him really. I can’t just turn off the memories, like a tap, of the good times we had when he was here, when he brought exciting players like Paulo Futre and Paulo di Canio; when he groomed Joe Cole and Michael Carrick for stardom, when he threw a plate of sandwiches at our hapless defenders (they probably didn’t even stop that). So, Harry, you are a mercenary bastard who has sold his soul to the devil but you are still up there among my heroes.
Spurs came unstuck against Everton last week but their general trajectory under Harry is upwards and they will be tough opposition. Our model for approaching this game ought to be the first 75 minutes we played against Everton when we were sharp and creative, playing at pace, getting to the by-line and putting chances on a plate for our strikers. And our strikers against Everton were Bellamy and Sears – no Cole. I want to see him and Tristan on the bench ready to come on to add a little height and weight to the attack if necessary in the final 20 minutes, but let’s start with our vertically challenged duo.
Midfield is a more difficult one to call now that Nobes is fit again. Behrami and Parker have been outstanding in the last three games, but Mullins has also looked really solid. Collison deserves to be in the mix too after his performance against Everton. And we could do with Mattie - motivated to perform against his old club - to give us width.
Behrami may have missed a chance against Sunderland that my friend’s half-blind, zimmer-framed granny would have scored, but he has been our star performer this year and is proving to be really versatile. I wonder if he is our captain in the making . Lucas Neill’s commitment might not stretch to signing a contract on less incredibly and unjustifiably lucrative terms. Like Harry, Lucas is another mercenary bastard, but playing rather well at the moment in a very solid and settled back four.
if we can keep our back four free from injury and resist the poachers for Robert Green in January we will continue to be hard to beat but with the league so tight we are not going to guarantee our safety by drawing 0-0 too often. I’ll take that score against the big guns, but when we are playing everyone else we need to be winning and, sometimes, even winning handsomely. That is why we need to bring in, on loan if necessary, a creative midfielder in the Benayoun/Berkovic mould and a quick witted and powerful goal scorer during January. if one of these is someone who can take corners or free kicks, that would do us no harm either.
A fully fit Keiron Dyer is going to take time to readjust to the demands of the premier league and, even then, he will always be a disaster waiting to happen. And I doubt if we’ll see Deano back until the final few weeks.
So if anyone on the official website promises their return and says “It will be like having two new players”, we’ve got to say “Bollox, it is. These two would be hard pressed to walk round Beckton Asda doing their shopping without getting injured again.” (Though maybe that should be on their training schedule – Steve Clarke take note).
If they both come back in the new year and stay free from injury until the end of the season I’ll eat some more words and humble pie. But what is absolutely clear is that we can’t wait until next season to see the best from Dyer and Ashton because they’ll be doing it against the likes of Blackpool, QPR and Sheffield Wednesday instead of against Man U, Chelsea and Liverpool.
Enjoy the game tonight – time for us to remind Harry why East London is wonderful. COYI !!!
Saturday, 15 November 2008
Police and Theives
OLAS 447 15th November 2008
Normally after a game I walk the length of Green Street then turn into Romford Road to pick up a bus and start my journey home. But after the Everton game I felt like popping into that Police Fortress on the corner to report a robbery.
“So what exactly was stolen, son?”
“Three points – and they just took them. They belonged to West Ham, but they just came in and nicked them.”
“How do you spell that?”
“W-E-S-T –H-A-M”
“Now, who took them, sonny?”
“There was eleven of them - all wearing blue –almost like a uniform. They had been hanging around looking a bit shifty, but not doing much for about 70-80 minutes then they just stole them.”
“Are you sure there were 11 of them? And were they all wearing blue? Because if we’re going to catch them, we need to know who they are and if there was anyone else involved.”
“Well there was three of them sitting on a bench. I think they were involved too, and one guy in a claret and blue shirt – a French geezer – I reckon he was in on it. He seemed to be helping them. I didn’t catch his name – but they were calling him ‘Slow Bear’ or something like that. I know I would recognise him again. And I’m sure you’ll catch him, as he’s really slow.”
“Now, did anyone witness the incident?”
“Well I was there with my mate, his daughter and her friend, oh yeah, and there were about 33,000 other people. I reckon a lot of them saw it.”
“All right sonny – we’ll get on to it. We’re run off our feet at the moment trying to catch some unusual bank robbers in suits – it seems that the guys running the banks are stealing from ordinary people and the government, but I’ll send some uniform round to start working on this case. Evening all.”
Well, if the boys in blue do catch the thieves in blue, I reckon Slowbear/Faubert ought to get sent down for his part. It was criminal. His indecisiveness, and the careless way he kept giving the ball away, was responsible for the build up to two of the goals. For me, personally, Slow Bear’s lack of progress has been particularly disappointing because when he first came back from his long injury lay off he gave indications that he might one day be an awesome player for us. When we bought him I looked at a video on YouTube, which shows him as this pacy right midfielder who storms down the wing delivering crosses that are a nightmare to defend, or cutting inside and thumping goals in from 25 yards. I now honestly believe that he has a twin brother, Gillaume, who can do all these things and the one we’ve got is about as effective as a tub of lard.
Everyone would have been gutted by the outcome because with 10 minutes to go we were heading for a well-deserved victory and that first 80 minutes had so many positives. Our passing and movement was quick accurate, direct and clever. And when we needed to defend, players tracked back well. Scott Parker played a blinder in midfield, winning the ball with determination and setting up attack after attack. And for all our reticence lately in the final third, we repeatedly got to the by-line down the left hand side, with only the woodwork keeping the scores level at half time. In that first 45 minutes, no doubt under a blue moon, even LBM played well.
I was worried that by half-time we had made a hatful of chances but hadn’t converted any and Everton’s defence might not be so inviting in the second half. Though it was a bit more even after the break, we were still in the ascendancy and thoroughly deserved to take the lead.
The academy products did especially well. Freddie Sears has grown in confidence massively. He was energetic and quick thinking and linked up very well with Bellamy. With Cole returning from suspension on Saturday, I hope Zola keeps Bellamy and Sears together but has Cole in reserve to add to the mix if necessary in the final 20 minutes.
As for Collison – he was sublime. He came on the field by accident after Upson got crocked and played magnificently. His first touch is always good, he is strong in the tackle, accurate with short and long passes and plays with vision and flair. His goal was an absolute peach. Following an end-to-end move and a delicate back-heel by Parker, Collison calmly curled it into the net a la Trevor Brooking. It deserved to be the winning goal. And many of us there thought it would be. So what went wrong?
These days a football match involves 14 players and tactical substitutions at the right time are making a difference. Nothing wrong with sending Mattie on for LBM on 57 minutes – he looked sharper and more determined than on his last outing - but having taken the lead on 63minutes and players’ energy levels visibly flagging, a holding midfielder was needed for the last 15. Mullins is not my favourite player but he would undoubtedly have done better than Bowyer. By the time Di Michele came on, the game was already lost.
Until Zola and Clarke can raise the fitness levels of the team they’ve got to be planning to use subs for that final 20 minutes. The other problem was out of Zola’s hands. The unforced sale of McCartney and Ferdinand before Curbs was shown the door has left Zola with barely any experienced options in defence. I don’t know if Tompkins is fit, but if Upson hasn’t recovered by Saturday. I would rather see Tompkins joining Collins in central defence and Neill taking the right back berth, than risk Faubert fucking up again. In midfield I’ve no doubt that Collison deserves a full game at Donkey Bowyer’s expense.
The rest of the results this weekend have confirmed that outside the top four this season it is going to be very tight, with a short run of winning games making the difference between challenging for Europe or scrapping against the drop. Just 9 points are separating Villa in 5th and West Brom at the bottom.
The positive, exciting and confident style of football that Zola has us playing now ought to be rewarded and see us picking up points again soon, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see us thumping someone 3 or 4-0 in the games to come. But January will make the difference. If the other teams around us seriously strengthen their squads and we don’t, then we are going to struggle to maintain our promise in that crucial final third of the season.
If our owners take the gamble on seeing though the season with our current squad, then, as injuries inevitably pile up and we don’t have adequate cover, we are fucked and instead of paying Sheffield United we are going to be playing Sheffield United. We can’t wait until the end of January to think about this. The plans for whom we sell and aim to buy have to put in place now.
Well, I’ve not heard any more from the police about the robbery I reported. They have been as useless as the last time I reported a robbery at that police station back in the early ‘80s. At that time I was living off the Romford Road in a “house” of ex-students that very closely resembled the abode in “The Young Ones”. We got it on a short-let from a housing association, paying £25 a week between us(!). The original 6 months offer turned out to be three years and it just got messier and messier. One day we noticed that certain communal things seemed to missing– a radio cassette recorder, some tins of food etc. We just assumed that they had moved around the house the way they do when you are all ex-students. But when they came back a second time for more we realised we had been burgled.
We walked round to Plod to report it. The next day they sent a couple of cops round (one to read and one to write?). Anyway, one was tall, thin and gormless looking, the other shaped like a water melon. PC Water Melon plonked his ample frame down in an armchair in our “living” room. “We get a lot of these kind of crimes round here,” he assured us. “it’s what we call a dark area,” he said as he went into a racist diatribe dressed up as an explanation. Behind him on the wall was a poster depicting a black youth held in an arm-lock by a policeman with the words “Stop Police Harassment!” it was a peach of a moment that cried out to be videoed. But the video had been nicked…no actually we never had one.
Now, as it happened, Plod were ultra-efficient and they caught the offenders some time later. Turned out to be a couple of white vagrants as dark as the sunshine on a summer’s day. So you never know, they might catch last week’s offenders after all. Can’t imagine Slow Bear Faubert staying “on the run” too long.
Anyway, with the right team selection and with subs used before our key players are all washed out – I’m expecting us to get back to winning ways today. Enjoy the game COYI!!!
Normally after a game I walk the length of Green Street then turn into Romford Road to pick up a bus and start my journey home. But after the Everton game I felt like popping into that Police Fortress on the corner to report a robbery.
“So what exactly was stolen, son?”
“Three points – and they just took them. They belonged to West Ham, but they just came in and nicked them.”
“How do you spell that?”
“W-E-S-T –H-A-M”
“Now, who took them, sonny?”
“There was eleven of them - all wearing blue –almost like a uniform. They had been hanging around looking a bit shifty, but not doing much for about 70-80 minutes then they just stole them.”
“Are you sure there were 11 of them? And were they all wearing blue? Because if we’re going to catch them, we need to know who they are and if there was anyone else involved.”
“Well there was three of them sitting on a bench. I think they were involved too, and one guy in a claret and blue shirt – a French geezer – I reckon he was in on it. He seemed to be helping them. I didn’t catch his name – but they were calling him ‘Slow Bear’ or something like that. I know I would recognise him again. And I’m sure you’ll catch him, as he’s really slow.”
“Now, did anyone witness the incident?”
“Well I was there with my mate, his daughter and her friend, oh yeah, and there were about 33,000 other people. I reckon a lot of them saw it.”
“All right sonny – we’ll get on to it. We’re run off our feet at the moment trying to catch some unusual bank robbers in suits – it seems that the guys running the banks are stealing from ordinary people and the government, but I’ll send some uniform round to start working on this case. Evening all.”
Well, if the boys in blue do catch the thieves in blue, I reckon Slowbear/Faubert ought to get sent down for his part. It was criminal. His indecisiveness, and the careless way he kept giving the ball away, was responsible for the build up to two of the goals. For me, personally, Slow Bear’s lack of progress has been particularly disappointing because when he first came back from his long injury lay off he gave indications that he might one day be an awesome player for us. When we bought him I looked at a video on YouTube, which shows him as this pacy right midfielder who storms down the wing delivering crosses that are a nightmare to defend, or cutting inside and thumping goals in from 25 yards. I now honestly believe that he has a twin brother, Gillaume, who can do all these things and the one we’ve got is about as effective as a tub of lard.
Everyone would have been gutted by the outcome because with 10 minutes to go we were heading for a well-deserved victory and that first 80 minutes had so many positives. Our passing and movement was quick accurate, direct and clever. And when we needed to defend, players tracked back well. Scott Parker played a blinder in midfield, winning the ball with determination and setting up attack after attack. And for all our reticence lately in the final third, we repeatedly got to the by-line down the left hand side, with only the woodwork keeping the scores level at half time. In that first 45 minutes, no doubt under a blue moon, even LBM played well.
I was worried that by half-time we had made a hatful of chances but hadn’t converted any and Everton’s defence might not be so inviting in the second half. Though it was a bit more even after the break, we were still in the ascendancy and thoroughly deserved to take the lead.
The academy products did especially well. Freddie Sears has grown in confidence massively. He was energetic and quick thinking and linked up very well with Bellamy. With Cole returning from suspension on Saturday, I hope Zola keeps Bellamy and Sears together but has Cole in reserve to add to the mix if necessary in the final 20 minutes.
As for Collison – he was sublime. He came on the field by accident after Upson got crocked and played magnificently. His first touch is always good, he is strong in the tackle, accurate with short and long passes and plays with vision and flair. His goal was an absolute peach. Following an end-to-end move and a delicate back-heel by Parker, Collison calmly curled it into the net a la Trevor Brooking. It deserved to be the winning goal. And many of us there thought it would be. So what went wrong?
These days a football match involves 14 players and tactical substitutions at the right time are making a difference. Nothing wrong with sending Mattie on for LBM on 57 minutes – he looked sharper and more determined than on his last outing - but having taken the lead on 63minutes and players’ energy levels visibly flagging, a holding midfielder was needed for the last 15. Mullins is not my favourite player but he would undoubtedly have done better than Bowyer. By the time Di Michele came on, the game was already lost.
Until Zola and Clarke can raise the fitness levels of the team they’ve got to be planning to use subs for that final 20 minutes. The other problem was out of Zola’s hands. The unforced sale of McCartney and Ferdinand before Curbs was shown the door has left Zola with barely any experienced options in defence. I don’t know if Tompkins is fit, but if Upson hasn’t recovered by Saturday. I would rather see Tompkins joining Collins in central defence and Neill taking the right back berth, than risk Faubert fucking up again. In midfield I’ve no doubt that Collison deserves a full game at Donkey Bowyer’s expense.
The rest of the results this weekend have confirmed that outside the top four this season it is going to be very tight, with a short run of winning games making the difference between challenging for Europe or scrapping against the drop. Just 9 points are separating Villa in 5th and West Brom at the bottom.
The positive, exciting and confident style of football that Zola has us playing now ought to be rewarded and see us picking up points again soon, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see us thumping someone 3 or 4-0 in the games to come. But January will make the difference. If the other teams around us seriously strengthen their squads and we don’t, then we are going to struggle to maintain our promise in that crucial final third of the season.
If our owners take the gamble on seeing though the season with our current squad, then, as injuries inevitably pile up and we don’t have adequate cover, we are fucked and instead of paying Sheffield United we are going to be playing Sheffield United. We can’t wait until the end of January to think about this. The plans for whom we sell and aim to buy have to put in place now.
Well, I’ve not heard any more from the police about the robbery I reported. They have been as useless as the last time I reported a robbery at that police station back in the early ‘80s. At that time I was living off the Romford Road in a “house” of ex-students that very closely resembled the abode in “The Young Ones”. We got it on a short-let from a housing association, paying £25 a week between us(!). The original 6 months offer turned out to be three years and it just got messier and messier. One day we noticed that certain communal things seemed to missing– a radio cassette recorder, some tins of food etc. We just assumed that they had moved around the house the way they do when you are all ex-students. But when they came back a second time for more we realised we had been burgled.
We walked round to Plod to report it. The next day they sent a couple of cops round (one to read and one to write?). Anyway, one was tall, thin and gormless looking, the other shaped like a water melon. PC Water Melon plonked his ample frame down in an armchair in our “living” room. “We get a lot of these kind of crimes round here,” he assured us. “it’s what we call a dark area,” he said as he went into a racist diatribe dressed up as an explanation. Behind him on the wall was a poster depicting a black youth held in an arm-lock by a policeman with the words “Stop Police Harassment!” it was a peach of a moment that cried out to be videoed. But the video had been nicked…no actually we never had one.
Now, as it happened, Plod were ultra-efficient and they caught the offenders some time later. Turned out to be a couple of white vagrants as dark as the sunshine on a summer’s day. So you never know, they might catch last week’s offenders after all. Can’t imagine Slow Bear Faubert staying “on the run” too long.
Anyway, with the right team selection and with subs used before our key players are all washed out – I’m expecting us to get back to winning ways today. Enjoy the game COYI!!!
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Baracking on the terraces
OLAS 446 8 November 2008
By now we will know if one long-distance West Ham fan will be holding down the most powerful job in the world. While his enemies have tried to pin the labels “terrorist”, “muslim”, and “fanatic” on him, the evidence shows that his only true fanaticism is the one that we all share here at OLAS. A few months ago Barack Obama was outed as a West Ham fan. And it didn’t affect his poll ratings at all. Apparently his family members in Kent are Hammers-crazy and when he visited them five or six years ago they won him over and he follows our fortunes excitedly.
If he is indeed the president by now, I would recommend that as one of his first actions of foreign policy he considers sending over an elite force to zap Sheffield United’s bosses. The British government doesn’t normally object to American interventions here (or anywhere else) – what with extraordinary rendition and all that – so I’m sure Gordon Brown will turn a blind eye. (I’m told he’s got one specially for that purpose).
This particular zapping action would achieve two objectives – it would give those annoying tossrags in Sheffield exactly what they so richly deserve and it would finally, after many decades, give me an American military intervention that I could support and wouldn’t feel obliged to take to the streets to protest against. Okay, I would have preferred it if Mandela, Castro or Chavez had declared their admiration for West Ham first, but Obama will do for now.
Just before we forget George Bush, let me tell you about an incident that happened recently, when a couple of his advisers found him chuckling away in the oval office, looking very pleased with himself.
“Yo George," they said, “what’s cooking?”
He replied, “I’ve finished my jigsaw in just two weeks”
“OK” one of his advisers said, “but Mr President we’ve got trouble in I-raq, we’ve got finance problems at home, how can you get so thrilled about doing a jigsaw puzzle in two weeks?”
“Look at the box boys,” replied Bush triumphantly. “Just here, it says 3-5 years!”
If Obama’s presidential slogan was “Change We Need”, then “Change We Got” is certainly our situation at Upton Park. The honeymoon period was short and after four defeats on the spin Zola took the team to Middlesborough facing his toughest managerial challenge. I admire his positivity. I like the way he talks about and to the players and his response to the fans. But November will be the defining month. That‘s when we come face to face with the kind of teams we could either be competing for 6th place with or scrapping to avoid relegation amongst.
Outside of the top four, its anybody’s league, with only Aston Villa showing the consistent form that should guarantee a high finish. But it could also be anybody’s fate – big clubs and small – to be involved in the relegation dogfight, including ours. It is especially tricky this year as there is no equivalent of Derby County. Stoke, who have looked relatively weak pulled off a great result against Arsenal, and the Spuds, who have been propping up the table much to our joy and mirth, have started to pick up several points with Harry the Geezer at the helm.
I guess we know now why Harry ruled himself out of a return to Upton Park. Why go to a club on the verge of bankruptcy when there’s another one down the road with money to burn? Harry is getting busy reinventing a mythical attachment to Spurs as a youngster. It’s bollox of course. He grew up near West Ham in an Arsenal supporting family. But let’s not allow facts to get in the way! And besides I still love the guy.
We should be looking for a minimum of 8 points from the four games in November if we are going to stake our claim to being part of the battle within the top half of the table. A point away at Middlesborough was a useful start, though we know it could have and should have been three.
I am impressed by Zola’s commitment to playing attacking football even when the results have gone against us – the total opposite of what Turdishley would have done. (I hear that Turdishley wants to sue for constructive dismissal – he probably has a case but they might counter-sue him for being a boring cnut, which is just a solid a case).
Whenever possible Zola has tried to play 4-3-3. I can’t help recalling how back in the swinging ‘60s when I first came here, we went one step further, playing 4-2-4, with Ronnie Boyce and Martin Peters in the midfield, and up front two wingers – Peter Brabrook and Johnny Sissons and two forwards – Johnny Byrne and Geoffrey Hurst. We swept forward quickly with such movement and style…
it’s OK I’ve woken up again and realised we’re in 2008. Of course, nobody would risk playing just two players in midfield these days, but three in midfield is possible, especially if they are quality players. We definitely have three quality midfielders in Behrami, Parker and Noble, and, with a big performance at Boro, Jack Collison showed he is quite a prospect too.
I had thought that Faubert was quality too but he is much too erratic.
Our major problem is that now we have Behrami and Noble out for a month we have a mixture of clowns like Bowyer and Boa Morte, and donkeys like Mullins as our replacements. Which is why, despite a very determined and disciplined performance against Arsenal, in which Robert Green was outstanding, we couldn’t hang on and eventually got overrun. (And by the way I think that Wenger’s fulsome praise for Greenie’s performance was a bit of fishing).
The Arse didn’t deserve to win by two goals, but apart from Di Michele’s sizzler that was turned over and Bellamy’s break where Flymetothemunia was fortunate to save with his leg, we didn’t threaten at all. If our midfield played tight with quick short passes, our forwards were too far apart and could rarely reach each other with the final ball.
Having given our all against Arsenal, the odds on a similar performance three days later, in front of 75,000 at the Mancs, were too long and we were completely outplayed. Still, by all accounts our second half performance sufficed to keep the score down and avoid total embarrassment.
I’ve been reluctant to criticize Zola because I think his approach is the right one – and he’s only little – but against Arsenal his substitutions were too late and they played in the wrong position. I can’t see any point at all in putting Etherington on the right wing.
But what must be giving Zola nightmares now is the recognition of how thin on quality our squad is. Given that our financial crisis rules out much happening in January (apart from me celebrating my birthday), then the way forward depends on Zola finding ways to develop and bring in the youngsters (which he did at Middlesborough), and on Steve Clarke tightening up the defence and giving the whole team the steely determination that he helped to drill into the players at Chelski.
And maybe that’s what we saw for most of the game at Middlesborough. The big improvement there was penetration up front, with Bellamy and Sears combining well enough to be a constant threat. This also meant that we didn’t need to bring on Tristan – who is still fighting for his fitness. In contrast to the handful of goal attempts over two games against the Arse and Manure, we had 15 goal attempts at Boro with 8 of them on target.
Everton will be a difficult game. Their season started badly and Moyes looked a worried man but with back-to-back wins without conceding over Bolton and Fulham preceded by a draw with the Mancs, they will arrive with their confidence restored. Hopefully we’ll have Scotty Parker back from injury and Tristan will have had another week to get match fit – both of which will increase our options.
The “Change We Need” today is a win and a clean sheet. I had an idea before the season started of changing and cleaning my sheets at home every time West Ham keep a clean sheet. I hoped that the power of telepathy would prove mutually beneficial and ensure regular clean sheets at our home, Upton Park, and my home, Tufnell Park. Another American who fought for change, Martin Luther King jr, said there is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come. So far this one has not proven to be my best idea. Enjoy the game. COYI!!!
By now we will know if one long-distance West Ham fan will be holding down the most powerful job in the world. While his enemies have tried to pin the labels “terrorist”, “muslim”, and “fanatic” on him, the evidence shows that his only true fanaticism is the one that we all share here at OLAS. A few months ago Barack Obama was outed as a West Ham fan. And it didn’t affect his poll ratings at all. Apparently his family members in Kent are Hammers-crazy and when he visited them five or six years ago they won him over and he follows our fortunes excitedly.
If he is indeed the president by now, I would recommend that as one of his first actions of foreign policy he considers sending over an elite force to zap Sheffield United’s bosses. The British government doesn’t normally object to American interventions here (or anywhere else) – what with extraordinary rendition and all that – so I’m sure Gordon Brown will turn a blind eye. (I’m told he’s got one specially for that purpose).
This particular zapping action would achieve two objectives – it would give those annoying tossrags in Sheffield exactly what they so richly deserve and it would finally, after many decades, give me an American military intervention that I could support and wouldn’t feel obliged to take to the streets to protest against. Okay, I would have preferred it if Mandela, Castro or Chavez had declared their admiration for West Ham first, but Obama will do for now.
Just before we forget George Bush, let me tell you about an incident that happened recently, when a couple of his advisers found him chuckling away in the oval office, looking very pleased with himself.
“Yo George," they said, “what’s cooking?”
He replied, “I’ve finished my jigsaw in just two weeks”
“OK” one of his advisers said, “but Mr President we’ve got trouble in I-raq, we’ve got finance problems at home, how can you get so thrilled about doing a jigsaw puzzle in two weeks?”
“Look at the box boys,” replied Bush triumphantly. “Just here, it says 3-5 years!”
If Obama’s presidential slogan was “Change We Need”, then “Change We Got” is certainly our situation at Upton Park. The honeymoon period was short and after four defeats on the spin Zola took the team to Middlesborough facing his toughest managerial challenge. I admire his positivity. I like the way he talks about and to the players and his response to the fans. But November will be the defining month. That‘s when we come face to face with the kind of teams we could either be competing for 6th place with or scrapping to avoid relegation amongst.
Outside of the top four, its anybody’s league, with only Aston Villa showing the consistent form that should guarantee a high finish. But it could also be anybody’s fate – big clubs and small – to be involved in the relegation dogfight, including ours. It is especially tricky this year as there is no equivalent of Derby County. Stoke, who have looked relatively weak pulled off a great result against Arsenal, and the Spuds, who have been propping up the table much to our joy and mirth, have started to pick up several points with Harry the Geezer at the helm.
I guess we know now why Harry ruled himself out of a return to Upton Park. Why go to a club on the verge of bankruptcy when there’s another one down the road with money to burn? Harry is getting busy reinventing a mythical attachment to Spurs as a youngster. It’s bollox of course. He grew up near West Ham in an Arsenal supporting family. But let’s not allow facts to get in the way! And besides I still love the guy.
We should be looking for a minimum of 8 points from the four games in November if we are going to stake our claim to being part of the battle within the top half of the table. A point away at Middlesborough was a useful start, though we know it could have and should have been three.
I am impressed by Zola’s commitment to playing attacking football even when the results have gone against us – the total opposite of what Turdishley would have done. (I hear that Turdishley wants to sue for constructive dismissal – he probably has a case but they might counter-sue him for being a boring cnut, which is just a solid a case).
Whenever possible Zola has tried to play 4-3-3. I can’t help recalling how back in the swinging ‘60s when I first came here, we went one step further, playing 4-2-4, with Ronnie Boyce and Martin Peters in the midfield, and up front two wingers – Peter Brabrook and Johnny Sissons and two forwards – Johnny Byrne and Geoffrey Hurst. We swept forward quickly with such movement and style…
it’s OK I’ve woken up again and realised we’re in 2008. Of course, nobody would risk playing just two players in midfield these days, but three in midfield is possible, especially if they are quality players. We definitely have three quality midfielders in Behrami, Parker and Noble, and, with a big performance at Boro, Jack Collison showed he is quite a prospect too.
I had thought that Faubert was quality too but he is much too erratic.
Our major problem is that now we have Behrami and Noble out for a month we have a mixture of clowns like Bowyer and Boa Morte, and donkeys like Mullins as our replacements. Which is why, despite a very determined and disciplined performance against Arsenal, in which Robert Green was outstanding, we couldn’t hang on and eventually got overrun. (And by the way I think that Wenger’s fulsome praise for Greenie’s performance was a bit of fishing).
The Arse didn’t deserve to win by two goals, but apart from Di Michele’s sizzler that was turned over and Bellamy’s break where Flymetothemunia was fortunate to save with his leg, we didn’t threaten at all. If our midfield played tight with quick short passes, our forwards were too far apart and could rarely reach each other with the final ball.
Having given our all against Arsenal, the odds on a similar performance three days later, in front of 75,000 at the Mancs, were too long and we were completely outplayed. Still, by all accounts our second half performance sufficed to keep the score down and avoid total embarrassment.
I’ve been reluctant to criticize Zola because I think his approach is the right one – and he’s only little – but against Arsenal his substitutions were too late and they played in the wrong position. I can’t see any point at all in putting Etherington on the right wing.
But what must be giving Zola nightmares now is the recognition of how thin on quality our squad is. Given that our financial crisis rules out much happening in January (apart from me celebrating my birthday), then the way forward depends on Zola finding ways to develop and bring in the youngsters (which he did at Middlesborough), and on Steve Clarke tightening up the defence and giving the whole team the steely determination that he helped to drill into the players at Chelski.
And maybe that’s what we saw for most of the game at Middlesborough. The big improvement there was penetration up front, with Bellamy and Sears combining well enough to be a constant threat. This also meant that we didn’t need to bring on Tristan – who is still fighting for his fitness. In contrast to the handful of goal attempts over two games against the Arse and Manure, we had 15 goal attempts at Boro with 8 of them on target.
Everton will be a difficult game. Their season started badly and Moyes looked a worried man but with back-to-back wins without conceding over Bolton and Fulham preceded by a draw with the Mancs, they will arrive with their confidence restored. Hopefully we’ll have Scotty Parker back from injury and Tristan will have had another week to get match fit – both of which will increase our options.
The “Change We Need” today is a win and a clean sheet. I had an idea before the season started of changing and cleaning my sheets at home every time West Ham keep a clean sheet. I hoped that the power of telepathy would prove mutually beneficial and ensure regular clean sheets at our home, Upton Park, and my home, Tufnell Park. Another American who fought for change, Martin Luther King jr, said there is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come. So far this one has not proven to be my best idea. Enjoy the game. COYI!!!
Monday, 27 October 2008
GIANFRANCO'S BAROMETER
OLAS 445 26 October 2008
How perfect would it have been to go into today’s game on the back of two winning performances? We arrive, instead, having suffered two successive defeats to average teams. Never mind, we are ready for Arsenal anyway. Arsenal’s defence is not as anally retentive as it once was and, in recent years we have enjoyed enough good results against them, home and away, to know that we can beat them. Pardew demonstrated for everyone the method to employ if you want to make Whinger lose his cool. Gianfranco is probably too much of a gent to use those tactics but he will know that the performances he can bring out of the players against the likes of the Arse and Manure the following week will be a barometer of how well he has stepped up to the demands of the premiership. Lots of teams treat points at the expense of the giants as bonus points. Bonus, shmonus – I’m confident we will get some.
Bad as the result was against Bolton, it was essentially down to two uncharacteristic and unforced errors by Rob Green, who is a consistently high performer. He won’t make errors like those again for many a moon. It was predictable that, after scoring early in each of our first three home games, a tough-minded team would come to Upton Park primarily to defend and keep as many players playing deep. Bolton did precisely that. For the first 25 minutes, though, we used crisp, short passes and purposeful one touch football attempting to drive a path through them. They restricted us mainly to shooting from a distance but some of these efforts were only just off target with the goalie beaten. I’ve no doubt that if we had scored first we would have gone on to win. Bolton would have been forced to chase the game and we would have found further opportunities.
As it is, their double strike in quick succession rocked us and the players were visibly disorientated. It was the kind of scenario that Steve Clarke ought to prepare the team for overcoming and I am sure, over time, he will. Zola made the right moves to try to retrieve the game – risking a three-man defence that only came unstuck right at the end. With more bite in the final third we would have got some reward from the game, even if some players (Etherington, Fuabert) were playing below par.
We didn’t succeed, but the game never felt beyond us until that storming third goal. And that strong sense that even when we were losing we could turn it around reminded me of our first season back with Pardew. Pards has his own problems these days at Charlton but his positivity and never-say-die attitude in 2005-6, and his desire that West Ham should play true to their traditions, has a new lease of life under Gianfranco and I am sure he will be pleased about that.
Curbishleyism is gone, the wasted passes across the field followed by the long hoof forward are gone and real football has returned. If our finishing was not so woeful at Hull we would have ran out easy winners. Bellamy and Cole need to sharpen up in front of goal. Certainly, if we are to get something from the game today and next week at Old Trafford, it can only be by playing real football and taking the few chances we will get.
Full credit to Hull, though, for riding their luck against us and winning so many points at this stage of their first premiership season. Good to see their fellow promoted club, Stoke, notch up a win at the weekend, too, though I can’t remember who it was that they beat. Oh yeah, now I remember!!! The only thing amazes me about Spurs this season is how they managed to get even two points.
It is such a warm and proud feeling to beat any premiership rival but it is especially fulfilling to beat the Arse. Undoubtedly, part of it is seeing Whinger shuffle around nervously like Mr Bean and then listening to him come out with his excuses scraped from the bottom of the barrel. He is Mr Bad Loser Number 1. And, to be honest, I can’t get away from my very first impression of him when I thought he looked like a cold-blooded Nazi bureaucrat – not the individual that personally commits mass murder, but the one who records it and checks that everything is in order and running smoothly.
We know from experience that everyone of us collectively – the crowd at Upton Park – can totally get underneath his skin and that of his players. So you know what is demanded of you today.
Blimey, that’s eight paragraphs and I’m still talking about the football on the pitch while the real story is, of course, the financial crash that is threatening the future of many clubs, not least ours. My friend Paul, for sins in a past life, I suspect, a Blackpool fan, reckons that West Ham would be better off purchasing their personnel from Iceland Supermarket than Iceland the country. He’s got a point. They offer family meals for £5 – so their football players and chairmen surely can’t cost that much more.
Of course the global financial crisis is not (that) funny, but I had to chuckle when I heard a newsreader say that, “Icelandic assets might be frozen”. I stated to imagine how painfully boring it would be to be a weatherman/woman on Icelandic TV: “Gott kvolld. A morgun vilja vera kuldi” - “Good evening: tomorrow will be cold (and the day after, and the day after, and the day after, and…) Á nótt það vilja vera frjósa. (At night it will be freezing!)”
No kidding. Still the word on the street is that our Mr Landsbanki will feel the pressure to cash in on his assets while he still can. And that is why we need to prepare ourselves for the name change.
I was chatting to my friend Ivor about an article I had read speculating that the financial crisis would force our Icelandic owner to sell and that a company from Abu Dhabi would be bidding to buy West Ham. For most of its existence West ham has typified the football club where one paternalistic local family business has remained in control, and players gave service to one club. These days it’s not just players but clubs too that are seen as short-tem disposable assets. Anyway, I said to Ivor that I thought, “this Abu Dhabi business wouldn’t be terribly keen on the ‘Ham’ in our name so we may have to become West Kebab.” I was only just stating to get used to our new name when Ivor said: “That will be East Kebab then – no, hang on, Middle-East Kebab!”.
So there we have it. A month from now, instead of West Ham United we could be “Middle East Kebab” – singing our new theme tune: “I’m forever roasting shwarma, gritty shwarma on a spit, it roasts so red, keeps us all well-fed, but my mate prefers felafel instead. Fortunes always hiding etc.” Okay it hasn’t got the pathos and underlying theme of proletarian resignation that “Bubbles” possesses, and it will take time to get used to it, but I’m sure we’ll adjust. We always do.
Anyway, dress warmly, make sure your assets don’t get frozen, keep up the pressure on Whinger and his team, and enjoy the game! COYI!!!
How perfect would it have been to go into today’s game on the back of two winning performances? We arrive, instead, having suffered two successive defeats to average teams. Never mind, we are ready for Arsenal anyway. Arsenal’s defence is not as anally retentive as it once was and, in recent years we have enjoyed enough good results against them, home and away, to know that we can beat them. Pardew demonstrated for everyone the method to employ if you want to make Whinger lose his cool. Gianfranco is probably too much of a gent to use those tactics but he will know that the performances he can bring out of the players against the likes of the Arse and Manure the following week will be a barometer of how well he has stepped up to the demands of the premiership. Lots of teams treat points at the expense of the giants as bonus points. Bonus, shmonus – I’m confident we will get some.
Bad as the result was against Bolton, it was essentially down to two uncharacteristic and unforced errors by Rob Green, who is a consistently high performer. He won’t make errors like those again for many a moon. It was predictable that, after scoring early in each of our first three home games, a tough-minded team would come to Upton Park primarily to defend and keep as many players playing deep. Bolton did precisely that. For the first 25 minutes, though, we used crisp, short passes and purposeful one touch football attempting to drive a path through them. They restricted us mainly to shooting from a distance but some of these efforts were only just off target with the goalie beaten. I’ve no doubt that if we had scored first we would have gone on to win. Bolton would have been forced to chase the game and we would have found further opportunities.
As it is, their double strike in quick succession rocked us and the players were visibly disorientated. It was the kind of scenario that Steve Clarke ought to prepare the team for overcoming and I am sure, over time, he will. Zola made the right moves to try to retrieve the game – risking a three-man defence that only came unstuck right at the end. With more bite in the final third we would have got some reward from the game, even if some players (Etherington, Fuabert) were playing below par.
We didn’t succeed, but the game never felt beyond us until that storming third goal. And that strong sense that even when we were losing we could turn it around reminded me of our first season back with Pardew. Pards has his own problems these days at Charlton but his positivity and never-say-die attitude in 2005-6, and his desire that West Ham should play true to their traditions, has a new lease of life under Gianfranco and I am sure he will be pleased about that.
Curbishleyism is gone, the wasted passes across the field followed by the long hoof forward are gone and real football has returned. If our finishing was not so woeful at Hull we would have ran out easy winners. Bellamy and Cole need to sharpen up in front of goal. Certainly, if we are to get something from the game today and next week at Old Trafford, it can only be by playing real football and taking the few chances we will get.
Full credit to Hull, though, for riding their luck against us and winning so many points at this stage of their first premiership season. Good to see their fellow promoted club, Stoke, notch up a win at the weekend, too, though I can’t remember who it was that they beat. Oh yeah, now I remember!!! The only thing amazes me about Spurs this season is how they managed to get even two points.
It is such a warm and proud feeling to beat any premiership rival but it is especially fulfilling to beat the Arse. Undoubtedly, part of it is seeing Whinger shuffle around nervously like Mr Bean and then listening to him come out with his excuses scraped from the bottom of the barrel. He is Mr Bad Loser Number 1. And, to be honest, I can’t get away from my very first impression of him when I thought he looked like a cold-blooded Nazi bureaucrat – not the individual that personally commits mass murder, but the one who records it and checks that everything is in order and running smoothly.
We know from experience that everyone of us collectively – the crowd at Upton Park – can totally get underneath his skin and that of his players. So you know what is demanded of you today.
Blimey, that’s eight paragraphs and I’m still talking about the football on the pitch while the real story is, of course, the financial crash that is threatening the future of many clubs, not least ours. My friend Paul, for sins in a past life, I suspect, a Blackpool fan, reckons that West Ham would be better off purchasing their personnel from Iceland Supermarket than Iceland the country. He’s got a point. They offer family meals for £5 – so their football players and chairmen surely can’t cost that much more.
Of course the global financial crisis is not (that) funny, but I had to chuckle when I heard a newsreader say that, “Icelandic assets might be frozen”. I stated to imagine how painfully boring it would be to be a weatherman/woman on Icelandic TV: “Gott kvolld. A morgun vilja vera kuldi” - “Good evening: tomorrow will be cold (and the day after, and the day after, and the day after, and…) Á nótt það vilja vera frjósa. (At night it will be freezing!)”
No kidding. Still the word on the street is that our Mr Landsbanki will feel the pressure to cash in on his assets while he still can. And that is why we need to prepare ourselves for the name change.
I was chatting to my friend Ivor about an article I had read speculating that the financial crisis would force our Icelandic owner to sell and that a company from Abu Dhabi would be bidding to buy West Ham. For most of its existence West ham has typified the football club where one paternalistic local family business has remained in control, and players gave service to one club. These days it’s not just players but clubs too that are seen as short-tem disposable assets. Anyway, I said to Ivor that I thought, “this Abu Dhabi business wouldn’t be terribly keen on the ‘Ham’ in our name so we may have to become West Kebab.” I was only just stating to get used to our new name when Ivor said: “That will be East Kebab then – no, hang on, Middle-East Kebab!”.
So there we have it. A month from now, instead of West Ham United we could be “Middle East Kebab” – singing our new theme tune: “I’m forever roasting shwarma, gritty shwarma on a spit, it roasts so red, keeps us all well-fed, but my mate prefers felafel instead. Fortunes always hiding etc.” Okay it hasn’t got the pathos and underlying theme of proletarian resignation that “Bubbles” possesses, and it will take time to get used to it, but I’m sure we’ll adjust. We always do.
Anyway, dress warmly, make sure your assets don’t get frozen, keep up the pressure on Whinger and his team, and enjoy the game! COYI!!!
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
THE SECRET IS OUT
OLAS 444 Sunday 5th October
It’s a closely guarded secret but I can reveal that our next sponsors are going to be “Debtsure” – the UK debt solutions specialists whose catchy slogan is “we can clear 70% of your debts”. They have won the contract just ahead of the Consumer Credit Counselling Service – “a registered charity offering free confidential advice and support to anyone who is worried about debt”, who themselves just about pipped Scott Duxbury’s first choice – Lehman Brothers – that right bunch of bankers. So, all you Hammers can look forward to ordering your shirts again without the discredited XL which has flown into the ground. Now we will have the words “Debtsure; Paying off those bastards in Sheffield very slowly”, proudly emblazoned on our chests and pie-filled tummies.
There was never any doubt that the dodgy South American deal was going to come back and bite us on the arse and the rumours are it could cost us £30million or more, though I suspect the actual amount will be smaller. One of the problems about it is that we won’t know for a while. It is unlikely to be confirmed until well into the new year, and unless we also imported large quantities of drugs from South America at the same time or there is a pot of gold that one of our directors has been keeping for such a rainy day, it certainly puts paid to any interesting forays into the transfer market in January. The best that we can hope for there is to pick up inflated prices for some of our dummies and to get a couple more loan players. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing. Di Michele and Ilunga are settling in well and making their mark.
When it comes to assessing the merits of the compensation claim, there is no doubt that the whiff of hypocrisy is all around, What is so different about the arrangements that Man U or Liverpool have made with Honest Kia Joorabchian for Tevez and Mascherano? Who owns the players now? And why were Sheffield United so quiet when we were languishing in bottom place for so long that awful season? Now, I might be a bit mutton, but was there even a teeny-weeny peep out of them when they thumped us 3-0 in April 2007 with Tevez playing, and barely a few matches left? Sheffield United went down not because of Tevez but because they were crap. They may deserve pity for being crap, but nobody deserves compensation for being crap.
If West Ham don’t succeed in getting this judgement overturned in a higher court, if such a challenge is permissible, then the floodgates will truly open, as all sorts of compensation claims will be made against referees making strange decisions, tea-ladies dishing up dodgy sandwiches, Michael Fish for saying it wouldn’t rain, and God-knows-who, seen as unfairly responsible for teams gong down. It may not be much of a time to be a banker or a venture capitalist at the moment, but, if this judgement stays, it promises to be a bumper time to be a lawyer.
None of this excuses Hammers involvement in such transparently spiv-like businesses (no offence intended to any spivs that are reading, apparently there are one or two in East London ), but it is a jungle out there and those running the club should have known better than to get drawn into its “anything goes” practices that are the jungle norm.
Despite all these matters, on the field it’s going pretty well. Four wins out of six is a fabulous start. With two of the teams that finished above us last year – Everton and Portsmouth – making very stuttering starts to their campaigns, and Hull currently holding down a top-half place that won’t last, we have every incentive to attempt what looked very unlikely at the start of the season – a European place.
There were many who felt that the Popular Front for the Liberation of West Ham from the Deadweight of Curbishleyism, of which I was a leading propagandist and activist, overdid it, were too harsh and damning and far too negative. But when you witness the cultural change that Zola has brought within just a couple of weeks, the Popular Front know that the ends justified the means. And besides, we didn’t kill him.
In that short time Zola has liberated the players and the fans. Football is coming home at Upton Park. In a day and age when, unfortunately, the word “academy” has been tainted and means little more than some grubby little capitalist getting their grubby little paws on a school building and the land around it, then converting some of the classrooms into luxury flats for a quick buck, and attempting to squeeze more profits out of education, the “academy of football” is starting to mean something again.
When I saw us nestling in 5th place in the league table after the win at Fulham, for the first time in ages I checked to see who was above us that we could possibly catch rather than worry about who was below us. At the beginning of the season I was dreading October 26th when we are home to Arsenal. I work in a school dominated by Gooners, and under Curbishley I was expecting us to be trounced – the only compensation being that it was the beginning of half-term and the kids may have forgotten about it by the time we came back. But now I hear myself screaming “Bring it on!” – I wish we were playing them this week. When we do face them I doubt there will be many points between us. Mind you we do have to play Hull next week…
Earlier this season I was bemoaning the lack of quality in depth in the squad and gave examples of players who were tryers but just not up to it. Mattie and Natalie fell into that bracket then, but look at them now and you have two highly motivated players, desperate to to do well, really working at their game and improving all the time. Why, even Lucas Neill looks motivated (I didn’t say he’s any better, just more motivated) And Zola’s insistence that the players enjoy playing, and won’t get bollocked for giving the ball away if they are trying to play good football, is giving them the freedom to improvise and entertain. Our Saturday afternoons are filled with excitement and anticipation again. Thank you Gianfranco. And Curbishley, you boring little man, if you are awake, look and learn.
Today I fancy we are in for a tough game. Three wins out of three at home means that teams are going to come here very defensively-minded and seek a goal on the break. Bolton are dull as shite but look a bit more solid than they did a year ago. I’m sure Steve Clarke is working hard at tightening up our defensive play but he can only work with the material he has got and I’m not convinced we have a solid partnership in defence yet. In terms of attack Zola has shown that he is keen to use the wings and the key to unlocking defensively-minded teams will surely be to use the full width of the pitch to stretch them and also have players like Di Michele drawing players to him, then weaving some magic on the ground. I haven’t made any match predictions this season yet, so there is no harm in me saying 1-0, goal by Mark Noble – I might even put money on it. Enjoy the game – I do these days! COYI!!!
It’s a closely guarded secret but I can reveal that our next sponsors are going to be “Debtsure” – the UK debt solutions specialists whose catchy slogan is “we can clear 70% of your debts”. They have won the contract just ahead of the Consumer Credit Counselling Service – “a registered charity offering free confidential advice and support to anyone who is worried about debt”, who themselves just about pipped Scott Duxbury’s first choice – Lehman Brothers – that right bunch of bankers. So, all you Hammers can look forward to ordering your shirts again without the discredited XL which has flown into the ground. Now we will have the words “Debtsure; Paying off those bastards in Sheffield very slowly”, proudly emblazoned on our chests and pie-filled tummies.
There was never any doubt that the dodgy South American deal was going to come back and bite us on the arse and the rumours are it could cost us £30million or more, though I suspect the actual amount will be smaller. One of the problems about it is that we won’t know for a while. It is unlikely to be confirmed until well into the new year, and unless we also imported large quantities of drugs from South America at the same time or there is a pot of gold that one of our directors has been keeping for such a rainy day, it certainly puts paid to any interesting forays into the transfer market in January. The best that we can hope for there is to pick up inflated prices for some of our dummies and to get a couple more loan players. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing. Di Michele and Ilunga are settling in well and making their mark.
When it comes to assessing the merits of the compensation claim, there is no doubt that the whiff of hypocrisy is all around, What is so different about the arrangements that Man U or Liverpool have made with Honest Kia Joorabchian for Tevez and Mascherano? Who owns the players now? And why were Sheffield United so quiet when we were languishing in bottom place for so long that awful season? Now, I might be a bit mutton, but was there even a teeny-weeny peep out of them when they thumped us 3-0 in April 2007 with Tevez playing, and barely a few matches left? Sheffield United went down not because of Tevez but because they were crap. They may deserve pity for being crap, but nobody deserves compensation for being crap.
If West Ham don’t succeed in getting this judgement overturned in a higher court, if such a challenge is permissible, then the floodgates will truly open, as all sorts of compensation claims will be made against referees making strange decisions, tea-ladies dishing up dodgy sandwiches, Michael Fish for saying it wouldn’t rain, and God-knows-who, seen as unfairly responsible for teams gong down. It may not be much of a time to be a banker or a venture capitalist at the moment, but, if this judgement stays, it promises to be a bumper time to be a lawyer.
None of this excuses Hammers involvement in such transparently spiv-like businesses (no offence intended to any spivs that are reading, apparently there are one or two in East London ), but it is a jungle out there and those running the club should have known better than to get drawn into its “anything goes” practices that are the jungle norm.
Despite all these matters, on the field it’s going pretty well. Four wins out of six is a fabulous start. With two of the teams that finished above us last year – Everton and Portsmouth – making very stuttering starts to their campaigns, and Hull currently holding down a top-half place that won’t last, we have every incentive to attempt what looked very unlikely at the start of the season – a European place.
There were many who felt that the Popular Front for the Liberation of West Ham from the Deadweight of Curbishleyism, of which I was a leading propagandist and activist, overdid it, were too harsh and damning and far too negative. But when you witness the cultural change that Zola has brought within just a couple of weeks, the Popular Front know that the ends justified the means. And besides, we didn’t kill him.
In that short time Zola has liberated the players and the fans. Football is coming home at Upton Park. In a day and age when, unfortunately, the word “academy” has been tainted and means little more than some grubby little capitalist getting their grubby little paws on a school building and the land around it, then converting some of the classrooms into luxury flats for a quick buck, and attempting to squeeze more profits out of education, the “academy of football” is starting to mean something again.
When I saw us nestling in 5th place in the league table after the win at Fulham, for the first time in ages I checked to see who was above us that we could possibly catch rather than worry about who was below us. At the beginning of the season I was dreading October 26th when we are home to Arsenal. I work in a school dominated by Gooners, and under Curbishley I was expecting us to be trounced – the only compensation being that it was the beginning of half-term and the kids may have forgotten about it by the time we came back. But now I hear myself screaming “Bring it on!” – I wish we were playing them this week. When we do face them I doubt there will be many points between us. Mind you we do have to play Hull next week…
Earlier this season I was bemoaning the lack of quality in depth in the squad and gave examples of players who were tryers but just not up to it. Mattie and Natalie fell into that bracket then, but look at them now and you have two highly motivated players, desperate to to do well, really working at their game and improving all the time. Why, even Lucas Neill looks motivated (I didn’t say he’s any better, just more motivated) And Zola’s insistence that the players enjoy playing, and won’t get bollocked for giving the ball away if they are trying to play good football, is giving them the freedom to improvise and entertain. Our Saturday afternoons are filled with excitement and anticipation again. Thank you Gianfranco. And Curbishley, you boring little man, if you are awake, look and learn.
Today I fancy we are in for a tough game. Three wins out of three at home means that teams are going to come here very defensively-minded and seek a goal on the break. Bolton are dull as shite but look a bit more solid than they did a year ago. I’m sure Steve Clarke is working hard at tightening up our defensive play but he can only work with the material he has got and I’m not convinced we have a solid partnership in defence yet. In terms of attack Zola has shown that he is keen to use the wings and the key to unlocking defensively-minded teams will surely be to use the full width of the pitch to stretch them and also have players like Di Michele drawing players to him, then weaving some magic on the ground. I haven’t made any match predictions this season yet, so there is no harm in me saying 1-0, goal by Mark Noble – I might even put money on it. Enjoy the game – I do these days! COYI!!!
Saturday, 20 September 2008
CAT AMONG THE PIGEONS
OLAS 443 20th September 2008
When our next-door neighbours set off to France for a week recently they asked if we could pop in and feed their cats. They’ve got two cats – the smaller one, Hetty, is a bit nervous and walks a bit awkwardly. She reminds me a bit of Louis Boa Morte, and that’s on a good day, but the bigger one who is undoubtedly the boss, is a tough guy, quick and bullish, very determined, and he’s called Zola. You can imagine my surprise when I found out that this cat, which we’ve been feeding, had been appointed the manager at West Ham. That’s put a cat among the pigeons I thought, but, having seen the pictures in the papers, I realise it’s not him after all. Yes, he’s bullish and determined, but the one they’ve appointed is smaller and without whiskers and speaks Italian (at the end of a conversation he says ciao not meaowww).
Though I’m disappointed not to be actually living next door to the new manager I’m both surprised and satisfied with the choice. But isn’t it so West Ham that the day after he’s appointed the headlines declare that West Ham’s sponsors have gone down the tubes, that XL have reduced beyond medium and even beyond extra small. The West Ham website were quick to announce that “West Ham United have terminated the relationship with XL Holidays with immediate effect”…just under a headline bar with the XL logo! (left hand…right hand… know… what… doing…)
So who will be our next sponsors? There must be some likelihood of an Italian firm stepping in – what do you reckon, Gucci, Armani, Zabaglione, Prada, Versace…and will our dear old fans live up to the image? Only, every time I saw supporters on the box being interviewed about the demise of Curbishley and speculating about the new appointment, they were invariably pear-shaped balding geezers from Romford in tracksuit tops who looked as if they ate their Mars bars sideways. They were hardly fahionistas. Still, all that might change, and sharp suits and flowing low-cut frocks – in claret and blue of course – might become the regular match day clobber.
So goodbye Curbs. The board treated you like shit. They deliberately undermined you to make you walk, rather than require protracted dealings over a contract buy-out. You didn’t deserve that, but to be honest we didn’t deserve the worst style of football I’ve seen at Upton Park over four decades that you were responsible for. You made no attempt to relate to the fans who are the heart of the club. You set your (rather dopey) face against meeting what we, the fans, had a right to ask for and expect – exciting attacking football played by fit, motivated players. Your negative style of management clearly underwhelmed and demotivated the players. Petulance, pessimism, excuses and platitudes were all you had left to offer us. Your media interviews were always an embarrassment. And given that your idea of a good transfer target was one of the walking wounded, you gave the board every excuse to stop trusting you in the transfer market.
Where do you go from here? I don’t know. I’ve not worked in careers advice but, if I did, I might put you forward to counsel people with a sleep problem.
How you managed to bow out with West Ham putting four goals past opponents who finished higher than us last year will remain one of history’s great imponderables, alongside how someone with a brain the size of a walnut gets to be president of the USA.
We deserved our early lead but after Blackburn pulled one back – from some truly dreadful defending – we were hanging on. A dubious annulment of a decent goal, Rob Green’s stupendous penalty save, just about good enough performances by several players, with Mark Noble outstanding, and the adaptability of the team, kept us in the lead until the 90th minute. But when the 4th official held up the board announcing five minutes of injury time we all feared the worse. Then, suddenly there was bedlam. A belter from Bellamy, and a tap in from Cole after terrific work by Behrami and we’ve run out 4-1 winners. We can’t explain it but we’ve just got to accept it.
Now Zola excites me (the manager – not the cat next door). He was a gem of a player who knew how to upset and terrorise opponents with skill and power, creativity and surprise and I am sure that these are the elements that he will endeavour to instil within the players we have. I’m also glad that he’s been working with the Italian under-21s as that experience will help him develop our younger players here. Within a few weeks here, I expect to see Deano getting the service he needs on the ground, Scotty Parker going forward instead of backwards or in circles, wing players running to the byline or cutting inside to set up chances, and an all round desire to run for each other and make opportunities.
With the likelihood of Chelsea’s Steve Clarke joining him too, you’ve got to wonder whether some quality players over in West London, finding it hard to establish a regular first team place there, might relish the opportunity of reuniting with Zola and Clarke in January. Of course the big prize would be the return of Joe Cole – the nearest thing we ever had to a player of Zola’s style and quality – highly unlikely in the extreme but a little less unlikely than a couple of weeks ago.
Before the appointment was made there was a clamour among many fans for Di Canio to return. if we were going to go for an inexperienced manager then why not go for one who has West Ham etched on his soul? One whose volatility is his distilled desire to emerge triumphant in every game; a player whose love affair with Hammers fans was genuine and heartfelt?
I was decidedly not one of those joining this clamour. I loved the way Paolo played football, and never for a moment doubted his yearning to win whatever is possible for the club, but frankly, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with the club I love being managed by someone whose idea of relaxation is settling down with a first edition of Mussolini’s writings. Someone who denies they are racist but is happy to call themselves a fascist. As OLAS columnist Mark Walker reminds us every so often, we have enough of the Barking Tendency close to home already.
So what persuaded our Board to go for Zola? At least some of them had clearly set their sights on Bilic but, no doubt, Zola was not in a position experience-wise to put in a similar wage demand to Bilic. So Zola was attractive as a relatively cheaper option. Other Italians were in the running too, but a serious factor, ultimately, was the Board belatedly showing that it recognised the overwhelming demand by the fans to appoint someone who will put attacking play back where it belongs in the football academy. Somehow, that sentiment got across, probably through those who have stayed away. Declining season ticket sales, empty seats, the lowest gate for 16 years for a league cup game, showed that we are not mugs prepared to tolerate anything out of loyalty. And in these credit crunch days our abstinence is their financial loss.
I am sure the board have still got their sights on making a mint out of selling the land under Upton Park and building a bigger stadium elsewhere. They know there is a loyal fan-base out there that can be mobilised – and as long as match-day prices don’t keep escalating and we have a team playing entertaining football, you could get 45,000 punters regularly (though I would rather they were squeezed in to a fully developed Upton park).
So there was a convergence of the fans desire, articulated through many voices, the Board’s desire not to pay over the odds, and their acknowledgement that there is a connection between what is delivered on the pitch and our desire to keep paying to see it.
Whatever the motivations involved we have a result that ought to get all Hammers fans’ juices flowing. We should welcome Zola with open arms but also cut him some slack to make some mistakes in the first few games without us getting on his back. Also, we need a grown-up attitude to the Chelsea business. He loved Chelsea and I am sure he still does. We hate Chelsea. But he is here and this is his first managerial post in the premiership. He will be desperate to succeed and that has got to be good for us.
Zola has come early in the season where two wins and two defeats have given us a top half position. Perhaps we should have got more at West Brom, but given the background factors that was always going to be a difficult game. What was heartening though are the statistics for the number of shots (21) and the number of those on target (13). This was not West Ham playing safe, a la Turdishley. We were going for a win on the road. We fell short but it could have gone either way and credit to Kevin Keen for motivating them. Also after four games we have an average of scoring two per game – compared with barely one per game last year.
Today Newcastle come along and the players will be feeling energised to put in a top performance. Come 5 o’clock, Zola the cat will be stretching out on the lawn for a sleep, but my guess is that Zola the manager will be celebrating his first success and the start of a new West Ham era.
Ciao/meaow, COYI
When our next-door neighbours set off to France for a week recently they asked if we could pop in and feed their cats. They’ve got two cats – the smaller one, Hetty, is a bit nervous and walks a bit awkwardly. She reminds me a bit of Louis Boa Morte, and that’s on a good day, but the bigger one who is undoubtedly the boss, is a tough guy, quick and bullish, very determined, and he’s called Zola. You can imagine my surprise when I found out that this cat, which we’ve been feeding, had been appointed the manager at West Ham. That’s put a cat among the pigeons I thought, but, having seen the pictures in the papers, I realise it’s not him after all. Yes, he’s bullish and determined, but the one they’ve appointed is smaller and without whiskers and speaks Italian (at the end of a conversation he says ciao not meaowww).
Though I’m disappointed not to be actually living next door to the new manager I’m both surprised and satisfied with the choice. But isn’t it so West Ham that the day after he’s appointed the headlines declare that West Ham’s sponsors have gone down the tubes, that XL have reduced beyond medium and even beyond extra small. The West Ham website were quick to announce that “West Ham United have terminated the relationship with XL Holidays with immediate effect”…just under a headline bar with the XL logo! (left hand…right hand… know… what… doing…)
So who will be our next sponsors? There must be some likelihood of an Italian firm stepping in – what do you reckon, Gucci, Armani, Zabaglione, Prada, Versace…and will our dear old fans live up to the image? Only, every time I saw supporters on the box being interviewed about the demise of Curbishley and speculating about the new appointment, they were invariably pear-shaped balding geezers from Romford in tracksuit tops who looked as if they ate their Mars bars sideways. They were hardly fahionistas. Still, all that might change, and sharp suits and flowing low-cut frocks – in claret and blue of course – might become the regular match day clobber.
So goodbye Curbs. The board treated you like shit. They deliberately undermined you to make you walk, rather than require protracted dealings over a contract buy-out. You didn’t deserve that, but to be honest we didn’t deserve the worst style of football I’ve seen at Upton Park over four decades that you were responsible for. You made no attempt to relate to the fans who are the heart of the club. You set your (rather dopey) face against meeting what we, the fans, had a right to ask for and expect – exciting attacking football played by fit, motivated players. Your negative style of management clearly underwhelmed and demotivated the players. Petulance, pessimism, excuses and platitudes were all you had left to offer us. Your media interviews were always an embarrassment. And given that your idea of a good transfer target was one of the walking wounded, you gave the board every excuse to stop trusting you in the transfer market.
Where do you go from here? I don’t know. I’ve not worked in careers advice but, if I did, I might put you forward to counsel people with a sleep problem.
How you managed to bow out with West Ham putting four goals past opponents who finished higher than us last year will remain one of history’s great imponderables, alongside how someone with a brain the size of a walnut gets to be president of the USA.
We deserved our early lead but after Blackburn pulled one back – from some truly dreadful defending – we were hanging on. A dubious annulment of a decent goal, Rob Green’s stupendous penalty save, just about good enough performances by several players, with Mark Noble outstanding, and the adaptability of the team, kept us in the lead until the 90th minute. But when the 4th official held up the board announcing five minutes of injury time we all feared the worse. Then, suddenly there was bedlam. A belter from Bellamy, and a tap in from Cole after terrific work by Behrami and we’ve run out 4-1 winners. We can’t explain it but we’ve just got to accept it.
Now Zola excites me (the manager – not the cat next door). He was a gem of a player who knew how to upset and terrorise opponents with skill and power, creativity and surprise and I am sure that these are the elements that he will endeavour to instil within the players we have. I’m also glad that he’s been working with the Italian under-21s as that experience will help him develop our younger players here. Within a few weeks here, I expect to see Deano getting the service he needs on the ground, Scotty Parker going forward instead of backwards or in circles, wing players running to the byline or cutting inside to set up chances, and an all round desire to run for each other and make opportunities.
With the likelihood of Chelsea’s Steve Clarke joining him too, you’ve got to wonder whether some quality players over in West London, finding it hard to establish a regular first team place there, might relish the opportunity of reuniting with Zola and Clarke in January. Of course the big prize would be the return of Joe Cole – the nearest thing we ever had to a player of Zola’s style and quality – highly unlikely in the extreme but a little less unlikely than a couple of weeks ago.
Before the appointment was made there was a clamour among many fans for Di Canio to return. if we were going to go for an inexperienced manager then why not go for one who has West Ham etched on his soul? One whose volatility is his distilled desire to emerge triumphant in every game; a player whose love affair with Hammers fans was genuine and heartfelt?
I was decidedly not one of those joining this clamour. I loved the way Paolo played football, and never for a moment doubted his yearning to win whatever is possible for the club, but frankly, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with the club I love being managed by someone whose idea of relaxation is settling down with a first edition of Mussolini’s writings. Someone who denies they are racist but is happy to call themselves a fascist. As OLAS columnist Mark Walker reminds us every so often, we have enough of the Barking Tendency close to home already.
So what persuaded our Board to go for Zola? At least some of them had clearly set their sights on Bilic but, no doubt, Zola was not in a position experience-wise to put in a similar wage demand to Bilic. So Zola was attractive as a relatively cheaper option. Other Italians were in the running too, but a serious factor, ultimately, was the Board belatedly showing that it recognised the overwhelming demand by the fans to appoint someone who will put attacking play back where it belongs in the football academy. Somehow, that sentiment got across, probably through those who have stayed away. Declining season ticket sales, empty seats, the lowest gate for 16 years for a league cup game, showed that we are not mugs prepared to tolerate anything out of loyalty. And in these credit crunch days our abstinence is their financial loss.
I am sure the board have still got their sights on making a mint out of selling the land under Upton Park and building a bigger stadium elsewhere. They know there is a loyal fan-base out there that can be mobilised – and as long as match-day prices don’t keep escalating and we have a team playing entertaining football, you could get 45,000 punters regularly (though I would rather they were squeezed in to a fully developed Upton park).
So there was a convergence of the fans desire, articulated through many voices, the Board’s desire not to pay over the odds, and their acknowledgement that there is a connection between what is delivered on the pitch and our desire to keep paying to see it.
Whatever the motivations involved we have a result that ought to get all Hammers fans’ juices flowing. We should welcome Zola with open arms but also cut him some slack to make some mistakes in the first few games without us getting on his back. Also, we need a grown-up attitude to the Chelsea business. He loved Chelsea and I am sure he still does. We hate Chelsea. But he is here and this is his first managerial post in the premiership. He will be desperate to succeed and that has got to be good for us.
Zola has come early in the season where two wins and two defeats have given us a top half position. Perhaps we should have got more at West Brom, but given the background factors that was always going to be a difficult game. What was heartening though are the statistics for the number of shots (21) and the number of those on target (13). This was not West Ham playing safe, a la Turdishley. We were going for a win on the road. We fell short but it could have gone either way and credit to Kevin Keen for motivating them. Also after four games we have an average of scoring two per game – compared with barely one per game last year.
Today Newcastle come along and the players will be feeling energised to put in a top performance. Come 5 o’clock, Zola the cat will be stretching out on the lawn for a sleep, but my guess is that Zola the manager will be celebrating his first success and the start of a new West Ham era.
Ciao/meaow, COYI
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