OLAS 478, February 10th 2010
Of course you shouldn’t stereotype people but I never had David Sullivan down as a Buddhist. His discussions of noble truths have tended to indicate more of an East End philosophy than an Eastern one. Still it is reckoned to be the world’s fourth largest religion with up to 500 million followers, so you are bound to encounter one of them when you least expect it. They don’t all wear robes and sit with their legs impossibly crossed and their feet resting on their knees, humming “om”. And as any Buddhist worth their reincarnation will tell you: “The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.”
Sullivan’s meditation after the nauseating Eidur Gudjohnsen affair was pretty crystal though: “What goes around comes around. I believe in karma.”
And didn’t we get a taste of karma at Burnley. The stats may show that we had twice as many attempts on goal as them, hit the woodwork twice, and had a goal disallowed for offside, but the final result does not lie. And it felt like payback time for that strange game back in November when we ghosted into an undeserved five-goal lead and then almost contrived to throw it all away in the final 20 minutes to the point where we were desperate for the ref to blow the final whistle to save us from any further embarrassment. It is hard to believe we would have held on for a further 10 minutes without conceding more. Despite Burnley’s defence being asleep for the first hour, a very ordinary bunch of players, just up from the championship, ran us ragged near the end and there was little to choose between the teams even though we emerged as 5-3 victors.
What has happened especially in the last couple of weeks ought to have lifted the whole club. Given far more financial security than seemed possible, and having dipped into new funds to emerge with more players after the transfer window, we had every reason to look forward to the Burnley trip with hope and expectation. Only I had a sneaky feeling it would all come back to bite us on the arse. And so it proved; our cockney backsides were well and truly munched.
Like alternative comedians and politicians, Buddhists like to go in for mystical one-liners. One renowned Buddhist quote is: “The greatest effort is not concerned with results”. Somehow I don’t think that is the after-match comment that Sullivan would have been sharing with his partner in grime David Gold.
More likely they would have been discussing how much patience they were really willing to show in a management team that has undoubtedly been operating under severe external pressures, but have now got an opportunity to prove themselves, and so far are coming up short. Zola might say he’s always going to come up short but I don’t mean Iike that. I like Zola and Clarke and remain confident they will prove their worth but they seem to have inexplicably retreated from the refreshing and dynamic approach which they began with last year. They need to remember who they are and what they believe in.
Zola and Clarke inherited a club of stupendous attacking tradition that had been reduced to a soporific bore by the deadweight of Curbishley – possibly the most boring and expressionless person on the planet. He had them playing sideways and backwards and sideways and backwards, with the occasional long hopeful punt to huff and puff and chase after.
The Italian Job and the Flying Scotsman offered an exciting alternative. They bought back the traditions of fast, skilful attacking play for which we were rightly renowned. And although early results went against them they persevered and took us forward. We only just missed a European place, which given how thin the squad was, was probably a mercy, but that is precisely what we should have been challenging for this year instead of fighting a relegation battle.
But our management team have made a giant leap backwards this season. The approach play they direct is stilted and so predictable. There has often been a lone striker with no-one remotely near them, and no passion or excitement in our play save for flashes from Diamanti, and when he’s not been injured, from Zavon Hines. More often than not they have started with four central midfielders, with no pace on the wings and little width at all.
I can’t speak from personal experience of the away games, but at Upton Park, the only game this season where I’ve seen us play with genuine attacking flair was the 3-2 home defeat to Liverpool. And the wrong conclusions were drawn from it. Instead of relishing an exciting attacking performance that merited at least a share of the spoils against a team with vastly more experience and resources, Z&C seemed determined the tighten things up rather than take risks of losing more points. So we became less threatening to any opposition of any level, and the toll of injuries reduced our options even further.
But even given these limitations beyond their control, Zola and Clarke have also been responsible for disastrously bad decisions about which eleven players to put on the pitch, not least when that eleven has included Kojak and Spectator.
The most charitable comment you can make about Kovac is that he tries hard, but his skill is in inverse relationship to his height – and he’s a tall bastard. Spector is a pile of shite (at best), and even if Ilunga has been frequently injured and unavailable, it is clear we should be going with Daprella, a young but more skilful defender who can also attack with confidence.
On the fans’ websites the siren voices are stepping up their calls for Zola’s head. But some of their anger and frustration is completely misdirected. He has been seriously let down by two key members of our youth brigade whom we had come to regard as rising stars, and I have personally had immense faith in. Collison, consistently played out of position on the right flank, has put in several under-par performances and, with a couple of exceptions, Noble has been atrociously slow and poor every game he’s played this season. Perhaps now that the squad has been strengthened both could do with a period on the bench to recover their motivation and come back sharp and more determined.
Horrible though this season has been, our situation is not as bad as it could be and the transfer window has definitely left us in better shape. At the beginning of January I was resigned to losing at least one of our (underperforming) stars. I wouldn’t believe Scott Duxbury to accurately, and with honesty and conviction, describe the colours of a Zebra, let alone believe any of his claims that no-one is going anywhere. Gilbert and Sullivan have confirmed that without their input, the club’s finances could have gone totally tits-up, so to speak, and players would have been sold, despite any of Ducksbrain’s “promises”, to service the ever spiralling debts.
Naturally, speculation by journalists linked us to any number of unlikely players during the transfer window, but we all hoped we might end up with one or two new faces. To grab three experienced forwards, all capable of finding the net, at the fag end of the window and without breaking the bank, was a triumph. To believe, though, that we could afford to put all our efforts to recruit new players in the striker department though was surely a mistake – and it was surprising that more determination wasn’t apparently shown to capture a solid right back or give more experienced back up for Green in goal.
Despite or perhaps because of his desperation to be noticed by Capello, Green’s form has been pretty erratic and maybe he could do with a rest. And while I admire his quick reflexes and shot-stopping agility I could certainly do with a rest from watching him flap about when it comes to crosses. I’ve also got my health to think about. Sure he is pretty resilient physically and tends to shake off injuries quickly, but we are placing a lot of unwarranted faith in that situation to continue.
So far I’ve avoided commenting on the Blackburn game. I worry that if I start I won’t stop. Suffice to say that it was one of the worst and most tepid and pathetic performances I have ever seen at Upton Park since our last relegation season. Except for the fact that the final whistle eventually blew and we could all go home, it was without one redeeming feature. But I know that my fellow righteous monk Sullivan will want me to follow the mantra that states: “Do not speak unless it improves on silence,” and say no more about that dreadful afternoon.
That’s quite a handy mantra though - one that some of our politicians like Blair at the Chilcot enquiry, might have followed too, come to think of it.
And so to tonight where our new boys have a chance to shine under the floodlights in front of our home crowd. I would dearly like to get one over Birmingham, if only to wipe the smarmy smile of Lee Bowyer’s boat. I’ve no regrets about him going and didn’t want him here in the first place. He’s certainly landed on his feet there, and Birmingham are sitting comfortably where we ought to be in this league. They are a tight defensive unit and have proved to be hard to beat this year. They have also nicked several games by a single goal. But, firing on all cylinders, we should be more than a match for them.
My final meditation tonight. Try wrapping your toes round your shoulders and whispering this:” Do not pursue the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. The past no longer is. The future has not yet come. We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late.”
And you better believe it because if you end up down in the championship basement there is no reincarnation. Enjoy the game. And come on Zola – defy the doubters, play the attacking game you know so well and we will start to celebrate some victories. Ommmmmmm….COYI!!!!
Monday, 22 March 2010
Partners in grime
OLAS 477, January 30th 2010
As if there are not already enough Daves or Davids writing for OLAS we’ve now got two of them running the club. One smiles like a Cheshire cat who doesn’t just lick the cream but seems to own all the cream, and the other looks more like a Goliath than a David but has considerably worse dress sense than his biblical counterpart. That claret blazer Sullivan was pictured in the day the two David’s took over was almost as embarrassing for any observer to look as it must have been to wear. Money can do a lot of things but it can’t make Sullivan look any different.
It is high time that sociologists, anthropologists and scientists put their heads together and started to study the “Dave” phenomenon and find out whether it is really true that being given this moniker makes you more likely to support West Ham. My hunch is that it does, but it is not inevitable. And when you consider the implications if it was an inevitable process then we’re rather fortunate. You seriously would not want every David out there – even if they were paying good money. I’ve started compiling a list of Daves and Davids who we don’t want anywhere near Upton Park: My top 7 Dave’s to keep away are the following
David Cameron – smug Tory bastard
David Beckham – Brainless ex-Manure git
David Koresh –loopy Texan fundamentalist leader currently residing in heaven or hell
David Icke – loopy conspiracy theorist (and crap goalie)
David Duke – ditto (don’t know what he’s like in goal)
David Irving – ditto plus Holocaust denier and general wanker
David Brent – not funny at all and general wanker too
My definition of hell actually is having to choose a companion for a long walk out of David Cameron and David Irving…
Just in case any of my fellow OLAS-scribbling Daves are worried that I’m turning against people bearing this wonderful name, (which after all means “beloved”), I hope I can reassure them by stating that I have also begun to draft my list of David’s I would like to be West Ham supporters (Please feel free to add sensible suggestions):
David Bowie – I still love Ziggy Stardust.
David Gilmour – I still listen to Dark Side of the Moon and look for it on a clear night.
So what are we to make of the latest Daves we’ve got on board, or rather, running the board? “They’re family, they’re community, they’re West ‘am”. Do me a favour. We’ll need to get past any sentimental twaddle if we are going to have any serious assessment of what they will do either for or to the club.
I guess it’s a case of having to draw up the plusses and minuses. The club was, and still is at this point in time, probably very close to going under and they have at least delayed that possibility and given us a breathing space to draw up a recovery plan. The debts won’t disappear overnight, and these two know what they are up against and what they will need to do about it. They are experienced in running a football club and adding value to it. Whatever significant amounts of money they generously splash out on new players this month will most likely be more than balanced by departures in the summer of some we, as fans ,would not like to see on their way.
But Gilbert and Sullivan, our Pirates of Plaistow, are undoubtedly West Ham fans and want the club to succeed whether they are running it or not. And now they have put themselves in the driving seat they have an even greater stake in wanting to succeed.
And talking of driving seats, there’s a story about a guy, not unlike David Gold, who takes his roller, not unlike David Gold’s, to the garage and asks them to clean it inside and out. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he shouts at the lowly attendant. “Make damn sure it looks smart inside and outside. Got it, my man?”
“OK, guv,” says the attendant, “Inside and outside”.
Well he puts his heart and soul into cleaning it and when the owner, not unlike David Gold, comes to pick it up he's standing there next to the gleaming roller. He collects his payment and then says to the owner:
“one thing, guv, I found this on the front seat – what is it?” – and he holds up a golf-tee.
“Don’t you know anything? It’s to rest your balls on when you drive off,” barks the owner.
The attendant replies: “Blimey, these Rolls Royces really have got everything.”
Our new owners may not have everything but they have got serious dosh. These “Mags to Riches” entrepreneurs are not taking a salary for themselves and are paying the salary of Karren Brady out of their own very deep and very murky pockets. They have got their beady eyes on the Olympic Stadium – or rather on the profit from selling that rather large and valuable piece land that sits under our Upton Park stadium.
Of course we should be grateful that anyone had the sense of adventure or humour to take on such a shambolic business as West Ham PLC. But whatever impulses anyone has to welcome Dave and Dave with open arms as our saviours, without any conditions or hint of scepticism, we need to let Del boy and Rodders know in no uncertain terms that we want Upton Park to remain our home. If they want to get some money back out of their gamble of running our club they are going to have to find a different method of doing that. They don’t look like the type of people who are short of ideas of how to screw money out of others. In fact Gold looks like somebody who would screw money out of his own granny And Goliath looks like he would be cheering him on as he does it.
On the plus side, if it has taken the heat off our financial emergency, it has also take the sting out of the overwhelmingly negative press coverage we have endured over the last few years. Amazing what a couple of lovable east end rogues can do. And unless I was dreaming I do believe we were positively praised on Match of the Day for our rugged performance up at Villa Park where we snatched a very valuable and unlikely point from a team who just a few days later put six goals past Blackburn.
We rarely threatened to get more than a point from the game but there were several pleasing aspects. Tomkins gave a first class performance and at the other end Nouble gave a much better account of himself than he had in that nervous debut in the cup against Arsenal. At Villa Park he held the ball well, made things difficult at times for experienced defenders, showed a lot of determination and a better awareness of where other players were, so that he could pass more often.
All being well we’ll have Cole back today – and maybe even a new face with him. But if he cant’ manage a whole game Nouble will fill the role more confidently now.
Greeny was also notable against Villa for three very good saves and the worst possible decision of when to try and dribble the ball past an attacker. We were lucky to get away with that but his other heroics were crucial in earning the point.
Blackburn have been playing with more style lately and will be tough opponents but we certainly need to beat them to drag as many teams as possible into the relegation fight. It would have been hard for the players not to carry the burden of worrying whether the club would survive during the financially stormy months we have been passing through, but now some stability is returning they ought to show how that worry has lifted and play with freedom and desire.
So as we reach the end of January, this weekend, as I’m sure you will all know, is the Big Garden Birdwatch organised by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. But somebody ought to tell Dave and Dave before they get too excited and get their cameras (and anything else they can lay their hands on) flashing, that it’s not those kind of great tits and not that kind of swallow.
In honour of the birdwatch maybe we’ll revive that old terrace favourite: ‘if I had the wings of sparrow, if I had the arse of a crow…). anyway, enjoy he game – let’s hope we use our wings well and end up soaring high. the only way is up. COYI!!!
As if there are not already enough Daves or Davids writing for OLAS we’ve now got two of them running the club. One smiles like a Cheshire cat who doesn’t just lick the cream but seems to own all the cream, and the other looks more like a Goliath than a David but has considerably worse dress sense than his biblical counterpart. That claret blazer Sullivan was pictured in the day the two David’s took over was almost as embarrassing for any observer to look as it must have been to wear. Money can do a lot of things but it can’t make Sullivan look any different.
It is high time that sociologists, anthropologists and scientists put their heads together and started to study the “Dave” phenomenon and find out whether it is really true that being given this moniker makes you more likely to support West Ham. My hunch is that it does, but it is not inevitable. And when you consider the implications if it was an inevitable process then we’re rather fortunate. You seriously would not want every David out there – even if they were paying good money. I’ve started compiling a list of Daves and Davids who we don’t want anywhere near Upton Park: My top 7 Dave’s to keep away are the following
David Cameron – smug Tory bastard
David Beckham – Brainless ex-Manure git
David Koresh –loopy Texan fundamentalist leader currently residing in heaven or hell
David Icke – loopy conspiracy theorist (and crap goalie)
David Duke – ditto (don’t know what he’s like in goal)
David Irving – ditto plus Holocaust denier and general wanker
David Brent – not funny at all and general wanker too
My definition of hell actually is having to choose a companion for a long walk out of David Cameron and David Irving…
Just in case any of my fellow OLAS-scribbling Daves are worried that I’m turning against people bearing this wonderful name, (which after all means “beloved”), I hope I can reassure them by stating that I have also begun to draft my list of David’s I would like to be West Ham supporters (Please feel free to add sensible suggestions):
David Bowie – I still love Ziggy Stardust.
David Gilmour – I still listen to Dark Side of the Moon and look for it on a clear night.
So what are we to make of the latest Daves we’ve got on board, or rather, running the board? “They’re family, they’re community, they’re West ‘am”. Do me a favour. We’ll need to get past any sentimental twaddle if we are going to have any serious assessment of what they will do either for or to the club.
I guess it’s a case of having to draw up the plusses and minuses. The club was, and still is at this point in time, probably very close to going under and they have at least delayed that possibility and given us a breathing space to draw up a recovery plan. The debts won’t disappear overnight, and these two know what they are up against and what they will need to do about it. They are experienced in running a football club and adding value to it. Whatever significant amounts of money they generously splash out on new players this month will most likely be more than balanced by departures in the summer of some we, as fans ,would not like to see on their way.
But Gilbert and Sullivan, our Pirates of Plaistow, are undoubtedly West Ham fans and want the club to succeed whether they are running it or not. And now they have put themselves in the driving seat they have an even greater stake in wanting to succeed.
And talking of driving seats, there’s a story about a guy, not unlike David Gold, who takes his roller, not unlike David Gold’s, to the garage and asks them to clean it inside and out. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he shouts at the lowly attendant. “Make damn sure it looks smart inside and outside. Got it, my man?”
“OK, guv,” says the attendant, “Inside and outside”.
Well he puts his heart and soul into cleaning it and when the owner, not unlike David Gold, comes to pick it up he's standing there next to the gleaming roller. He collects his payment and then says to the owner:
“one thing, guv, I found this on the front seat – what is it?” – and he holds up a golf-tee.
“Don’t you know anything? It’s to rest your balls on when you drive off,” barks the owner.
The attendant replies: “Blimey, these Rolls Royces really have got everything.”
Our new owners may not have everything but they have got serious dosh. These “Mags to Riches” entrepreneurs are not taking a salary for themselves and are paying the salary of Karren Brady out of their own very deep and very murky pockets. They have got their beady eyes on the Olympic Stadium – or rather on the profit from selling that rather large and valuable piece land that sits under our Upton Park stadium.
Of course we should be grateful that anyone had the sense of adventure or humour to take on such a shambolic business as West Ham PLC. But whatever impulses anyone has to welcome Dave and Dave with open arms as our saviours, without any conditions or hint of scepticism, we need to let Del boy and Rodders know in no uncertain terms that we want Upton Park to remain our home. If they want to get some money back out of their gamble of running our club they are going to have to find a different method of doing that. They don’t look like the type of people who are short of ideas of how to screw money out of others. In fact Gold looks like somebody who would screw money out of his own granny And Goliath looks like he would be cheering him on as he does it.
On the plus side, if it has taken the heat off our financial emergency, it has also take the sting out of the overwhelmingly negative press coverage we have endured over the last few years. Amazing what a couple of lovable east end rogues can do. And unless I was dreaming I do believe we were positively praised on Match of the Day for our rugged performance up at Villa Park where we snatched a very valuable and unlikely point from a team who just a few days later put six goals past Blackburn.
We rarely threatened to get more than a point from the game but there were several pleasing aspects. Tomkins gave a first class performance and at the other end Nouble gave a much better account of himself than he had in that nervous debut in the cup against Arsenal. At Villa Park he held the ball well, made things difficult at times for experienced defenders, showed a lot of determination and a better awareness of where other players were, so that he could pass more often.
All being well we’ll have Cole back today – and maybe even a new face with him. But if he cant’ manage a whole game Nouble will fill the role more confidently now.
Greeny was also notable against Villa for three very good saves and the worst possible decision of when to try and dribble the ball past an attacker. We were lucky to get away with that but his other heroics were crucial in earning the point.
Blackburn have been playing with more style lately and will be tough opponents but we certainly need to beat them to drag as many teams as possible into the relegation fight. It would have been hard for the players not to carry the burden of worrying whether the club would survive during the financially stormy months we have been passing through, but now some stability is returning they ought to show how that worry has lifted and play with freedom and desire.
So as we reach the end of January, this weekend, as I’m sure you will all know, is the Big Garden Birdwatch organised by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. But somebody ought to tell Dave and Dave before they get too excited and get their cameras (and anything else they can lay their hands on) flashing, that it’s not those kind of great tits and not that kind of swallow.
In honour of the birdwatch maybe we’ll revive that old terrace favourite: ‘if I had the wings of sparrow, if I had the arse of a crow…). anyway, enjoy he game – let’s hope we use our wings well and end up soaring high. the only way is up. COYI!!!
Saturday, 9 January 2010
Comedy, scarecrows and tragedy
OLAS 476 10th January 2010
If I wanted to see “A Comedy of Errors” I would have gone to Stratford upon Avon, but it seems that I managed to find it nevertheless just a stone’s throw from Stratford East London last Sunday.
Arsenal’s mainly second-string side were there for the taking. Whinger knows that with Man U and Chelsea sliding, they have got a serious chance of challenging for the league title. The F A Cup is one diversion they needed like a hole in the head. And they don’t have a terribly good cup record against West Ham.
For much of the game they spurned our generosity. We repeatedly handed them the ball on a plate, gave them all the space in the world to move from defence to attack, but when they got down our end of the pitch they opted to belt the ball over the bar, or crash it against our defenders. And for a side whose attacking game depends on precision passing, they often failed to make their last pass tell. With Arsenal’s profligacy, our patched up side were muddling through and occasionally threatening their goal through Diamianti and Junior Stan, but unfortunately we found their goalie, Fabianski in rather fab form. A goal out of nothing in the 45th minute provided the prefect platform to wrap the game up in the second half.
Halfway through the second half you could see the frustration on the faces of the Arsenal players and Whinger was clearly getting more and more twitchy and agitated. He started pacing quickly, then stopping to hold his hands out like a scarecrow. He’d be quite good as a scarecrow – he would frighten me and small children any day. The Arsenal crowd, very upbeat early on and taunting the home fans for being so hushed, had all gone rather quiet. We were still in front and it looked like staying that way.
To be honest neither team deserved to win, as the quality for much of the match was poor. But with 15 minutes to go I actually fooled myself into thinking it was going to happen for us, that despite a display full of huff and puff but hopelessly mistimed or panicked passes and needless mistakes, it was seriously looking as if effort rather than skill would see us through, that we would hang on.
My mind began to wander. Having very much enjoyed a two week break from the school where I teach in Islington which is, not surprisingly dominated by Arsenal supporters, I was imagining the scenario and looking forward to the pleasure that only a 52-year-old West Ham fan could get by winding up a few of the primary age kids who take it all too seriously. But within a few minutes, Arsenal’s substitutions had made the difference, comedy had turned to tragedy we were dumped out of the cup. Wembley has been officially struck off my list of exotic destinations this year.
Once Arsenal had equalised we all knew which way it was going to go. The only surprise was how quickly Arsenal grabbed their second. No doubt many of our supporters will be relieved that we won’t be adding a replay to our fixture list. After all, our players are dropping like flies, while others are getting ready to make themselves pretty for the shop window for the post Christmas sales to bigger and more ambitious clubs. We knew we were going to be without Franco (suspension), the injured Cole, Hines and Parker, and Noble, who took quite a knock against Portsmouth. But what about Jack Collisson? His non-appearance and therefore non-cup-tied status will certainly keep me worried until the end of the window.
Still it’s nice to know that Zola uses my column to help him with the team selection. I had proposed that Daprella was given a try out and made the case for Nouble to join him on the pitch against Arsenal. One of them made a big impression and I had been expecting it to be Nouble. As it was he seemed completely overawed with the occasion, frozen by nerves, and increasingly clumsy as he tried to get things right. There was so much expectation but he made a bit of a hash of it, and he must be kicking himself and feeling pretty low.
As fans we need to forget this performance, mark it down to inexperience, and treat his next start as his real debut. He looked desperate to do well but clueless as to how to go about it. Yet when he last had a proper run out – against Millwall earlier in the season – he showed considerable promise. So I think we need a bit of understanding and a bit of encouragement for a youngster who is physically mature but wasn’t really prepared psychologically for what he was going to be involved in during this cup tie. If Gary’s info on Cole’s injury is true – and with Franco no spring chicken – we may be seeing quite a lot of Nouble in the next two months.
Daprella – also a youngster – was far more prepared for the occasion and gave a fine display. He looked comfortable on the ball and was not afraid to burst forward. it was a performance that made me feel much less disturbed by Ilunga’s injury tendencies. Most importantly it proves we have adequate cover without having to resort to the piss-awful Spector – who is possibly the crappiest full back I’ve ever seen at Upton Park (or in any park come to that) - and I’ve been coming here since ’66.
Other players who can hold their head up high from the Arsenal game are Faubert (apart from a couple of lapses), Behrami who gave a high energy Billy Bonds- type performance and Junior Stanislas who drove forward whenever possible and was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet.
Diamanti was excellent for the first hour then faded. Jiminez gave a more committed performance, with some nice touches, but has not convinced me yet. Upson did well but looked as if he was going through the motions. He showed absolutely nothing as a captain who is supposed to be motivating the players around him. Tomkins won some crucial balls in the air but his distribution on the ground was very poor. Greeny made a couple of fine saves but his kicking was inconsistent and his ability on crosses was again left open to question. Kovac underperformed once more over the 90 minutes, though he had a better first half.
Despite being dumped out of the cup, one bright spot was the return of Freddie Sears who looked lively and confident, though his failure to hit the net on any occasion during his loan period at Palace does not bode well. But he seemed to be very glad to be back playing in the West Ham colours again. I was tempted to say he’s grown as a player but he still looks three foot six to me, so I won’t say it.
Today, it is back to the relegation dogfight. And for the benefit of any pedants out there, apparently you can have a dogfight with wolves on account of them being from the same species as dogs (Canis Lupus – if you really want to know). What did you think they were - some kid of angry short haired sheep? Some scientists claim that Dingos are a kind of missing link in the history of the connection between wolves and dogs. And I thought it was a game for bored grannies who had outlived their husbands – shows how much I know.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Wolves at Upton Park (though I’ve seen a few dogs…) and I think Derek Dougan was playing last time out. Now that dates me. But I like Mick McCarthy with his mis-shapen nose and great northern drone when he’s interviewed. and if they weren’t in the diogfight with us I’d want them to stay up. But there can’t be any room at all for sentiment today.
We did a job on them in the first game of the season and we need to repeat that in our first home league encounter of 2010. January and February are all about points, and much as I hate the “targets” and “assessment” culture that is invading every aspect of our lives poisoning so many ordinary simple human interactions, I hope that Gianfranco has set the team some tough targets for the number of points to be in our possession come the end of February. We have to look at getting a minimum of 12 points from the 8 games between now and then – and if possible, more t help us climb away form the relegation zone.
So West Ham – what will you serve up today – comedy, tragedy – or - a spellbinding performance of what Alf Garnett described as “working class ballet”? The stage is set – don’t let us down.
If I wanted to see “A Comedy of Errors” I would have gone to Stratford upon Avon, but it seems that I managed to find it nevertheless just a stone’s throw from Stratford East London last Sunday.
Arsenal’s mainly second-string side were there for the taking. Whinger knows that with Man U and Chelsea sliding, they have got a serious chance of challenging for the league title. The F A Cup is one diversion they needed like a hole in the head. And they don’t have a terribly good cup record against West Ham.
For much of the game they spurned our generosity. We repeatedly handed them the ball on a plate, gave them all the space in the world to move from defence to attack, but when they got down our end of the pitch they opted to belt the ball over the bar, or crash it against our defenders. And for a side whose attacking game depends on precision passing, they often failed to make their last pass tell. With Arsenal’s profligacy, our patched up side were muddling through and occasionally threatening their goal through Diamianti and Junior Stan, but unfortunately we found their goalie, Fabianski in rather fab form. A goal out of nothing in the 45th minute provided the prefect platform to wrap the game up in the second half.
Halfway through the second half you could see the frustration on the faces of the Arsenal players and Whinger was clearly getting more and more twitchy and agitated. He started pacing quickly, then stopping to hold his hands out like a scarecrow. He’d be quite good as a scarecrow – he would frighten me and small children any day. The Arsenal crowd, very upbeat early on and taunting the home fans for being so hushed, had all gone rather quiet. We were still in front and it looked like staying that way.
To be honest neither team deserved to win, as the quality for much of the match was poor. But with 15 minutes to go I actually fooled myself into thinking it was going to happen for us, that despite a display full of huff and puff but hopelessly mistimed or panicked passes and needless mistakes, it was seriously looking as if effort rather than skill would see us through, that we would hang on.
My mind began to wander. Having very much enjoyed a two week break from the school where I teach in Islington which is, not surprisingly dominated by Arsenal supporters, I was imagining the scenario and looking forward to the pleasure that only a 52-year-old West Ham fan could get by winding up a few of the primary age kids who take it all too seriously. But within a few minutes, Arsenal’s substitutions had made the difference, comedy had turned to tragedy we were dumped out of the cup. Wembley has been officially struck off my list of exotic destinations this year.
Once Arsenal had equalised we all knew which way it was going to go. The only surprise was how quickly Arsenal grabbed their second. No doubt many of our supporters will be relieved that we won’t be adding a replay to our fixture list. After all, our players are dropping like flies, while others are getting ready to make themselves pretty for the shop window for the post Christmas sales to bigger and more ambitious clubs. We knew we were going to be without Franco (suspension), the injured Cole, Hines and Parker, and Noble, who took quite a knock against Portsmouth. But what about Jack Collisson? His non-appearance and therefore non-cup-tied status will certainly keep me worried until the end of the window.
Still it’s nice to know that Zola uses my column to help him with the team selection. I had proposed that Daprella was given a try out and made the case for Nouble to join him on the pitch against Arsenal. One of them made a big impression and I had been expecting it to be Nouble. As it was he seemed completely overawed with the occasion, frozen by nerves, and increasingly clumsy as he tried to get things right. There was so much expectation but he made a bit of a hash of it, and he must be kicking himself and feeling pretty low.
As fans we need to forget this performance, mark it down to inexperience, and treat his next start as his real debut. He looked desperate to do well but clueless as to how to go about it. Yet when he last had a proper run out – against Millwall earlier in the season – he showed considerable promise. So I think we need a bit of understanding and a bit of encouragement for a youngster who is physically mature but wasn’t really prepared psychologically for what he was going to be involved in during this cup tie. If Gary’s info on Cole’s injury is true – and with Franco no spring chicken – we may be seeing quite a lot of Nouble in the next two months.
Daprella – also a youngster – was far more prepared for the occasion and gave a fine display. He looked comfortable on the ball and was not afraid to burst forward. it was a performance that made me feel much less disturbed by Ilunga’s injury tendencies. Most importantly it proves we have adequate cover without having to resort to the piss-awful Spector – who is possibly the crappiest full back I’ve ever seen at Upton Park (or in any park come to that) - and I’ve been coming here since ’66.
Other players who can hold their head up high from the Arsenal game are Faubert (apart from a couple of lapses), Behrami who gave a high energy Billy Bonds- type performance and Junior Stanislas who drove forward whenever possible and was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet.
Diamanti was excellent for the first hour then faded. Jiminez gave a more committed performance, with some nice touches, but has not convinced me yet. Upson did well but looked as if he was going through the motions. He showed absolutely nothing as a captain who is supposed to be motivating the players around him. Tomkins won some crucial balls in the air but his distribution on the ground was very poor. Greeny made a couple of fine saves but his kicking was inconsistent and his ability on crosses was again left open to question. Kovac underperformed once more over the 90 minutes, though he had a better first half.
Despite being dumped out of the cup, one bright spot was the return of Freddie Sears who looked lively and confident, though his failure to hit the net on any occasion during his loan period at Palace does not bode well. But he seemed to be very glad to be back playing in the West Ham colours again. I was tempted to say he’s grown as a player but he still looks three foot six to me, so I won’t say it.
Today, it is back to the relegation dogfight. And for the benefit of any pedants out there, apparently you can have a dogfight with wolves on account of them being from the same species as dogs (Canis Lupus – if you really want to know). What did you think they were - some kid of angry short haired sheep? Some scientists claim that Dingos are a kind of missing link in the history of the connection between wolves and dogs. And I thought it was a game for bored grannies who had outlived their husbands – shows how much I know.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Wolves at Upton Park (though I’ve seen a few dogs…) and I think Derek Dougan was playing last time out. Now that dates me. But I like Mick McCarthy with his mis-shapen nose and great northern drone when he’s interviewed. and if they weren’t in the diogfight with us I’d want them to stay up. But there can’t be any room at all for sentiment today.
We did a job on them in the first game of the season and we need to repeat that in our first home league encounter of 2010. January and February are all about points, and much as I hate the “targets” and “assessment” culture that is invading every aspect of our lives poisoning so many ordinary simple human interactions, I hope that Gianfranco has set the team some tough targets for the number of points to be in our possession come the end of February. We have to look at getting a minimum of 12 points from the 8 games between now and then – and if possible, more t help us climb away form the relegation zone.
So West Ham – what will you serve up today – comedy, tragedy – or - a spellbinding performance of what Alf Garnett described as “working class ballet”? The stage is set – don’t let us down.
Let's kick arse
OLAS 475 January 3rd 2010
Most people like new experiences. Who can forget the first time they tasted ice cream, flew on an aeroplane, or robbed a bank? For Robert Green, getting through 90 minutes of football without having to collect the ball from the back of the net would have been such a distant fading memory, that it must have felt like a totally new and unearthly experience. Though he had made a hash of a couple of clearances, he was unlucky to be beaten once by Chelsea – and then only from the penalty spot – but against Portsmouth he was much more commanding, especially after West Ham decided to sit back on their lead and surrender Pompey the initiative in the second half. So his clean sheet on Boxing Day could not have come at a more opportune moment.
If someone stopped you in the street and asked you, as a West Ham supporter, whether you would rather beat Chelsea or Portsmouth, well, nine times out of ten you would surely say Chelsea. The thought of getting one over those rich arrogant tossers is very appealing, while Portsmouth are quite cuddly really. But when you stop and think about our current predicament in the league and who we really need to be taking points from. You realise how valuable it was that, if we were taking four points from these encounters, it was so much better that we failed to beat Chelsea but succeeded in beating Portsmouth.
It was an odd game against Pompey, given how much urgency we had shown against Chelsea, as this one counted far more. It was played at a snail’s pace with neither team showing much adventure, though West Ham were good in parts, and deserved to be ahead at the interval if only for showing slightly more endeavour and purpose. We came good again towards the end and with more accurate finishing would have won by three or four goals. Collisson had three good attempts in the game and should have buried at least one. But that is the part of his game that he most needs to improve.
Collisson has the potential to be a West Ham great if we can hang on to him. He is the nearest thing I have seen over the years to another Trevor Brooking – extremely poised and unselfish, very thoughtful when the ball arrives at his feet, drifts nimbly past defenders, reads the game extremely well and ghosts into good positions. Clever Trevor also didn’t’ score many goals but then again he had Geoff Hurst/Clyde Best/Jimmy Greaves/Pop Robson to take responsibility for putting the ball in the back of the net. At this moment we have one ageing Mexican international and an injury list as long as a blue whale’s penis (which I have been assured on good authority, rather than personal experience, is pretty substantial)
After the Portsmouth game the friendly press were bigging up Kovac and Jiminez. Now many philosophers will argue that actuality as perceived by different individuals is a tricky thing and everyone sees things through their own window, but I honestly don’t know which window some of these characters are using. Yes Kovac took his goal superbly, and showed other premier-level strikers how to bury a header, but for a fella his size he should really be bossing the midfield. And Patrick Viera he isn’t. His tackles are often lightweight and half-hearted, his vision poor, his timing of passes frequently lacking in awareness. I don’t doubt his effort or commitment – just his ability – and cannot fathom how he captained Spartak Moscow, unless he won that title in a raffle. I hope he will prove me wrong in 2010 and show that my window on reality has the curtains drawn and that the plaudits he has received recently are totally merited.
When Jiminez first kicked a ball for the Hammers in the pre-season friendly against Napoli I was impressed but maybe it was another trick of the reality lens, with the other players being relatively less fit or bothered. In the cut and thrust of the Premier League he looks so pedestrian. Many of his passes come to nothing; and when he wants to receive a pass, if the ball doesn’t come right to his feet, he makes little effort to win it. He made two good contributions against Portsmouth and luckily for him they both ended with goals – getting bundled over for our penalty in the first instance and floating a superb curling free kick for Kovac to head in for the second. Between those moments I saw a rather indifferent performance from a player who either lacks confidence, commitment or ability. If I’m wrong, Luis, then prove it in the new year. I want you to succeed. But at the moment I would rather see Junior Stanislas in your place because he knows how to advance up the pitch rather than go square and how to strike a bit of fear into defences with his aggressive forward runs.
On a more positive note, the return of Upson has seen the defence beginning to operate again much more like a unit. Tomkins is developing extremely well given his age and experience and Faubert and Ilunga are playing more consistently, though with Ilunga picking up yet another injury that will be disrupted again. I hope we are not going to see the imposter Jonathan Spector out there today, trying to fool the public again that he is a professional footballer. Some players suffer from being one-footed – Spector suffers from being no-footed. Why not give Daprella a go?
The crucial aspect of the win over Portsmouth was that it lifted West ham out of the bottom three, a position that at the time of writing we have sustained despite the fairly inevitable setback against high-riding Spurs. We go into 2010 one point above the drop zone but only four points off 11th place and with a substantially better goal difference than four of the teams immediately above us, which at the end of the day is worth a point. so I’m less pessimistic than I was a few weeks ago.
I know how much the annual fixtures with Spurs mean to every West Ham fan, but I’m not too disheartened by our failure at Shite Hart lane. They have a much stronger squad than us, were able to bring in four players rested on boxing day, and we lost two key players to injury early on – so we need to keep it in perspective. Let’s hope we will have a stronger squad again by the time we face Wolves on January 10th.
But today we can put the league to one side anyway and savour what ought to be quite a spectacle in the FA Cup. Neither team will want to add more fixtures to their schedule unnecessarily so both will certainly be playing an attacking game to force a win. We have the psychological advantage of going into the game as underdogs on our home patch, with our home crowd as our 12th man, and in the knowledge that when Arsenal came here in the league game we gave them a mighty fright in the second half and they were the ones clinging on near the end for a point even though we were down to 10 men.
We need to start with our best team but be prepared, if we are clearly heading for defeat, to give a couple of subs a proper run out, to prepare them for league action, especially Nouble. With Franco struggling to maintain his strength as a lone striker, and Carlton and Zavon still sidelined we need more options up front and Nouble could be an important player for us in the second half of the season, but he needs to get the chance to play more than a couple of minutes at the end of a game.
You don’t need me to tell you how important January is to the future of the club. We can do all the speculating we like but won’t really know what kind of shakedown will have been effected until January 31st. We may get hints today though – if certain of our stars don’t appear and we are fobbed off with excuses like “a cold”, “flu” or “a virus”. You don’t need to use a translation search engine like “babel fish” to know that this means “We’re selling them, despite any of Duckbrain’s promises, and we get more money if they are not cup-tied”.
Anyway, after the home game against Chelsea we have shown that we can play without fear against big clubs at Upton Park and I fancy that we’ll give Arsenal a run for their money today with Diamanti being our surprise package I haven’t been to Wembley for a while – and that’s been mainly to visit my dentist. I would love another trip there that doesn’t involve excruciating pain. And I’m old enough to remember seeing Billy Bonds holding the cup there. So come on West Ham, show us what you can do. Get out there and kick some arse! COYI!!!!!
Most people like new experiences. Who can forget the first time they tasted ice cream, flew on an aeroplane, or robbed a bank? For Robert Green, getting through 90 minutes of football without having to collect the ball from the back of the net would have been such a distant fading memory, that it must have felt like a totally new and unearthly experience. Though he had made a hash of a couple of clearances, he was unlucky to be beaten once by Chelsea – and then only from the penalty spot – but against Portsmouth he was much more commanding, especially after West Ham decided to sit back on their lead and surrender Pompey the initiative in the second half. So his clean sheet on Boxing Day could not have come at a more opportune moment.
If someone stopped you in the street and asked you, as a West Ham supporter, whether you would rather beat Chelsea or Portsmouth, well, nine times out of ten you would surely say Chelsea. The thought of getting one over those rich arrogant tossers is very appealing, while Portsmouth are quite cuddly really. But when you stop and think about our current predicament in the league and who we really need to be taking points from. You realise how valuable it was that, if we were taking four points from these encounters, it was so much better that we failed to beat Chelsea but succeeded in beating Portsmouth.
It was an odd game against Pompey, given how much urgency we had shown against Chelsea, as this one counted far more. It was played at a snail’s pace with neither team showing much adventure, though West Ham were good in parts, and deserved to be ahead at the interval if only for showing slightly more endeavour and purpose. We came good again towards the end and with more accurate finishing would have won by three or four goals. Collisson had three good attempts in the game and should have buried at least one. But that is the part of his game that he most needs to improve.
Collisson has the potential to be a West Ham great if we can hang on to him. He is the nearest thing I have seen over the years to another Trevor Brooking – extremely poised and unselfish, very thoughtful when the ball arrives at his feet, drifts nimbly past defenders, reads the game extremely well and ghosts into good positions. Clever Trevor also didn’t’ score many goals but then again he had Geoff Hurst/Clyde Best/Jimmy Greaves/Pop Robson to take responsibility for putting the ball in the back of the net. At this moment we have one ageing Mexican international and an injury list as long as a blue whale’s penis (which I have been assured on good authority, rather than personal experience, is pretty substantial)
After the Portsmouth game the friendly press were bigging up Kovac and Jiminez. Now many philosophers will argue that actuality as perceived by different individuals is a tricky thing and everyone sees things through their own window, but I honestly don’t know which window some of these characters are using. Yes Kovac took his goal superbly, and showed other premier-level strikers how to bury a header, but for a fella his size he should really be bossing the midfield. And Patrick Viera he isn’t. His tackles are often lightweight and half-hearted, his vision poor, his timing of passes frequently lacking in awareness. I don’t doubt his effort or commitment – just his ability – and cannot fathom how he captained Spartak Moscow, unless he won that title in a raffle. I hope he will prove me wrong in 2010 and show that my window on reality has the curtains drawn and that the plaudits he has received recently are totally merited.
When Jiminez first kicked a ball for the Hammers in the pre-season friendly against Napoli I was impressed but maybe it was another trick of the reality lens, with the other players being relatively less fit or bothered. In the cut and thrust of the Premier League he looks so pedestrian. Many of his passes come to nothing; and when he wants to receive a pass, if the ball doesn’t come right to his feet, he makes little effort to win it. He made two good contributions against Portsmouth and luckily for him they both ended with goals – getting bundled over for our penalty in the first instance and floating a superb curling free kick for Kovac to head in for the second. Between those moments I saw a rather indifferent performance from a player who either lacks confidence, commitment or ability. If I’m wrong, Luis, then prove it in the new year. I want you to succeed. But at the moment I would rather see Junior Stanislas in your place because he knows how to advance up the pitch rather than go square and how to strike a bit of fear into defences with his aggressive forward runs.
On a more positive note, the return of Upson has seen the defence beginning to operate again much more like a unit. Tomkins is developing extremely well given his age and experience and Faubert and Ilunga are playing more consistently, though with Ilunga picking up yet another injury that will be disrupted again. I hope we are not going to see the imposter Jonathan Spector out there today, trying to fool the public again that he is a professional footballer. Some players suffer from being one-footed – Spector suffers from being no-footed. Why not give Daprella a go?
The crucial aspect of the win over Portsmouth was that it lifted West ham out of the bottom three, a position that at the time of writing we have sustained despite the fairly inevitable setback against high-riding Spurs. We go into 2010 one point above the drop zone but only four points off 11th place and with a substantially better goal difference than four of the teams immediately above us, which at the end of the day is worth a point. so I’m less pessimistic than I was a few weeks ago.
I know how much the annual fixtures with Spurs mean to every West Ham fan, but I’m not too disheartened by our failure at Shite Hart lane. They have a much stronger squad than us, were able to bring in four players rested on boxing day, and we lost two key players to injury early on – so we need to keep it in perspective. Let’s hope we will have a stronger squad again by the time we face Wolves on January 10th.
But today we can put the league to one side anyway and savour what ought to be quite a spectacle in the FA Cup. Neither team will want to add more fixtures to their schedule unnecessarily so both will certainly be playing an attacking game to force a win. We have the psychological advantage of going into the game as underdogs on our home patch, with our home crowd as our 12th man, and in the knowledge that when Arsenal came here in the league game we gave them a mighty fright in the second half and they were the ones clinging on near the end for a point even though we were down to 10 men.
We need to start with our best team but be prepared, if we are clearly heading for defeat, to give a couple of subs a proper run out, to prepare them for league action, especially Nouble. With Franco struggling to maintain his strength as a lone striker, and Carlton and Zavon still sidelined we need more options up front and Nouble could be an important player for us in the second half of the season, but he needs to get the chance to play more than a couple of minutes at the end of a game.
You don’t need me to tell you how important January is to the future of the club. We can do all the speculating we like but won’t really know what kind of shakedown will have been effected until January 31st. We may get hints today though – if certain of our stars don’t appear and we are fobbed off with excuses like “a cold”, “flu” or “a virus”. You don’t need to use a translation search engine like “babel fish” to know that this means “We’re selling them, despite any of Duckbrain’s promises, and we get more money if they are not cup-tied”.
Anyway, after the home game against Chelsea we have shown that we can play without fear against big clubs at Upton Park and I fancy that we’ll give Arsenal a run for their money today with Diamanti being our surprise package I haven’t been to Wembley for a while – and that’s been mainly to visit my dentist. I would love another trip there that doesn’t involve excruciating pain. And I’m old enough to remember seeing Billy Bonds holding the cup there. So come on West Ham, show us what you can do. Get out there and kick some arse! COYI!!!!!
It's what you do next Saturday
OLAS 474 December 26th 2009
By the smiles at the end of the game you’d think we had won handsomely but psychologically the single point we gained from last Sunday’s 1-1 draw was worth as much as a victory. The extraordinary results on Saturday with Portsmouth winning comfortably against Liverpool and Fulham hammering Man U simply built up the pressure for our game against Chelsea. Portsmouth were now level with us on points at the bottom, on the same goal difference, but having scored fewer. So a defeat even by one goal against a free-scoring Chelsea side would have made us bottom at Christmas. The statisticians would be out in force gleefully telling us what almost inevitably happens to the team in that position. Meanwhile with Man U faltering but Arsenal keeping pace, Chelsea knew they could extend their lead at the top if they completed what looked on paper like a routine task of rolling over the team that had succumbed so meekly at Birmingham and Bolton recently.
But the unexpected happened. The Hammers played as if their lives depended on it and were unlucky not to snatch all three points. The team kept its shape, was not fazed by losing a key defender early on (Tomkins was magnificent as substitute), worked for each other, ran off the ball to create passing options, harried Chelsea when they were in possession, tackled with fierceness and determination and even won some balls in the air. Most of Chelsea’s efforts were long range and they had few opportunities to plant dangerous crosses. When they did get through, Green was determined no to be beaten making two crucial saves. And going forward Diamanti was inspirational, Franco was always a threat and Noble, Collisson and Parker were outstanding.
And had it stayed at 1-0, I would have been in the money too. Gambling has been part of my family heritage. I always thought my dad should have been given some kind of “lifetime service” award from Ladbrokes, having crossed their threshold religiously every day for decades to make a small investment in their growing empire. When I was very young I would hear my mum ask him how he got on with the horses and he’d invariably answer – “I was winning but then I gave it back”, and for years I thought he was just such an honest decent guy he couldn’t even bear to take his winnings – it was just the idea of winning by forecasting the future that thrilled him. Then one day it dawned on me what “and then I gave it back” really meant! Though he was indeed a thoroughly decent and honest guy from whom I inherited not just a tendency to gamble but support for the underdog, an intolerance of racism, and a quirky sense of humour. Thanks.
My granddad too, on the other side of my family was smitten young with the gambling bug. One of this first jobs was helping to install one-arm-bandits in pubs and his contribution to the Home Front during World War 2 was managing an amusement arcade in East Ham. Throughout his life he couldn’t resist a bet. It got him into trouble in the late 1960s when he was working as a porter in Billingsgate Fish Market, and would sometimes go out on the van, delivering to fishmongers and bringing back their payments to his boss. He had this rather enterprising idea that this money, which was not his, might be used to make more money on the way back if it was invested on the right horse. Trouble is he knew fish better than he knew horses. He blew the money, and I guess his face would have been as red as smoked salmon as he tried to explain what happened to it. His boss took him to court and he was lucky to escape a custodial sentence.
Towards the end, in his mid to late 80s, he was beginning to suffer from dementia and my mum was pulling out all the stops to find him a place in a decent care home. She found one with a special secure unit for people suffering similarly who could easily get lost and confused. On the first day he absconded from the home’s secure unit. No one could find him but he was eventually tracked down in a bookie’s about half a mile away. Now what would be the odds on that? Not too steep I guess.
So as I was walking past William Hill near Queen’s Market on my way to the Chelsea game I had half a mind to have a little flutter on a correct score, but the correct scores going through my head that were most likely and were so unbearable I couldn’t put money on them and I started to walk away. But I was drawn back – as if under the family spell – and once inside I knew I couldn’t bet against West Ham so I wrote two bets – one for West Ham to draw 0-0 and one for West Ham to win 1-0. As you can imagine I got pretty good odds.
I was ecstatic as a pig in shit at half-time to see that not only were we winning but at least one bet was still on. I momentarily thought that it would be so West Ham to score another, trash Chelsea but fuck up my bet too! But I could live with that.
As I handed over my betting slip for West Ham to win or to draw, the guy behind the counter was visibly smiling to himself as if to say “Thanks, mug, do come again”. If you’re employed in that job you are supposed to be professional and look neutral when people put their bets on, however left-field. OK, so in the end they kept my money but it was a mightily close run thing.
As I came out of the ground though, beaming with delight not just at the score but at the manner in which we won that point, the words of one of the world’s great philosophers were in my ears. We‘re not talking Socrates, Descartes, Wittgenstein or Charlie Marx here but that true fount of wisdom, the great and revered Ron Greenwood, who told us:
“Football is a game of tomorrows. It’s what you do next Saturday that counts.”
That could not be more true. Our fantastically hard-worked for and richly deserved point at the expense the league leaders will only truly count if it spearheads an equally committed performance against our lowly rivals Portsmouth – who also head into this encounter on the back of a great result. We have home advantage and the knowledge that on the same weekend last year we ripped them to shreds 4-1 on their manor.
Portsmouth gave warning, though, that they are determined to pull off an unlikely escape and they have sharpshooters up front who can do the business, so it will clearly be a tight game, but we surely have the quality to win.
For me personally it would be the perfect early birthday present. I was born on January 1st and West Ham stuffing Portsmouth will satisfy me more than any other present I might receive marking my 52 years on the planet.
On my actual birthday we are reviving a tradition in our household that has lapsed for a while, of visiting Highgate Cemetery for a walk with friends among the graves of some people who have inspired us. We’ll be among those of Claudia Jones – the American woman deported for political activities who was the moving force behind the Notting Hill Carnival, George Eliot, the female author who needed to adopt a man’s name to get published in Victorian England, Michael Faraday, who discovered electricity, the painter Henry Moore, and of course Karl Marx who knew a thing or two back then of what life promised for ordinary working people under the rule of the bankers and wankers.
What he would have made of those financiers whom OLAS writer Gary Portugal dubs the “Icelanpricks” would have been enlightening. Karl Marx described landlords, as those “who love to reap where they never sowed”, and capital in general as ‘dead labour, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour”.
We, and the team we love, have undoubtedly been sucked dry, but at least on the pitch last week we saw there is still some fight left. Just 7 points separate 11 teams at our end of the table, so despite the pessimism we have all been expressing there is everything to play for. And we can continue where we left off by winning 2-0 today. Three points and a clean sheet would be worth its weight in gold (and Sullivan).
The team showed in those 90 minutes against Chelsea that they have the wherewithal to rescue us on the pitch. But that is only half the battle. We, the fans, need to be more vocal and act collectively off the pitch, to win back the club that is so important in our lives. Enjoy the game. COYI!!!!!!
By the smiles at the end of the game you’d think we had won handsomely but psychologically the single point we gained from last Sunday’s 1-1 draw was worth as much as a victory. The extraordinary results on Saturday with Portsmouth winning comfortably against Liverpool and Fulham hammering Man U simply built up the pressure for our game against Chelsea. Portsmouth were now level with us on points at the bottom, on the same goal difference, but having scored fewer. So a defeat even by one goal against a free-scoring Chelsea side would have made us bottom at Christmas. The statisticians would be out in force gleefully telling us what almost inevitably happens to the team in that position. Meanwhile with Man U faltering but Arsenal keeping pace, Chelsea knew they could extend their lead at the top if they completed what looked on paper like a routine task of rolling over the team that had succumbed so meekly at Birmingham and Bolton recently.
But the unexpected happened. The Hammers played as if their lives depended on it and were unlucky not to snatch all three points. The team kept its shape, was not fazed by losing a key defender early on (Tomkins was magnificent as substitute), worked for each other, ran off the ball to create passing options, harried Chelsea when they were in possession, tackled with fierceness and determination and even won some balls in the air. Most of Chelsea’s efforts were long range and they had few opportunities to plant dangerous crosses. When they did get through, Green was determined no to be beaten making two crucial saves. And going forward Diamanti was inspirational, Franco was always a threat and Noble, Collisson and Parker were outstanding.
And had it stayed at 1-0, I would have been in the money too. Gambling has been part of my family heritage. I always thought my dad should have been given some kind of “lifetime service” award from Ladbrokes, having crossed their threshold religiously every day for decades to make a small investment in their growing empire. When I was very young I would hear my mum ask him how he got on with the horses and he’d invariably answer – “I was winning but then I gave it back”, and for years I thought he was just such an honest decent guy he couldn’t even bear to take his winnings – it was just the idea of winning by forecasting the future that thrilled him. Then one day it dawned on me what “and then I gave it back” really meant! Though he was indeed a thoroughly decent and honest guy from whom I inherited not just a tendency to gamble but support for the underdog, an intolerance of racism, and a quirky sense of humour. Thanks.
My granddad too, on the other side of my family was smitten young with the gambling bug. One of this first jobs was helping to install one-arm-bandits in pubs and his contribution to the Home Front during World War 2 was managing an amusement arcade in East Ham. Throughout his life he couldn’t resist a bet. It got him into trouble in the late 1960s when he was working as a porter in Billingsgate Fish Market, and would sometimes go out on the van, delivering to fishmongers and bringing back their payments to his boss. He had this rather enterprising idea that this money, which was not his, might be used to make more money on the way back if it was invested on the right horse. Trouble is he knew fish better than he knew horses. He blew the money, and I guess his face would have been as red as smoked salmon as he tried to explain what happened to it. His boss took him to court and he was lucky to escape a custodial sentence.
Towards the end, in his mid to late 80s, he was beginning to suffer from dementia and my mum was pulling out all the stops to find him a place in a decent care home. She found one with a special secure unit for people suffering similarly who could easily get lost and confused. On the first day he absconded from the home’s secure unit. No one could find him but he was eventually tracked down in a bookie’s about half a mile away. Now what would be the odds on that? Not too steep I guess.
So as I was walking past William Hill near Queen’s Market on my way to the Chelsea game I had half a mind to have a little flutter on a correct score, but the correct scores going through my head that were most likely and were so unbearable I couldn’t put money on them and I started to walk away. But I was drawn back – as if under the family spell – and once inside I knew I couldn’t bet against West Ham so I wrote two bets – one for West Ham to draw 0-0 and one for West Ham to win 1-0. As you can imagine I got pretty good odds.
I was ecstatic as a pig in shit at half-time to see that not only were we winning but at least one bet was still on. I momentarily thought that it would be so West Ham to score another, trash Chelsea but fuck up my bet too! But I could live with that.
As I handed over my betting slip for West Ham to win or to draw, the guy behind the counter was visibly smiling to himself as if to say “Thanks, mug, do come again”. If you’re employed in that job you are supposed to be professional and look neutral when people put their bets on, however left-field. OK, so in the end they kept my money but it was a mightily close run thing.
As I came out of the ground though, beaming with delight not just at the score but at the manner in which we won that point, the words of one of the world’s great philosophers were in my ears. We‘re not talking Socrates, Descartes, Wittgenstein or Charlie Marx here but that true fount of wisdom, the great and revered Ron Greenwood, who told us:
“Football is a game of tomorrows. It’s what you do next Saturday that counts.”
That could not be more true. Our fantastically hard-worked for and richly deserved point at the expense the league leaders will only truly count if it spearheads an equally committed performance against our lowly rivals Portsmouth – who also head into this encounter on the back of a great result. We have home advantage and the knowledge that on the same weekend last year we ripped them to shreds 4-1 on their manor.
Portsmouth gave warning, though, that they are determined to pull off an unlikely escape and they have sharpshooters up front who can do the business, so it will clearly be a tight game, but we surely have the quality to win.
For me personally it would be the perfect early birthday present. I was born on January 1st and West Ham stuffing Portsmouth will satisfy me more than any other present I might receive marking my 52 years on the planet.
On my actual birthday we are reviving a tradition in our household that has lapsed for a while, of visiting Highgate Cemetery for a walk with friends among the graves of some people who have inspired us. We’ll be among those of Claudia Jones – the American woman deported for political activities who was the moving force behind the Notting Hill Carnival, George Eliot, the female author who needed to adopt a man’s name to get published in Victorian England, Michael Faraday, who discovered electricity, the painter Henry Moore, and of course Karl Marx who knew a thing or two back then of what life promised for ordinary working people under the rule of the bankers and wankers.
What he would have made of those financiers whom OLAS writer Gary Portugal dubs the “Icelanpricks” would have been enlightening. Karl Marx described landlords, as those “who love to reap where they never sowed”, and capital in general as ‘dead labour, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour”.
We, and the team we love, have undoubtedly been sucked dry, but at least on the pitch last week we saw there is still some fight left. Just 7 points separate 11 teams at our end of the table, so despite the pessimism we have all been expressing there is everything to play for. And we can continue where we left off by winning 2-0 today. Three points and a clean sheet would be worth its weight in gold (and Sullivan).
The team showed in those 90 minutes against Chelsea that they have the wherewithal to rescue us on the pitch. But that is only half the battle. We, the fans, need to be more vocal and act collectively off the pitch, to win back the club that is so important in our lives. Enjoy the game. COYI!!!!!!
Sunday, 20 December 2009
Did Greenie speak for us all?
OLAS 473 December 20th 2009
You’ve got to be careful what you wish for. I was so carried away with rubbing my neighbour’s face in the fact that his beloved Spurs were 1-0 down to Wolves after just a few minutes last Saturday, that I momentarily forget that Wolves are actually our competitors at that wrong end of the table, not Spurs. I should have taken more notice of the chat I had earlier in the day with another mate who is a Spurs fan. He was not looking forward at all to the impending visit of Wolves. I told him not to be a numpty and blithely assured him that Defoe might get another five. So what happens by the end of the day? Spurs lose, which ought to be a cause for great celebration and much piss-taking, but so do we – also to a team within the sound of the Crossroads Motel. And we are back in the bottom three, about to face Bolton who had attacked Manchester City with great flair and were unlucky not to beat them.
I’m writing this before the Bolton game but I’m not expecting a team so low on confidence and person-power as West Ham are at the moment to get anything from that game. I will be fairly astonished if I am wrong.
It’s another few days yet until Christmas, but West Ham’s defence has been true to the Christmas spirit well before December came upon us, with more give-away goals than you could dream of. Any visitors to Upton Park have absolutely been showered with free gifts from our non-existent defence, often aided and abetted by the ineptitude of our midfielders getting caught in possession.
Being a West Ham fan with a beard and glasses, I was brought up with Hanukkah rather than Christmas and at the heart of the Hanukkah story is a miracle (all about oil for an everlasting light lasting eight days instead of just one – you don’t need to know the rest though it is pretty interesting). So, if its OK with the rest of you, I think we all ought to do Hanukkah rather than Christmas this year and hope that some of that miracle-juice flows for us, if not today, then at least sometime soon. Ok you’ll miss your turkey and your tree an your midnight mass, but you’ll get turned on to “latkes” and doughnuts and I can guarantee you can still have a miserable time with your family.
We have to be honest and admit that only a miracle will get us out of the dog-poo this time around. At the moment an impossibly heavy burden is being placed on the least experienced shoulders, depending on them to solve problems that they didn’t create. Earlier this season I wrote:
“I don’t think many clubs, even among the top four, can boast such a crop of talented youngsters coming through. They could turn us into a bit of a surprise package this season and help us pull off some unlikely results, or they could really struggle with their confidence if the early results go against us.”
No prizes for guessing which of those avenues we have driven down at reckless speed. I think we all really feel for the 18, 19 and 20 year olds who have been given their dream opportunity of playing for West Ham but without any scaffolding or support of any kind. They are trying their best, and Stanislas against Fulham and Hines against Villa won us some of our precious few points – but generally they are failing and they look bereft.
The club has been asset-stripped leaving us with positions on the field without any competent professionals to fill them. No wonder we find it well beyond our reach to string one result together, let alone two or three.
I’m still reeling from the Scott Duxbury interview in the last OLAS. Two sentences stand out. One, when he says “we don’t have to sell a single player that we don’t want to sell.” This is superficially very reassuring, but then you realise that what it really means is that any player is for sale, the club merely have to posit a rationalisation for doing so. And when it happens they will say “we wanted to sell this player because of….” and Zola will be bullied into nodding along with it.
The second sentence, which really took my breath away, was: “Gianfranco doesn’t want to add to the squad in January…bringing more players in will have an unsettling effect on the squad.”
Either Duxbury is lying or Gianfranco has no appreciation whatever of the parlous state we are in. As someone who absolutely and excitedly welcomed the little man’s appointment I would like to think it is the former. If it really is the latter, the situation is hopeless because this current squad is so much weaker in almost every department to the last squad that got relegated. Yes there are key players in our team currently out with injury – Upson, Cole, Behrami for starters, but that is why premiership teams have squads – so that there are more than 11 perfectly competent players at this level to choose from for each game. That is not something we can currently boast. We will need at least two decent additions to the side to have any chance of staying up. and we will need at least three from a long list of clubs - Portsmouth, Wolves, Hull, Blackburn, Wigan, Burnley, not to improve their squads more than us for it to make a difference.
Meanwhile today we have the not inconsequential matter of getting through the Chelsea match without making our goal difference dramatically worse. it must be tempting for Zola to pack the midfield and play defensively, but we will come unstuck as we did against Man U if we attempt that. The only way to attack the game is to do just that – to attack and to keep Chelsea on the back-foot as much as possible and we might get away with a narrow defeat. They know that goal difference works at both ends of the table, and if we give even a hint of collapsing they will take us to the cleaners big time – just like Man U did. You can’t blame Greenie for puking up during the Man U game. He spoke for us all.
In the evening of the Man U game I met up with this friend of mine called Steve visiting from abroad. He’s been out the country about 25 years. As we emailed each other to make the arrangement I explained that I would be coming from the West Ham game.“ Didn’t they use to be a football team?” he asked, rather astutely. “That’s right” I replied.
There are so many reasons to hate Chelsea. I was disappointed when I came across a website recently that listed just 59 reasons. A few examples are:
3) They give their 'fans' cheap plastic flags to wave to create an atmosphere because they can't by themselves.
4) Where were all the fans before Roman and his dodgy Russian Roubles?
28) Players that leave good honest clubs to go to Chelsea just to be greedy for all the fucking money and warm the bench thinking they are cool.
54) Selling Robinho shirts when they hadn't signed him.
Although their number 1 reason actually says it all:
“Cheating, Diving C*nts!!!”
The full list is available at: http://www.oleole.com/blogs/manchester-united-remain-in-hunt-for-lyon-star-karim-benzema-report-1/posts/talking--few-reasons-to-hate-chelsea-fc
A poet friend of mine writes that “all useful hate begins with self-hate” and I guess there are a good few self-hating West Ham fans out there these days. But today needs to be about something different.
We can’t match their roubles and we don’t want to match them with cheating and diving. But I’d dearly like to see us match them in playing with pride. I don’t care what the score is today I just want to feel at the end that we have played our hearts out for each other and for us the fans for 90 minutes, and given us some reason to feel proud of their efforts.
And I want to see Zola with a good reason to smile even if we lose.
Enjoy the game if you can! COYI!!!!!
You’ve got to be careful what you wish for. I was so carried away with rubbing my neighbour’s face in the fact that his beloved Spurs were 1-0 down to Wolves after just a few minutes last Saturday, that I momentarily forget that Wolves are actually our competitors at that wrong end of the table, not Spurs. I should have taken more notice of the chat I had earlier in the day with another mate who is a Spurs fan. He was not looking forward at all to the impending visit of Wolves. I told him not to be a numpty and blithely assured him that Defoe might get another five. So what happens by the end of the day? Spurs lose, which ought to be a cause for great celebration and much piss-taking, but so do we – also to a team within the sound of the Crossroads Motel. And we are back in the bottom three, about to face Bolton who had attacked Manchester City with great flair and were unlucky not to beat them.
I’m writing this before the Bolton game but I’m not expecting a team so low on confidence and person-power as West Ham are at the moment to get anything from that game. I will be fairly astonished if I am wrong.
It’s another few days yet until Christmas, but West Ham’s defence has been true to the Christmas spirit well before December came upon us, with more give-away goals than you could dream of. Any visitors to Upton Park have absolutely been showered with free gifts from our non-existent defence, often aided and abetted by the ineptitude of our midfielders getting caught in possession.
Being a West Ham fan with a beard and glasses, I was brought up with Hanukkah rather than Christmas and at the heart of the Hanukkah story is a miracle (all about oil for an everlasting light lasting eight days instead of just one – you don’t need to know the rest though it is pretty interesting). So, if its OK with the rest of you, I think we all ought to do Hanukkah rather than Christmas this year and hope that some of that miracle-juice flows for us, if not today, then at least sometime soon. Ok you’ll miss your turkey and your tree an your midnight mass, but you’ll get turned on to “latkes” and doughnuts and I can guarantee you can still have a miserable time with your family.
We have to be honest and admit that only a miracle will get us out of the dog-poo this time around. At the moment an impossibly heavy burden is being placed on the least experienced shoulders, depending on them to solve problems that they didn’t create. Earlier this season I wrote:
“I don’t think many clubs, even among the top four, can boast such a crop of talented youngsters coming through. They could turn us into a bit of a surprise package this season and help us pull off some unlikely results, or they could really struggle with their confidence if the early results go against us.”
No prizes for guessing which of those avenues we have driven down at reckless speed. I think we all really feel for the 18, 19 and 20 year olds who have been given their dream opportunity of playing for West Ham but without any scaffolding or support of any kind. They are trying their best, and Stanislas against Fulham and Hines against Villa won us some of our precious few points – but generally they are failing and they look bereft.
The club has been asset-stripped leaving us with positions on the field without any competent professionals to fill them. No wonder we find it well beyond our reach to string one result together, let alone two or three.
I’m still reeling from the Scott Duxbury interview in the last OLAS. Two sentences stand out. One, when he says “we don’t have to sell a single player that we don’t want to sell.” This is superficially very reassuring, but then you realise that what it really means is that any player is for sale, the club merely have to posit a rationalisation for doing so. And when it happens they will say “we wanted to sell this player because of….” and Zola will be bullied into nodding along with it.
The second sentence, which really took my breath away, was: “Gianfranco doesn’t want to add to the squad in January…bringing more players in will have an unsettling effect on the squad.”
Either Duxbury is lying or Gianfranco has no appreciation whatever of the parlous state we are in. As someone who absolutely and excitedly welcomed the little man’s appointment I would like to think it is the former. If it really is the latter, the situation is hopeless because this current squad is so much weaker in almost every department to the last squad that got relegated. Yes there are key players in our team currently out with injury – Upson, Cole, Behrami for starters, but that is why premiership teams have squads – so that there are more than 11 perfectly competent players at this level to choose from for each game. That is not something we can currently boast. We will need at least two decent additions to the side to have any chance of staying up. and we will need at least three from a long list of clubs - Portsmouth, Wolves, Hull, Blackburn, Wigan, Burnley, not to improve their squads more than us for it to make a difference.
Meanwhile today we have the not inconsequential matter of getting through the Chelsea match without making our goal difference dramatically worse. it must be tempting for Zola to pack the midfield and play defensively, but we will come unstuck as we did against Man U if we attempt that. The only way to attack the game is to do just that – to attack and to keep Chelsea on the back-foot as much as possible and we might get away with a narrow defeat. They know that goal difference works at both ends of the table, and if we give even a hint of collapsing they will take us to the cleaners big time – just like Man U did. You can’t blame Greenie for puking up during the Man U game. He spoke for us all.
In the evening of the Man U game I met up with this friend of mine called Steve visiting from abroad. He’s been out the country about 25 years. As we emailed each other to make the arrangement I explained that I would be coming from the West Ham game.“ Didn’t they use to be a football team?” he asked, rather astutely. “That’s right” I replied.
There are so many reasons to hate Chelsea. I was disappointed when I came across a website recently that listed just 59 reasons. A few examples are:
3) They give their 'fans' cheap plastic flags to wave to create an atmosphere because they can't by themselves.
4) Where were all the fans before Roman and his dodgy Russian Roubles?
28) Players that leave good honest clubs to go to Chelsea just to be greedy for all the fucking money and warm the bench thinking they are cool.
54) Selling Robinho shirts when they hadn't signed him.
Although their number 1 reason actually says it all:
“Cheating, Diving C*nts!!!”
The full list is available at: http://www.oleole.com/blogs/manchester-united-remain-in-hunt-for-lyon-star-karim-benzema-report-1/posts/talking--few-reasons-to-hate-chelsea-fc
A poet friend of mine writes that “all useful hate begins with self-hate” and I guess there are a good few self-hating West Ham fans out there these days. But today needs to be about something different.
We can’t match their roubles and we don’t want to match them with cheating and diving. But I’d dearly like to see us match them in playing with pride. I don’t care what the score is today I just want to feel at the end that we have played our hearts out for each other and for us the fans for 90 minutes, and given us some reason to feel proud of their efforts.
And I want to see Zola with a good reason to smile even if we lose.
Enjoy the game if you can! COYI!!!!!
Averting a disaster
OLAS 472 December 5th 2009
It was an unsettling and unexpected image that appeared before my eyes just a few minutes before the game against Burnley kicked off. As I was about to leave the toilet a man came in holding his kid with one hand and his ketchup-sodden chips in paper in the other. His kid needed help to reach up high enough and the chips needed to be kept upright. He just about managed to avert a disaster…and for some odd reason this image reminds me of the game itself last week.
We found ourselves almost effortlessly 5-0 up on 65 minutes with barely a shot on target. Though Franco was unlucky with a brave header that hit the top of the bar with their goalie beaten, he hardly had a save to make or a difficult cross to contend with, but had to bring the ball out of the net five times. At 1-0 I felt less edgy, as Burnley were controlling the game at that stage. At 2-0 I was pleasantly surprised. I know many of you have been there with me when we’ve been 3-0 up at half time and come away with nothing. And on the basis that we were not exactly playing fluid and sparkling football, I wasn’t convinced this time that a three goal lead was going to be enough. so I didn’t feel comfortable until Franco netted the fourth on 52 minutes.
I relaxed, anticipating that the very worst that could happen would be that we would win 4-3. Sometimes it seems I know the team only too well. Anyway we all know what happened. We pissed on their chips by getting a fifth but then effectively threw our (ketchup-sodden) chips all over the toilet floor and said “go and have a few shots at our empty goal while we clear up.” They scored three and could have had more p all from very basic defensive errors and lack of awareness.
My mind drifted back to the legendary Malcolm Allison, the ex-West ham player renowned for the size of his cigar, or was it the size of the brim of his hat? In his management days a commentator asked him how his team had managed to pull off an unlikely victory. He replied, “We scored more goals than they did”. And I suppose in essence that’s what happened last week, because that is the only bit of the result I understand. We scored five goals, they scored three. End of.
And good goals they were too (ours that is). Quick thinking by Parker and a cool finish by Jack Collisson for the first. An even cooler finish by Junior Stan for the second, after a clever pass by Franco, a couple of penalties where fouls in the box were invited by perfectly weighted through balls, and great determination by Franco to get there first for his own much-deserved goal.
Last time round I commented that Parker doesn’t have the right temperament to be captain, but he was absolutely outstanding and led by example against Burnley for most of the game. Instead of doing those tidy 360-degree turns, coming away with the ball but going backwards or sideways, he went directly forwards at every opportunity to set up chances. But even he, with his immense performance, was unable to counteract the effect of those sleeping tablets on our defence during the last third of the game .
The performances around him though were something of a mixed bag. Franco and Cole worked well up front, Junior Stan had moments of creativity but was too easily blown off the ball; Collison worked hard but didn’t look comfortable on the right wing; Kojak had a solid first half, then played like a donkey in the second.
Meanwhile, Da Costa looked the most secure at the back, but one out of four defenders on task doesn’t leave a lot of cover for Greenie, and we were lucky to concede only three in that nervous final 25 minutes. We must consider ourselves especially fortunate that we weren’t having to play someone like Man U, though I can’t imagine them being obliging enough to let us ghost into a 5-0 lead in any case. My view is that we need to avoid them until we have sorted out the defence a little bit. Only the fixture fairy disagrees.
I noticed there were celebrations recently for the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down – we could have done with borrowing a bit of that wall and placing it about 10 yards in front of our goal. We’ve been treated to some ropey defenders at West Ham over the years, going all the way back to Tommy Taylor – who looked comfortable with everything except a football at his feet - and not forgetting Gary Breen, Rigoberto Song, Gary Charles, Wayne Quinn, and the inimitable Christian Dailly. But they would have looked solid as a rock compared with our defenders towards the end of the game last week. It’s a case not so much of having gaps and holes as fucking craters. But maybe Man U will feel sorry for us and play for a draw. They always struck me as the kind and sentimental sort, especially that absolute sweetie, Wayne Rooney.
Last week, in my clumsy efforts to portray what the West Ham experience feels like at the moment I used the analogy of a circus, though in retrospect “fairground ride” would have probably been more accurate. Watching the game I felt like I was flitting between the rollercoaster, ghost train, screaming swing and the megadrop (though fortunately we were still on the rollercoaster at the end. Just.)
I honestly had no expectation of what would happen during that 90 minutes. And now having seen it I can’t begin to explain what really happened. Except at the end of the day we did get three points and reduce our goal difference, and we had five different players score for us, which will do a lot for their self-confidence.
I suspect we will see a tighter game today. Our hope for getting something out of this one and lifting ourselves further away from danger in the next few weeks lies in the confidence that comes from our ability to find the back of the net both home and away. But when confidence clashes against quality, any sane person would have to fancy quality. However, our free-scoring ways do suggest that we are never totally out of a game at the moment. Paradoxically, though, our lack of meaningful defensive skills, means that however free-scoring we are, victory is not assured. Which, I guess, means that should we find ourselves 5-0 up against Man U after 65 minutes, we might have to settle for a draw.
The more important date arises a few days after the Man U game – on December 11 by which time Straumur have to secure agreement from their creditors for the restructuring of their bank, and if we are not in the process of being sold by then we are in much more danger of just dropping chips down the toilet.
No point speculating, everyone out there in the media is doing lots of that already. But good to see, in terms of a longer –term plan, that Johnny Ballantyne is drawing our attention to the initial moves by Newcastle supporters to find a way out of the powerlessness that so many fans feel, to bring their club under the ownership of the fans. We know that we pump loads of cash into the club week on week and loyally support the players, we are the ones who live for the club but also give life to the club – and we are the ones who ought to be in control.
In school I’ve been doing some work with young kids (8 year olds) recently about what independence means for a country. I ask them “How do you know when a country is born?” They usually respond at first with bizarre geological answers about volcanoes and such like, but then they say things like, you have your own flag, you’ve got your own money, you make your own laws. I tell them that I think the day a country is born is the day everyone living in that country, old, young, male or female, black or white, newcomer, old-comer, can say: “This country belongs to me, this country belongs to all of us. I can participate, I have the power to help decide what happens in this country.” What would it take for us to feel that about West Ham? Can we make it happen?
Enjoy the game. For those of you into betting on correct scores I can absolutely guarantee it won’t be 0-0. Hope that helps you to your fortune and that our fortune today is not always hiding. COYI!!!!
It was an unsettling and unexpected image that appeared before my eyes just a few minutes before the game against Burnley kicked off. As I was about to leave the toilet a man came in holding his kid with one hand and his ketchup-sodden chips in paper in the other. His kid needed help to reach up high enough and the chips needed to be kept upright. He just about managed to avert a disaster…and for some odd reason this image reminds me of the game itself last week.
We found ourselves almost effortlessly 5-0 up on 65 minutes with barely a shot on target. Though Franco was unlucky with a brave header that hit the top of the bar with their goalie beaten, he hardly had a save to make or a difficult cross to contend with, but had to bring the ball out of the net five times. At 1-0 I felt less edgy, as Burnley were controlling the game at that stage. At 2-0 I was pleasantly surprised. I know many of you have been there with me when we’ve been 3-0 up at half time and come away with nothing. And on the basis that we were not exactly playing fluid and sparkling football, I wasn’t convinced this time that a three goal lead was going to be enough. so I didn’t feel comfortable until Franco netted the fourth on 52 minutes.
I relaxed, anticipating that the very worst that could happen would be that we would win 4-3. Sometimes it seems I know the team only too well. Anyway we all know what happened. We pissed on their chips by getting a fifth but then effectively threw our (ketchup-sodden) chips all over the toilet floor and said “go and have a few shots at our empty goal while we clear up.” They scored three and could have had more p all from very basic defensive errors and lack of awareness.
My mind drifted back to the legendary Malcolm Allison, the ex-West ham player renowned for the size of his cigar, or was it the size of the brim of his hat? In his management days a commentator asked him how his team had managed to pull off an unlikely victory. He replied, “We scored more goals than they did”. And I suppose in essence that’s what happened last week, because that is the only bit of the result I understand. We scored five goals, they scored three. End of.
And good goals they were too (ours that is). Quick thinking by Parker and a cool finish by Jack Collisson for the first. An even cooler finish by Junior Stan for the second, after a clever pass by Franco, a couple of penalties where fouls in the box were invited by perfectly weighted through balls, and great determination by Franco to get there first for his own much-deserved goal.
Last time round I commented that Parker doesn’t have the right temperament to be captain, but he was absolutely outstanding and led by example against Burnley for most of the game. Instead of doing those tidy 360-degree turns, coming away with the ball but going backwards or sideways, he went directly forwards at every opportunity to set up chances. But even he, with his immense performance, was unable to counteract the effect of those sleeping tablets on our defence during the last third of the game .
The performances around him though were something of a mixed bag. Franco and Cole worked well up front, Junior Stan had moments of creativity but was too easily blown off the ball; Collison worked hard but didn’t look comfortable on the right wing; Kojak had a solid first half, then played like a donkey in the second.
Meanwhile, Da Costa looked the most secure at the back, but one out of four defenders on task doesn’t leave a lot of cover for Greenie, and we were lucky to concede only three in that nervous final 25 minutes. We must consider ourselves especially fortunate that we weren’t having to play someone like Man U, though I can’t imagine them being obliging enough to let us ghost into a 5-0 lead in any case. My view is that we need to avoid them until we have sorted out the defence a little bit. Only the fixture fairy disagrees.
I noticed there were celebrations recently for the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down – we could have done with borrowing a bit of that wall and placing it about 10 yards in front of our goal. We’ve been treated to some ropey defenders at West Ham over the years, going all the way back to Tommy Taylor – who looked comfortable with everything except a football at his feet - and not forgetting Gary Breen, Rigoberto Song, Gary Charles, Wayne Quinn, and the inimitable Christian Dailly. But they would have looked solid as a rock compared with our defenders towards the end of the game last week. It’s a case not so much of having gaps and holes as fucking craters. But maybe Man U will feel sorry for us and play for a draw. They always struck me as the kind and sentimental sort, especially that absolute sweetie, Wayne Rooney.
Last week, in my clumsy efforts to portray what the West Ham experience feels like at the moment I used the analogy of a circus, though in retrospect “fairground ride” would have probably been more accurate. Watching the game I felt like I was flitting between the rollercoaster, ghost train, screaming swing and the megadrop (though fortunately we were still on the rollercoaster at the end. Just.)
I honestly had no expectation of what would happen during that 90 minutes. And now having seen it I can’t begin to explain what really happened. Except at the end of the day we did get three points and reduce our goal difference, and we had five different players score for us, which will do a lot for their self-confidence.
I suspect we will see a tighter game today. Our hope for getting something out of this one and lifting ourselves further away from danger in the next few weeks lies in the confidence that comes from our ability to find the back of the net both home and away. But when confidence clashes against quality, any sane person would have to fancy quality. However, our free-scoring ways do suggest that we are never totally out of a game at the moment. Paradoxically, though, our lack of meaningful defensive skills, means that however free-scoring we are, victory is not assured. Which, I guess, means that should we find ourselves 5-0 up against Man U after 65 minutes, we might have to settle for a draw.
The more important date arises a few days after the Man U game – on December 11 by which time Straumur have to secure agreement from their creditors for the restructuring of their bank, and if we are not in the process of being sold by then we are in much more danger of just dropping chips down the toilet.
No point speculating, everyone out there in the media is doing lots of that already. But good to see, in terms of a longer –term plan, that Johnny Ballantyne is drawing our attention to the initial moves by Newcastle supporters to find a way out of the powerlessness that so many fans feel, to bring their club under the ownership of the fans. We know that we pump loads of cash into the club week on week and loyally support the players, we are the ones who live for the club but also give life to the club – and we are the ones who ought to be in control.
In school I’ve been doing some work with young kids (8 year olds) recently about what independence means for a country. I ask them “How do you know when a country is born?” They usually respond at first with bizarre geological answers about volcanoes and such like, but then they say things like, you have your own flag, you’ve got your own money, you make your own laws. I tell them that I think the day a country is born is the day everyone living in that country, old, young, male or female, black or white, newcomer, old-comer, can say: “This country belongs to me, this country belongs to all of us. I can participate, I have the power to help decide what happens in this country.” What would it take for us to feel that about West Ham? Can we make it happen?
Enjoy the game. For those of you into betting on correct scores I can absolutely guarantee it won’t be 0-0. Hope that helps you to your fortune and that our fortune today is not always hiding. COYI!!!!
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