What the Papers Say

"There is a bias in the media towards West Ham, the glamour club from London, and we live with that."

Those were the words of Steve Bruce on the eve of Birmingham’s efforts to relegate us in May 2003. The words "chip", "shoulder" and "big fat head" immediately spring to my mind but, whilst conspiracy theories about a cockney mafia in Fleet Street may be wide of the mark (demonstrated by the numerous spurious stories written about Tevezgate), West Ham do seem to take up a disproportionately large amount of column inches.

This week’s papers included opinion pieces about our beloved club by former player Ian Wright and Hammers fan and Daily Mail hack Martin Samuel, following Managing Director Karren Brady’s weekend column in the Sun.

Martin Samuel does his best to write objectively but even he is clearly struggling to temper his anger at Avram’s reign.

"Taking his time at Portsmouth and West Ham into account, he has been bottom of the Premier League for all but three weeks in the last year and, even without the 10-point deduction, Portsmouth would have been relegated with him in charge.

"No wonder Grant asks to be judged on factors beyond league position, as if with an established system of meritocracy tried and available we should now be looking at the unquantifiable for clues."

Indeed, Avram possesses that Roederian inability to at least acknowledge his team’s failings, choosing instead to patronise the fans with suggestions that we are simply in a false position and that we are absolutely heading in the right direction.

During Curbs’s disastrous first few weeks in the job, whilst trying to look at the positives, he admitted that we were in a "results business", and that he would be judged accordingly. Avram is oblivious to this, choosing instead to focus on the bad luck of injuries, oblivious to the fact that he wasted the preseason opportunity to strengthen the squad.

On Tuesday, Ian Wright had his turn in the Sun.

"I've seen a few of their games this season and it looks as though opponents are happy to play at Upton Park because there's no chance West Ham are going to come out all fired up by a rocket from the manager.

"He's a very calm and relaxed fella but that's not what West Ham need right now. They want someone animated and able to deliver a few home truths. They need someone who can get ALL the players riled up, not just Scotty Parker."

I am about as interested in Ian Wright’s opinions on football, as I am the Pope’s on birth control but however simplistic his sentiment, it’s hard to quarrel with. It doesn’t need a 10,000-word dissertation to articulate the fact that without some fight and backbone we are destined to continue in the same vein and finish the season around the 27-point mark.

On Wednesday, up stepped Darren Lewis of the Mirror. Now Darren is not a West Ham fan, but apparently his mate Stuart is. Stuart, who may or may not have read Love In the Time's pro-Fat Sam polemic last week, would favour Championship football over having to endure a more direct style of play.

"While he has the utmost respect for the job Sam Allardyce has done at Blackburn and Bolton, he'd rather his beloved West Ham go down than welcome the out-of-work boss to Upton Park.

"It was a view that stunned me, I have to say. Allardyce has a track record of stabilising clubs and getting the job done. It might not be pretty, but then Premier League safety is surely all-important - or so I thought."

Stuart is clearly not alone in his view and it appears that few Newcastle or even Blackburn fans are queuing up to write Fat Sam a reference. It certainly would be the throw of dices to end all dice throwing, but the prospect still remains something to fill papers, rather than anything approaching reality.

Later that day James Olley took a refreshingly new angle on the situation, by writing in the Evening Standard that Stuart Pearce was the man to save us. Given that the Evening Standard is a regional paper, I assume Steve Bruce would forgive the London-centric nature of this piece.

"Attendances are falling and the general apathy around the Boleyn Ground is a corrosive backdrop against which the Hammers are falling ever deeper into a relegation fight."

Depressingly, the word ‘apathy’ seems to perfectly sum up the mood at Upton Park right now. Fans may be divided as to what the solution is but underlying this seems to be a general feeling of meh, as though all the options available are just a series of lesser evils, with no one change offering both a short and long-term solution. Is Psycho the answer to our prayers? Maybe, but probably not.

I cannot remember a time when there has been so much speculation about a successor before a manager has been giving his marching orders. It’s as if Avram’s departure is a fact that no-one has shared with Gold and Sullivan.

Preceding all of this was Karren Brady who tiptoed nicely around the subject of Avram’s job security.

"There are the calls about our manager's future. All I'll say is that he knows the team have to do better. David Sullivan and David Gold bought West Ham out of love for the club. They want it to grow into a giant while remaining true to its footballing traditions. Relegation in their first season would be no way to start."

Wouldn’t be ideal, would it. The owners cannot realistically expect the fans to wait patiently for Avram to sort things out, having previously described relegation as "Armageddon".

There is not much that David and David can do about people expressing their opinion, but they made it clear this week via the club website that they will not tolerate anything purporting to be fact that is not so.

"Contrary to a report made in today's Daily Mirror, the club categorically deny that Carlton Cole, Keiron Dyer, Herita Ilunga, Danny Gabbidon and Luis Boa Morte can only train two days a week; they train every day they are requested to without fail. The players and the club are seeking legal advice on the matter."

And there you have it. A fairly typical week in the soap opera that is West Ham. Maybe somewhere within all that is the key to survival. Then again ...

LOVE IN THE TIME OF COLLISON RETURNS IN JANUARY WHEN WEST HAM WILL BE NINE POINTS THE RICHER. MERRY CHRISTMAS AND AS SHANE MACGOWAN MIGHT SAY "I’VE GOT A FEELING THIS YEAR’S FOR WEST HAM UNITED". HONESTLY. COME ON YOU IRONS!

High Fidelity

Top Five Most Unjust Premier League Sackings

1. Jose Mourinho, Chelsea 2004 - 2007
2. Bobby Robson, Newcastle 1999 - 2004
3. Dave Jones, Southampton 1997 - 2000
4. Martin Jol, Tottenham 2004 - 2007
5. Ron Atkinson, Sheffield Wednesday 1997 - 1998

After the last two weeks’ events you can potentially add Chris Hughton and Sam Allardyce to that list. After the longest start to a season without a sacking for 15 years, normal irrational service has been resumed.

As Swiss Toni might say, sacking a manager is very much like breaking up with a beautiful woman. In Chris Hughton’s case it seems that Mike Ashley just couldn’t commit, got bored and traded him in for a “more experienced” model. Blackburn’s Venky’s Group fell into that age-old trap of thinking you can do better when in fact you’re probably punching above your weight. As for Gold and Sullivan’s fidelity to Avram? Well, they do say love is blind.

Fat Sam has been strongly linked with West Ham this week. This may of course be no more than a journalist sitting at his desk with a list of unemployed managers and vacancies, putting two and two together. It certainly would have been unthinkable at the start of the season, but in the managerial merry-go-round of the Premier League stranger things have happened.

The reaction of most supporters so far is predictably hostile. The idea of having to cheer on El-Hadji Diouf as he impedes a goalkeeper from a set-piece is unlikely to inspire many to renew their season ticket. The image of Fat Sam dancing on the pitch at the end of the 2002/03 season as we were relegated still angers and disturbs me in equal measure. The obvious objection of most fans is of course his direct style of play.

However, football is not just about the 90 minutes a week you spend watching a game. It is also about the high of victory or the low of defeat that stays with you well into your working week. I sorely miss the former and believe that Fat Sam would bring with him a winning mentality, offering us our best chance of survival. Even those fans opposed to his appointment will accept this. This raises the question then of whether a more direct style of play is a price worth paying for survival.

One way to look at it is to ask Arsenal fans whether they would hand back the trophies won under George Graham in lieu of more free-flowing football. Or Chelsea fans under Jose Mourinho. I think you can guess the answer. Fat Sam was ridiculed (on this site amongst others) for his comments about managing Real Madrid or Inter Milan when he suggested that it “wouldn’t be a problem”. Perhaps there is a serious point here though. I chose to jump on the bandwagon and make fun of this seemingly deluded arrogance, but in context was he not simply saying that he could adapt his style as necessary. If so, then maybe there is a role for him at West Ham.

Some of the comments made by fans on various sites this week have been positively vitriolic, talking about him as if here were some kind of sub-species, solely responsible for the death of the “beautiful game” (a phrase apt for describing Brazil and 1970s Holland but not much else). A counterpoint to this is surely that he is just a man who has made the best out of working with limited resources in a league where wealth is concentrated amongst a small number of clubs who are not interested in english managers anyway.

I wonder if it’s time to take our heads out of our “playing football the right way” arses and accept that we, like any other club, have to cut our cloth accordingly. Avram may have got the players passing the ball to feet but as soon as this fails to materialise into a serious attack, as it invariably does, the players lose patience and lump the ball up to Piquionne’s head anyway. So what have we got to lose?

As Leeds and Brian Clough demonstrated so succinctly in the seventies, some managers and clubs are simply incompatible. Although I would personally welcome Fat Sam to Upton Park (and have said so previously http://bit.ly/eHcLZm), I know that a significant section of the fans would not, and I am not sure I can bear any more negative vibes in a crowd that boos Luis Boa Morte as he leaves the pitch having run himself ragged for an hour.

I imagine that this will all prove academic as I do not believe he would be interested in the position anyway. If there were one sure-fire way to relive the ingratitude he experienced at Newcastle, it would be to come to another club where the fans put a certain style of football ahead of endeavour and success. I suspect the pull of foreign climes may be more tempting. Unrequited love, eh. Now that really hurts.

The Olympic Stadium: What would Edmund Burke do?

It was only a matter of time. An online petition opposing the proposed move to the Olympic Stadium has been set up. In an age where changing one’s Facebook profile picture to a cartoon character is deemed a substitute for a donation to a children’s charity, it was inevitable that at some point a web-based campaign would emerge.

Mywhufc.com has been established to draw attention to the argument against moving away from the Boleyn Ground. As well as the petition itself, there is an explanation of arguments both for and against the move, as well as details of ways that you can get involved, which seem to solely involve, er, Facebook.

The comments on the petition are worryingly incoherent. The strapline could almost be: ‘You don’t have to be illiterate to sign here, but it helps.’ The main themes seem to be fears over the impact of the running track (a legitimate concern) and nostalgia for the Boleyn Ground (not so legitimate). The other suspicion is that the owners are only interested in lining their pockets, articulated perhaps best by one fan who claims: “let,s stay where we are its just a money making scheme for gold ,sullivan,brady too fleese us of our earned cash and loyalty too thw hammers.”

As joint-owner of Birmingham City David Gold made no secret of his lifelong love of West Ham. He is worth over £500m. I might be sticking my neck out here but at the age of 73 I don’t believe he is motivated by spending his last decade or two on the planet screwing over West Ham fans.

The obsession with being based in Upton Park is beyond me but many clearly feel passionate about being situated a couple of miles east of West Ham rather than a couple of miles north-west. Another fan wrote: “don't agree with the stadium move,because Upton Park means too much to me,but not the stadium itself,what it's all about:the Barking Road,Upton Park Station,the Queen's Market”.

Queen’s Market? Are you serious? In fairness the Barking Road can be very handy if after the game you suddenly remember you need a cheap hardware store, an unfranchised chicken outlet or some tyres. Upton Park tube station I cannot bring myself to even joke about. Queuing outside after a game packed in like sardines is a nightmare. The prospect of Stratford station with access to direct overground trains to and from Essex as well as the Jubilee and Central Lines is one of the most compelling arguments for the move.

Some objectors are less specific in their reservations. Jake quips: “FUCK OFF GOLD AND SULLIVAN! CUNTS!” Another comment reads: “im well not happy with this move”. It’s good to know Danny Dyer is having his tuppence worth. Others go off on a complete tangent and bemoan the appointment of Avram. Not relevant to the subject at hand but I do at least have some sympathy here.

One of the more surprising contributions quotes a saying commonly attributed to the philosopher Edmund Burke: “For evil to prevail, good men must do nothing”. Not wholly inappropriate, but a tad melodramatic ? A bit like those in favour of the move proclaiming it to be one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

Clearly, a few hundred silly comments on the internet do not automatically negate the argument to stay in E13. Football is a passionate game and people are entitled to a bit of sentimentality. Furthermore, concerns over the running track are valid, and Gold and Sullivan would do well to address this issue more vocally.

However, even this hurdle (excuse the pun) is not enough to deter me. The gap between pitch and stand is unlikely to be much bigger than that already existing alongside the East Stand. The Britannia Stadium generates a great atmosphere despite the Rory Delap-friendly voids. Furthermore, pictures of the Olympic Stadium suggest that its enclosed structure would be perfect for keeping noise in.

Tellingly, many of the comments posted on the petition actually acknowledge how underwhelming the atmosphere at Upton Park already is. So what is there to lose? Comparisons to the Emirates are completely misplaced. The lack of atmosphere isn’t a result of modern architecture; it’s a result of the Arsenal fans. Not for nothing was Highbury nicknamed the Library. In fact, visiting the Emirates a few weeks ago reinforced to me how exciting the prospect is of a new stadium with modern facilities. Getting a beer at half time at Arsenal is quick and easy. Getting a beer in the Bobby Moore Stand is a scrum, with fans having to queue just to get from their seats to the bar.

Developing the East Stand, the obvious alternative, won’t give us a stadium a fraction as impressive as the Olympic Stadium. Why do you think Tottenham are prepared to leave north London to relocate there, even after being granted planning permission to redevelop Shite Hart Lane.

And this is before we even get on to the inevitable ticket price reductions that will be needed to attract more than the current 33,000 average attendance. Gold and Sullivan won’t reduce prices out of the goodness of their heart; they’ll do it because of the law of supply and demand. This season’s Carling Cup run has already demonstrated their willingness to experiment with price elasticity.

Of the current top seven Premier League teams, four have changed grounds in the last 13 years, one (Tottenham) is planning to, one (Chelsea) would be mad not to and the other (Man Utd) has had the rare luxury of not needing to.

One of Edmund Burke’s less famous quotes emphasises the need to adapt to survive: “A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.” In a season where the on-field activity is as disappointing as ever, a move to a new stadium should be embraced as a rare opportunity for progress.

El Clásico

As I approached the Bobby Moore stand at 7.30 on Tuesday night, I received a call from my dad to tell me that he was stuck in snow and wouldn’t make the game and that, more seriously, we were lining up with Radoslav Kovac and Jonathan Spector in centre midfield. As I shivered in the snow I confess that the idea of heading home fleetingly crossed my mind. Two hours later I left the ground having witnessed one of the greatest games I will ever see.

Manchester United had not lost in this competition since September 2007, having won it for the last two years. This was their heaviest defeat since 2001. We lined up with the aforementioned midfield pairing and with absentees comprising Scott Parker, Mark Noble and Frederic Piquionne (ie our three best players this season). In the starting line-up were also Luis Boa Morte, James Tomkins, Tal Ben Haim and Pablo Barrera who, to put it kindly, have not covered themselves in glory in 2010. We have denied Man United on many occasions over the last two decades but never in such devastating fashion.

The visitors' “second string” line up included Darren Fletcher, Ryan Giggs, Anderson, John O’Shea and £10m Chris Smalling. We were rightly the underdogs and 15 minutes into the game we were reminded why, as Julien Faubert tried to shepherd the ball out 10 yards from the byline and Man United hit the post. And then suddenly we scored.

The disallowing of Obinna/Spector’s goal was almost worth it just to see Avram petulantly throw the ball in the referee’s direction as a throw-in was about to be taken. That, coupled with the Roberto Mancini-style scarf, was a step in the right direction to winning over sceptical fans who believe him to be passionless and a bit, well, dead. Having subsequently watched the game again on TV (probably not for the last time) it was surprising that co-commentator Alan Smith needed about five views of the goal to realise that the linesman had actually made a very good decision.

The fans inside the ground could be forgiven for being outraged, fearing that our best chance at snatching an unlikely victory had gone. Little were we to know that Jonny Spector was about to make every pun-hungry journalist’s day by showing great spirit to ghost into the penalty area and score not one but two goals. The fans jokingly sang “3-0 to the cockney boys”. Had the linesman not been so alert Spector would actually have had a hattrick.

It’s unlikely that he will now displace Noble and Parker on a permanent basis but with Noble currently injured he has to be a genuine consideration for a place in the starting line-up against Sunderland. I learned after the game that as a trainee Spector was a striker, which certainly explains a few things. The person responsible for turning him into a defender (if that is not too loose a use of the expression) has a lot to answer for.

Spector is an unlikely professional footballer, falling into the Graeme Le Saux school of players capable of constructing an eloquent, cliché-free sentence. Even his appearance suggests anything but a footballer. This softly-spoken American driving West Ham to a 4-0 victory against Man United seems about as plausible as Elijah Wood heading up the ICF.

Putting the result to one side, this game was pure entertainment in its own right. The physical brutality, perhaps embodied best by Tal Ben Haim smashing into Bébé, was a refreshing change from some timid performances this season. Off-the-ball drama was never far away either with Fergie jabbing his finger in Boa Morte’s face following another hard challenge on one of his little lambs. It was rather reminiscent of the handbags between Pep Guardiola and Ronaldo on Monday night, except that everyone just got on with the game rather than standing round for five minutes trying to convince the ref that they were the more sinned against.

Robert Green, who made two excellent saves, could also be relied upon for his usual faux pas, this time choosing to kick the ball straight into Macheda’s back from a drop kick. Green’s brilliant reaction, albeit to his own cock-up, prevented a goal and a nervy second half. That said, in terms of nerves, it was only really at 4-0 that we could relax and enjoy the rest of the game, a rare luxury even against the worst of teams. At 3-0 no-one honestly felt safe. The memory of May 2006 is forever seared into all our psyches.

Talk of this being a turning point seems rather premature. We have been Man United’s bogey team for some time now. Our defeat of them in Alan Curbishley’s first game in charge proved to be a false start. Even the 2002/03 relegation season included a rare victory at Stamford Bridge. I prefer to just enjoy this game for what it was.

Fans have long memories and the player whose name they chanted was substitute Scott Parker. Indeed, Avram may fear he has lost the fans forever. Still they chanted for Paolo Di Canio, even at 4-0.

On Tuesday night, for the first time in my life I sang Que Sera Sera. It was a strange feeling, as if I was singing another team’s song. The idea of contented uncertainty seems rather apt right now.

Avram's Song

Saturday’s game at Anfield seemed to be one of those tipping points, as the travelling fans started to turn against the manager, and even the Avram Apologists had to admit that lining up 4-3-3 against a team with one of the best attacking full backs in the league may have been a tad naive.

Opting to fiddle while Rome burns, the Davids responded by sacking assistant Zeljko Petrovic rather than old Turtlehead himself. Fans quickly leapt on every bit of media speculation and assembled a fantasy backroom team consisting of Paolo Di Canio, John Hartson, Steve Lomas and, er, Wally Downes.

Saturday’s match against Wigan is now being marketed as ‘save our season’ day. It will be the second home game I have missed this season, the first being the win over Tottenham, so the omens already look good.

Meanwhile, not wanting to be outdone by Ellie Goulding, Avram has done his own rendition of Elton John’s Your Song, with new lyrics and everything:

It’s a little bit funny, this feeling of denial
I’m not one of those who can easily smile
We don’t have much money but that’s what we need
What was I thinking, buying Winston Reid

If I was a motivator, but then again, no
The fans are already chanting for Di Canio
One win isn’t much but it’s the best I can do
My gift was Barrera, he’s turned out to be poo

And you can tell everybody the ref got it wrong
It’s bad for morale if we blame Gabbidon
I hope you don’t mind
I hope you don’t mind that I missed Stoke for Yom Kippur
Here’s hoping that one day Obinna might just score

I stood on the touchline and stared at the dross
Well a few of Carlton’s shots, they’ve got me quite cross
But Scott’s been quite good while surrounded by clowns
It's due to people like him that we’re not yet down

So excuse me forgetting but these things I do
Why don’t I just stick with playing four-four-two
Anyway the thing is what I really mean
Ours is the worst back four I've ever seen

And I will blame everything on the injury list
We simply can’t win without Collison and Hitz
I hope you don’t mind
I hope you don’t mind that I came from Chelsea
How wonderful life will be, when we’re playing Barnsley

DON'T PANIC

When Chris Martin sings “we live in a beautiful world” in Coldplay’s Don’t Panic, he does so with a distinct lack of conviction. Similar insincerity permeated from Avram Grant on Saturday as he claimed to be “delighted” with West Ham’s performance against Blackpool. The current excuses of bad luck (we've been saved by the woodwork more than any other premier league team this year) and bad refereeing decisions (Marlon's perfectly legitimate goal?) can only last so long.

On Tuesday, Karen Brady did a much better job of putting us knee-jerkers in our place, claiming that “weak-minded people press the panic button”. Ouch. Opinions of Avram aside, if we are going to stand by our man then it is comforting to see The Apprentice come out and speak so decisively.

Here are some more reasons to be positive:

1. Scott Parker aside, the big clubs won’t be sniffing round our players.

2. Freddie Sears is doing ok on loan at Scunthorpe.

3. That couple from Kent have been freed by Somalian pirates.

4. The Davids may be too stubborn to ever relieve Avram of his duties, but his contract only lasts four years. The furthest we can fall in this time is to the Blue Square Premier, the results and league table of which appear in most national newspapers.

5. Steven Gerrard looks like he will miss Saturday’s game.

6. Millwall and Sheffield United are striking a nice balance of being crap, but not so crap that they will get relegated and deny us a couple of interesting ding dongs next year.

7. Following a brief scare that we may have been a bit hasty in letting Diamanti go when he was called up to play for Italy this week, he duly played rubbish and was substituted at half time.

8. The Wigan game is kids for a quid.

9. Despite Avram overseeing the worst start to a season in the club’s history the spectre of anti-semitism does not appear to have reared its ugly head.

10. The Paolo Di Canio lounge.

11. We cannot finish any lower than 20th. No other Premier League team has the luxury of being able to say they will definitely finish as well as or better than their current position.

12. UK retail sales rose in October, ending two months of decline.

13. Season-ticket holders can get 10% off this weekend at the new club shop at the Liberty Shopping Centre in Romford.

14. Neil Warnock this week ruled himself out of ever becoming West Ham manager.

15. According to the club website tickets for the Man Utd quarter final are selling fast (just not fast enough that despite now being on general sale, more than 2,000 remain).

16. The persistent closure of the District Line gives fans the chance to sample the delights of the Barking Road as they trek back and forth to Canning Town.

17. Zavon Hines has been out long enough for us to believe that he will be our saviour.

18. ESPN’s new feature which sees a presenter hand the matchball to the referee as he walks out of the tunnel. Why did no-one think of this sooner?

19. West Ham’s George Moncur, son of Jon, was called up to the England U’18 squad this week.

20. David Gold has a lovely beard.

DON'T PANIC is written on the cover of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy manual. The novel explains that this was because the device "looked insanely complicated" to operate. The debate as to whether Avram is out of his depth or whether West Ham is simply too complicated to operate goes on.

There Goes My Hero

Scott Parker’s sublime goal on his 100th appearance for the club would undoubtedly have inspired a team possessing a backbone to victory last night. Alas, we are not that team. As Paul Calf might say, “Inside every bag of shite lies a speck of gold”. The other players must hate him, serving as he does to highlight their own shortcomings.

Say what you like about Gold and Sullivan’s impact so far but during their tenure the West Ham machine has become adept at looking on the bright side. The lead-up to last night’s game was a case in point. To the average man on the street, an inability to sell enough tickets would seem like a bad thing. On the contrary, fans “will be able to pay on the day” boasted the website.

Despite this valiant marketing, gaps that would put Scott Carson’s teeth to shame remained in the stands. I was just waiting for the PA Announcer to gloss over this: “The West Stand Upper Tier is only half-full tonight giving you fans the ideal opportunity to stretch out”. More likely might have been a new promotion appearing on the website telling fans that if they arrive at half time they can get in for £5, such is the desperation to get bums on seats.

“With demand expected to be high, fans are advised to get to the stadium early”, continued the West Brom promotion, with no explanation for the assumption that a last-minute rush of people suddenly desperate to part with their money and embrace the cold weather was somehow inevitable.

“Supporters should also note that this match will not be televised, as previously advertised”. Call me a cynic but I cannot help but wonder whether this actually ever happened, or whether in fact this was a ploy to make fans feel ok about not having snapped up tickets sooner. I suspect the Manchester derby was always favourite for the live slot.

No matter how bad things are going it’s impossible to arrive at Upton Park of an evening and not feel a sense of optimism. The morning after the night before, such innocence now seems a lifetime away. Before the game I had nothing better to worry about than the price of pies in the stadium. My dad was concerned they had become too expensive. I reassured him that if you are going to pay over the odds on, it might as well be on something that boosts the club’s coffers. He bought two.

The first half had all the frustrations of the opening hour against Stoke a couple of weeks ago. Avram’s tactical nous came to the fore as he instructed Piquionne and Pablo “Where Angels Fear to Stick Their Toe In” Barrera to switch wings. Unfortunately, West Brom were wise to this cunning plan, and only a rocket from Scotty could bring us to parity.

Without wishing to sound rude, gormless is the best way I can think to describe Avram. I’m not even entirely sure what gormless means (what is a gorm and is it something to aspire to?) but there is something about watching him on the sideline that makes me think, yeah, you don’t really know what you’re doing do you, mate.

There were groans aplenty last night (Carlton was again targeted despite being isolated by the 4-3-3 formation) but special groaning was saved for players dithering as they took throw-ins and goal kicks in second-half injury time, arms outstretched querying exactly who amongst their team mates wanted the ball. Piquionne was presumably thinking, I would like the ball but I’ve been stuck out on the wing so it’s a bit tricky. His body language certainly suggested a frustrated man.

Amongst all this directionless mess there is Scott Parker, possibly the greatest leader in the Premier League to find himself without the armband. At half time Foo Fighters’ My Hero was played out over the tannoy. Coincidence or not, it seemed a fitting paean for a player who - a move to Tottenham notwithstanding - is already assured of legendary status amongst West Ham fans.

There is an alternative

If, like me, you are struggling with the idea of enduring another 90 minutes of dross this Saturday, there are other things going on in east London this weekend.

Ice Skating, Canary Wharf

The 13th Newham Scout Group, Stratford

Aaj Kal: Current affairs in Bengali, East India Dock Road

Ab Blast, East Ham Leisure Centre

Ale Douvan African Dancing, Kingsley Hall Community Centre

Pantomime, Upton Park, 3-5pm

Remember, remember the month of November

Scott Parker emailed me this week to thank me for my fantastic support and to tell me about ticket prices for the Carling Cup quarter final. “The league is the main priority for us but having this good cup is a big bonus and can only help,” wrote Scott. It’s hard to argue against the league being our priority but in all honesty, if you offered me some silverware at the expense of Premier League survival, I would take it.

Bill Shankly used to say, don’t look at the league table until ten games in. If you follow Shankly’s mantra and resist the temptation to do some complicated mental arithmetic, you will only just have become fully aware of our predicament. Bottom of the league and, unless we can conjure up a 6-0 win at St Andrews, destined to be there at the end of the week. Relegation battles can be rather exciting. After two very close shaves in the last four years, I am simply feeling fatigued.

The performance at Arsenal has to go down as a positive. Our fate won’t be decided by games against the top four (whoever that is now), so the best that could be hoped for was a battling display, which we got. Yes, Arsenal had several chances to score sooner, but they were denied by Robert Green. That’s not luck. That’s Robert Green being a good shot stopper. Had we held on for a point, this would have gone down as the performance of the season so far.

The players may have felt deflated afterwards (see Danny Gabbidon’s tweet on the right) but as a fan, attention turned immediately to the more winnable games: West Brom, Blackpool and Wigan all come to Upton Park in November. With games against Blackburn, Sunderland and Birmingham also between now and Christmas, failure to move out of the dropzone before the turn of the year would make a difficult task look increasingly hopeless.

Avram suggested recently that he would feel no more worried were we to be in this position come April. To put that ill-advised comment in context, March ends with a trip to White Hart Lane, while opponents in April include Chelsea, Man United, Man City, as well as a trip to Bolton. Avram may pride himself in playing it cool, but fans will be forgiven for mistaking this as complacency. Rightly or wrongly, Tony Cottee has already made his concerns public through the white van man’s favourite medium, Talksport.

Against this backdrop, the Carling Cup becomes an increasingly welcome distraction. Clearly we are underdogs against Man United but with home advantage it’s hard not to feel a sense of optimism. A good performance and a bit of luck and suddenly we are one game away from our first appearance at Wembley since 1981 and the possibility of winning a competition that has been dominated by Man United and Chelsea in recent years.

Relegation is of course undesirable but the prospect of Championship football for a year or two does not scare me. People talk about the danger of “becoming the next Leeds” but in truth such declines are the exception rather than the rule. Big clubs, such as Newcastle, Birmingham and West Brom, tend to bounce back quickly.

We are evens to stay in the Premier League and 20/1 to win the Carling Cup. One bet looks better value to me than the other. Of course, this isn’t a Sophie’s Choice situation. The reality is that with a maximum of three games left to play in the Carling Cup, Avram doesn’t have the headache of needing to prioritise one over the other.

In November 2006, Sheffield United had a late equaliser at Upton Park ruled out for offside. The goal cost Sheffield United their Premier League place and inflicted the self-righteousness of Kevin McCabe and Sean Bean on the rest of us. Over the next few weeks there is little margin for error.

You can now follow Love In The Time Of Collison at http://twitter.com/OnWestHam. As well as updates on new posts you can also follow my ramblings.

Concentrate on the Cup

On Wednesday night an Upton Park-bound District Line train dithered at a red light for the umpteenth time. A West Ham fan commented: “This driver must be a Millwall fan”. A Stoke fan responded: “No, it’s just Avram Grant taking you nowhere”.

In the context of an excitable group of football fans such quips always seems funnier than they actually are. I welcomed it as much-needed comic relief. Normally when I despair of our predicament people tell me that West Ham are too good to go down or that Avram Grant knows what he's doing. The Stoke fan’s sentiment chimed much more with my own misgivings.

I never thought I would describe a game of football as cringeworthy but that’s the best way I can describe the first hour of what turned out to be a very good cup win. Players, most notably Kovac and McCarthy, just didn’t seem to know how on earth to create an attack. I fear that if I ever meet Scott Parker I will fall to the floor, grab his ankles and beg him to never leave us. His impassioned goal celebration in which he ran straight to the fans suggests that, as ever, he is up for the fight.

Put simply, the turning point of the game was the substitutions:

Boa Morte (Behrami 72)
Kovac (Obinna 64)
McCarthy (Noble 72)
Jones (Gudjohnsen 58)

Mark Noble’s creation of the second and third goals was pure class, whilst Eidur Gudjohnsen gave us a timely reminder that his snub last January was no bad thing. Luis Boa Morte and Benni McCarthy were, as expected, truly awful.

A place in the Carling Cup quarter final is cause for celebration but even this cannot mask the underlying problems. A quarter of the way into the season and we are yet to leave the foot of the table. To avoid relegation our form over the remainder of the season will need to be similar to that of Birmingham City last season. As fans, we may have been here before but it doesn’t get any easier.

When I first decided to write a West Ham blog I had utopian intentions of keeping it consistently positive. Should we win at the Emirates I promise to post something more bubbly next week, but for the time being these are my five biggest gripes of the season so far:

1. Avram Grant describing us as being at the start of a long road

I don’t know if he has been watching too much X Factor but Avram has an unfortunate tendency to use his programme notes to describe the long journey that we are embarking on. In the Newcastle programme he wrote: “We are doing the right things and we want to continue this and we have a long way to go”. I have no problem with managing fans’ expectations but with every week that goes by it becomes increasingly evident that the reason for this arduous journey is that Avram hasn’t yet worked out what he is doing. Owen Coyle took over a pretty dire Bolton side last season. I don’t remember much talk of journeys, just a quick turnaround.

2. Scapegoats

Bolton, Sunderland and West Brom all find themselves in the top half of the table. Not because their players are infallible (Titus Bramble? Scott Carson?), but because they are well-organised, motivated teams. Carlton Cole is the first to admit he is not in the best form of his career. Robert Green has made a couple of silly errors. Labelling either of them as the source of all ills may be convenient but it doesn’t really scratch the surface.

3. Reduction in ticket prices

If those of us who have already shelled out the best part of a grand for a season ticket were not feeling disenfranchised enough, we now get regular bulletins telling us that non-season ticket holders can purchase match tickets for as little as £15. Aside from the obvious unfairness of penalising those who have committed up front to all 19 league games, the Davids may look back at this decision as rather short sighted. There are enough reasons not to renew without new ones being offered up.

4. The Apprentice (Karen Brady being the tenuous link here)

You go into the start of a new series of The Apprentice expecting to be impressed and entertained by a group of hyped-up individuals. Very quickly you realise your expectations were in vain as the realisation sets in that they are mostly woefully inadequate. If that is not a good analogy for supporting West Ham I don’t know what is.

5. Anti-Olympic Stadium sentiments

Stand in the rain outside Upton Park tube station for 30 minutes and tell me you don’t want to move to a ground next to a station on two underground and one overground lines, including direct links to Essex. Throw in the reduction in ticket prices which will be needed to fill a stadium of that size and you realise this really is a no-brainer.

You can now follow Love In The Time Of Collison at http://twitter.com/OnWestHam. As well as updates on new posts you can also follow my ramblings during the games starting with this weekend’s game at the Emirates.

I nearly forgot to mention the best response a West Ham fan could come up with to the taunts of the Stoke fan: “You’ve got some balls mate, I’ll give you that. Just a shame you won’t have them when you get off the train.” Oh, the camaraderie.

A Tale of Two Halves

It was the best of games. It was the worst of games. The highlights on Match of the Day said it all. The first half highlights consisted of Wolves attacking our goal. The second half highlights consisted of us attacking the Wolves goal. Those sat in the Stan Cullis Stand certainly got their money’s worth.

They also got a perfect view of the greatest travesty of the season so far. A brilliant and perfectly legitimate Frederic Piquionne goal, which would have won the game, was ruled out for handball. Mark Clattenburg’s only defence is that at full speed it looked as though Freddie could only have brought the ball under such pinpoint control with the use of an arm. Nevertheless, he obviously didn’t see it hit the arm because, well, it didn’t. The protesting Wolves defenders have no such excuse and are as bad as the player who throws himself on the floor without being touched.

Alan Shearer, always useful after a crisis, commented defiantly: “I don’t think this is handball at all.” No, Alan, the replay has just demonstrated that. Shearer at least deemed the incident as being worthy of mention. On Match of the Day 2, the increasingly irritating Colin Murray focused purely on those mean hacks who have the temerity to point out Wolves’ fondness for kicking the opposition.

The first half was pure torture. Green’s season so far was encapsulated in 45 minutes in which he cost us a completely avoidable goal, before making two saves that he had no right to make. He is still prone to too many errors but the continual media scrutiny, though inevitable, belies his brilliant shot stopping.

The second half is unlikely to be bettered for dominance this season. We completely overperformed. Tal-Ben Haim suddenly looked useful. Luis Boa Morte started completing passes. At one point I thought Mike Newell might make a return and hit a shot on target.

If that dominance can be replicated against the barcodes on Saturday I will surely have the pleasure of seeing my first league win of the season. Newcastle coming to Upton Park always takes me back to when I first started watching West Ham at the very end of the eighties, when both teams were in the second tier. I recall two equally dour goalless draws in 1989 and 1993, which make me wonder how I was not put off football for life.

The latter game was memorable to me for the strange chant of “Hit him on the head, hit him on the head with a baseball bat, Keegan, Keegan … Kill his kids, kills his kids with dustbin lids, Keegan, Keegan”. Memorable not because of the sentiment but because of the undeserving target of this bizarre chant. My brother still sings it to this day.

It was some time in between these games that Newcastle manager Christopher "Chris" William Gerard Hughton (Wikipedia’s “Chris”, not mine) played for West Ham. It’s funny the random players you forget that have once donned the claret and blue. The aforementioned Michael “Mike“ Newell, of course. Alex Bunbury, anyone? Franz Carr? Mitchell Thomas? Let’s hope Victor Obinna can get off the mark on Saturday so that he doesn’t end up becoming just a distant memory.

A Luis Boa Morte by any other name would still play as badly

The BBC website’s reporting of Thomas Hitzlsperger’s four-month layoff made clear the stark reality of this latest setback: “Mark Noble, Luis Boa Morte and Radoslav Kovac have all featured in midfield alongside Scott Parker as the Hammers have arrested a poor start to their Premier League season.” Just to be clear, it’s the first part of that sentence that worries me. Arresting a poor start to the season is fine. Having to watch Boa Morte and Kovac continually fail to retain possession is not.

If Hitzlsperger were to never make an appearance for West Ham (which in a post-Dean Ashton world genuinely worries me) he would still finish higher in my estimation than Boa Morte. If there was one thing more annoying than watching him continually lose the ball against Fulham, it was having to listen to my dad keeping a tally.

The name Boa Morte translates as ‘beautiful death’. An oxymoronic name seems apt for someone whose poor performances are continually rewarded with a place in the starting line-up. Hitzlsperger, on the other hand, has the advantage of being nicknamed ‘Der Hammer’, a name that is unlikely to ever be bettered unless we sign someone called Bobby Moore or The Chicken Run.

Admittedly, Avram’s options in midfield have been limited by injuries to Behrami, Stanislas, Hines and Collison, but why is he even available for selection? Towards the end of last season he did his best to sever all links with the club by openly criticising Gold and Sullivan, suggesting they needed to act with “more composure”. The reaction of our supposedly ruthless owners? To offer him a new contract.

Boa Morte’s frank comments were a breath of fresh air at a time when it was dawning on all of us that the Davids were determined to be the centre of attention by making endless provocative statements to any newspaper or radio station that would listen. But how, as one of the beneficiaries of the Icelanders’ reckless spending, did Luis win a reprieve? Perhaps the more pertinent question is, exactly how much of his existing salary did he agree to forego?

The Apprentices

The tedium that is the international break is at least a chance to reflect on the first part of the season. It may be early days but it is becoming increasingly likely that 35 points will not be enough to save our bacon this year. Newcastle’s victories include a win at Goodison Park and a 6-0 thrashing of Aston Villa; Blackpool have the league’s best away record; West Brom are 6th.

Avram seems to be gradually settling on his favoured 11. Unlikely bench warmers now include Carlton Cole and Julien Faubert. But what of the new recruits?

Frederic Piquionne

Historically, Freddie has a notoriously low goals-to-games ratio but three goals in the last three games has got me dreaming that we may have a striker capable of upwards of ten league goals a season. I am happy to say that my pre-season prediction that he would be the least voted for player of the year candidate is starting to look a bit daft.

Victor Obinna

I can’t quite work out whether Vic is potentially someone whom we will be watching in the Champions League in a year or two, or just a big bloke with an erratic shot. While Carlton continues to suffer from a crisis of confidence Obinna is a much-needed addition to the squad. His cross for Piquionne’s Fulham goal was sublime. However, the pair are not yet McAvennie & Cottee, and it will be a relief when Vic nets his first league goal.

Winston Reid

The signing of a Kiwi smacked to me of post-World Cup hype, but Winston has had little chance to prove himself yet. At 22 he has his whole career ahead of him (well, accept for the bit he’s already had) but I cannot help but worry that he may just be remembered as that bloke that pulled a muscle in his arse.

Tal-Ben Haim

He’s ex-Chelsea, he’s fat, and his one significant contribution to his solitary league appearance was to kick the ball out of play when a Chelsea player fell on the floor. Thanks Tal.

Pablo Barrera

Early signs were very encouraging but after taking a whack from Bolton’s Paul Robinson he seemed to lose interest and has never shone since. He likes a few days to recover from international duty so his appearances have been sparse, but he was especially disappointing against Fulham. Clearly extremely talented but a question mark remains as to whether he is willing to adapt to the rough and tumble of the Premier League.

Lars Jacobsen

Or ‘Erikson’ as I have heard more than one person refer to him as. Well they’re all the same those Scandanavians, aren’t they. A solid right back and a welcome addition.

Interestingly, it’s been the cheaper signings who have so far made the biggest impact. I am already excited at the prospect of Collison’s return. And of course Hitzlspergers’s. Gute Besserung, lads.

I should come here less often

My experience of our first win over Tottenham since Lasagnegate consisted of three text messages: “1-0 Piqonuet 26” [sic]; “Still 1-0 57 mins do not know carling cup draw”; “1-0 full time”. I could get used to this.

I could not even bothered to feel sorry for myself, having just missed what is likely to be one of the best games at Upton Park this season. If there is a relationship between West Ham’s form and my absence from the Boleyn, I am willing to never go within a 3-mile radius of E13 so long as I live (admittedly this would present other advantages). Loyal supporter or not, there is little fun to be had from watching us get beaten by Bolton and Chelsea every week.

Clearly this is superstitious mumbo-jumbo and I will be back in my normal seat for the Fulham game, but when your only exposure to the day’s events has been a Sky News clip of that dodgy Liverpool goal (I love it when Steve Bruce gets angry) your mind starts to wander. Sunday brought some respite in the shape of a €5 copy of the Sunday Times. After reading about West Ham’s dominance (Paul Rowan’s words, not mine) I suddenly became very aware of the teams whose results I most wanted to know.

My local team as a boy, Gillingham? No. Our plucky, inoffensive neighbours, Charlton? No. Yeovil (long story)? Orient? Dagenham? No, the games I was most interested in were those featuring our rivals. Things were therefore about to get even better.

Leeds United 1 – 0 Sheffield United

A rivalry that did not exist until three years ago and which, like AFC Wimbledon and MK Dons, is yet to be played out in the form of an actual match, the West Ham-Sheffield United hatred may not exactly be Chelsea v Leeds, but there nevertheless exists a genuine source of animosity being kept at arm's length by the M1. Blades’ fans’ self-righteous certainty that they were denied a second season in the top flight by those cheating cockneys, is matched only by our irritation at being cast as the villain for breaking a law whose other perpetrators have gone strangely unnoticed. Read any of Martin Samuel’s columns on the subject circa 2007 for more detail.

In terms of the Chelsea-Leeds comparison, I wonder if Terry Brown and Glen Roeder would consider a Ken Bates/Dennis Wise-style partnership at Brammall Lane? Maybe not, but it’s a nice thought.

Cardiff City 2 -1 Millwall

And a last-minute winner no less. In many respects I am not too fussed about Millwall. None of my friends or anybody I know support them, so the closest I come to being riled by them is Rod Liddle’s Sunday Times column (one of many reasons not to read this paper).

The petty anti-Avram tirade a couple of weeks ago (Rod’s, not mine) was typical of his lack of objectivity, though barely registers on his barometer of offensiveness. This is after all the man who once defended chants of “You should have all died at Hillsborough”. His column this week was entitled The Lower Leagues Have It All. You keep telling yourself that, Rod.

Man City 1 – 0 Chelsea

Andy Hamilton, writer of Outnumbered and Drop the Dead Donkey, once said that to enjoy fully Chelsea’s triumphs he has to block from his mind thoughts of the turf as "stained red with the blood of Russian peasants". Perhaps I am giving the majority of Chelsea supporters too much credit in assuming they have as strong a moral compass as Hamilton but, nevertheless, his quote sums up my complete indifference to Chelsea. I’ll take Gold and Sullivan’s dildos over Roman’s oil any day of the week – so to speak.

Perhaps my charitable mood is merely a consequence of three great results in the space of eight days. Or maybe there is another team that I am forgetting whom I do truly loathe. Oh yes, the ever-deluded Tottenham. Interesting to see that they have today officially registered their interest in taking over the London 2012 Olympic Stadium, thereby acknowledging that east London is the place to be. Now how did they get on last weekend ... ?

Far from the dwindling crowd

‘Don’t Miss The Most Anticipated Game of the Season … Under 3,000 Tickets Left … Many Stands Sold Out’. Many stands sold out? If Saturday’s game being promoted like a movie was not depressing enough, then the implied achievement of multiple stands (there are only four) selling out is surely enough to make you wonder how it ever came to this.

Clearly attendances have not fallen off a cliff this season, but there is a notable difference. The attendance at the Chelsea game was the lowest against the plastics since 2001, whilst the attendance at the Bolton game was the lowest against the hoofers since a freakishly low turnout in 2005 (though still far superior to anything you would ever see at the Reebok of course). Empty seats have become particularly apparent with big gaps at the top corners of the west stand.

Against a backdrop of rising unemployment and a slow recovery from recession, perhaps the only surprise is that crowds actually remain as high as they do. For the majority of fans it seems that this season’s price freeze was enough of a compromise on the club’s part to keep them coming.

West Ham’s most expensive season ticket is dearer than Liverpool’s, while cheaper season tickets can be found at Chelsea. Now that the biggest games are not even sell-outs, the argument of supply and demand starts to look flawed.

Last weekend Borussia Dortmund fans boycotted the big derby match at Schalke because ticket prices had gone up by 50%. Hitting the club in the pocket is the only way to effect change, but in England a protest seems to entail a couple of ‘sack the board’ chants and a green and yellow scarf.

Incredibly, the price rise at Schalke meant that fans visiting the Veltins Arena still only pay £19. The average attendance is just over 60,000. David Gold has spoken about a goal of bringing down prices. Surely a time of declining gates is as good a time as any to test the theory of price elasticity.

On the subject of empty seats, I am not sure that I have ever seen such a mad dash for the exit as at White Hart Lane on Tuesday night during extra time. For a moment I thought a fire alarm had gone off. Sadly it did not spare those of us watching from another tortuous rendition of ‘Oh when the Spurs go marching in’, possibly the least inspiring footy chant of all time.

No Hiding Place

I had one of those Likely Lads moments at the weekend when I tried to make it home from central London late afternoon without finding out the result. Having invested in a new box earlier this year, the novelty of being able to record TV still has not worn off despite the fact that until a few years ago I had a VCR which did exactly the same thing.

I am convinced that it is physically impossible to leave your house and avoid finding out the score of any given game. There is probably some sort of equation, such as x number of miles travelled multiplied by x number of hours travelled multiplied by population density = you’ve got no chance.

However, I naively thought I could survive a 20-minute train journey out of Cannon Street. I was doing ok until a moron entered the carriage and chose to share with everyone just how bad his bets for the day were going, with West Ham’s draw being a contributing factor. He had predicted a Stoke win but, undeterred, proceeded to share with his fellow passengers his belief that West Ham are destined for relegation.

The game itself was therefore a nice surprise as we put in a good performance and could easily have nicked all three points. Admittedly, Stoke hit the woodwork twice but unless I am mistaken one of those chances would have hit the back of the net were it not for a brilliant reflex save from the much-maligned Robert Green. In any case, after the bizarre deflected Chelsea goal two weeks ago, not to mention Kevin Davies’ unpunished assault on Matthew Upson, I don’t think the tiniest bit of good fortune is undue.

Sit down if you love West Ham

Knowing that I am going to be on holiday this coming week and will therefore miss the Tottenham game reminds me of how I feel about missing my Sunday league team’s games. A small, selfish part of me does not want them to win, since that would suggest they don’t really need me.

Clearly my presence at Upton Park does not affect the result (my lucky socks notwithstanding) but the possibility of having sat through endless dire performances over the last year, only to miss our first win over Tottenham for four years makes me feel a little sick.

Then again, I missed the same game last season for the same reason, and reading a text that said we had lost, even if it did mention that England had won the Ashes, was not a good feeling. I have found someone to use my season ticket so my seat will not be empty. Here’s hoping that can be said for the rest of the ground.

I’m not fickle. I just don’t think we’re very good

Amongst the clubs I have a not so obvious dislike for is Portsmouth. Pompey’s fans win many plaudits for the atmosphere they generate at Fratton Park and laudable though this is, I wouldn’t necessarily want it replicated at Upton Park. Even when they concede a goal the chimes keep chiming and the fans keep singing. They barely miss a beat.

I understand that they do this in their role as motivators to the team, but it seems to me unnatural and not really in-keeping with the instinctive emotions you experience as a supporter. Surely you need at least a few seconds, if not a few minutes, to regain your composure before you find your voice again and chant about, let’s say, the failure of John Terry’s mother to always pay for her goods.

When the chips are down and the fans have spent their working week reading about the plight of their club, come matchday there is always a distinct feeling of solidarity in the West Ham crowd. There are countless examples of this but three in particular stand out for me:

1. In October 2006, following eight successive defeats the fans defiantly chanted Alan Pardew’s name at the start of a game against Blackburn that we went on to win. Pardew said after the game: “I was moved at the start and we responded to that.”

2. One of my earliest West Ham memories is watching the 1991 FA Cup semi final on TV and hearing the incessant chant of ‘Billy Bonds’s Claret and Blue Army’, as the team fell to a 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Brian Clough’s Forest.

3. More recently, at Goodison Park towards the end of last season with relegation looking increasingly likely, and despite having endured a first half in which we went a goal down and saw Mido hit the worst penalty of all time, the Hammers fans started the second half singing ‘We Are West Ham’s claret and blue army’ and didn’t stop until the final whistle. I was not surprised to read in Four Four Two’s guide to the 2010/11 season an Everton fan choose West Ham as the best away fans.

Our current predicament does not stoke such emotion in me. In October 2006, we knew we had just been spoilt by a top-half finish and an FA Cup final appearance. Pards had brought us back from the brink and we weren’t about to turn on him. In 1991, we were playing with ten men thanks to that Keith Hackett decision against a team a division above us. And last season, we were so hopeless that by April we knew that our fate effectively lied in the hands of Hull and Burnley. Under such circumstances singing in the face of adversity was all there was left to do.

At present, I feel little affinity with a manager whose appointment I never could fathom and I certainly am not revelling in any kind of underdog status so early in the season. At the Chelsea game though, I was conscious of others already embracing this us-against-them ethos. At the final whistle, a man behind me stood up, pushed out his chest and proudly clapped for what seemed to me like an eternity, bursting with pride at this 3-1 defeat. He presumably saw this as a sign of loyalty. Conversely, I found it a bit embarrassing and symbolic of just how quickly people’s expectations have plummeted.

I have no quarrel with a man backing his team through thick and thin. What I object to is the idea that no matter how many games we lose, no matter how many passes Noble misplaces, no matter how much Upson and Green persist with recreating their World Cup gaffes, no matter how much energy Behrami wastes whining at the referee, no matter how small the player is that outjumps Haim, no matter that Piquionne manages to hit the bar when practically standing on the line, we should feel compelled to show our appreciation just as we would if the team were actually, I don’t know, playing well.

A bit like deciding how many blocks away from Ground Zero it is acceptable to build a mosque, there seems to be a grey area surrounding the question of how many games we can go without winning before it is ok for the Davids to ask Karen Brady to fire Avram. This is a question for them but for the fans I would suggest that what matters in order to avoid the dreaded ‘fickle’ tag, is what you thought of Avram four weeks ago.

Aston Villa fans put it well a few years ago when then manager David O’Leary accused them of being fickle. A banner at the following game read: We’re not fickle. We just don’t like you. Avram has not done anything to merit being disliked and only the most pig-headed of fans would want anything but for him to turn things around.

I do, however, find it hard to understand his decision to miss the game at Stoke in order to mark Yom Kippur. There has been little criticism of his decision, and I suspect that many fear that voicing their objection would lead to accusations of ignorance or intolerance. After all, a section of West Ham fans, albeit a small one, are prone to the odd anti-semitic remark.

I am more than happy to state that I feel his decision is rather insensitive and ill-judged given our start to the season, and stands in stark contrast to the actions of our opponent’s manager, Tony Pulis, who attended Monday night’s victory over Aston Villa, despite the death of his mother earlier that day. Defeat on Saturday with Avram away focusing on his personal life ahead of his commitments to West Ham could see that majority that still support him start to dwindle.

Avram does not have the luxury of falling back on a strong track record. He oversaw the only Chelsea campaign in the last six seasons which did not result in silverware, whilst his tenure at Portsmouth can at best be described as an exercise in damage limitation. Pre-season talk of mid-table security for West Ham has quickly been superseded by the goal of avoiding relegation. I am struggling to share Pompey fans’ passion for damage limitation.

Frank to take criticism in his stride? Fat chance

When Frank Lampard steps on to the pitch on Saturday afternoon the reception will be quite predictable. It will be the same one he has received every season for the last nine years. I honestly cannot remember if I normally boo him. I suspect that I do but without too much vigour. He left us to play for one of our biggest rivals so the least I can do is show my disapproval. That’s as far as it goes. I have never especially liked Frank because, let’s face it, he’s not an especially likeable person but, equally, he does not stir any great emotion in me.

My attitude may take a slightly different slant this Saturday, having spent the last week forcing myself to read his self-serving autobiography Totally Frank. Why would I put myself through the arduous task of reading a book so dull it makes a Carlo Ancelotti interview sound enthralling? In short, a friend recently read it, told me of Frank’s incredible tirade against West Ham fans, and curiosity got the better of me.

Joey Barton famously commented on the plethora of post-2006 World Cup autobiographies: “England did nothing in that World Cup, so why were they bringing books out? ‘We got beaten in the quarter-finals. I played like s***. Here’s my book.’ Who wants to read that?” Steven Gerrard conceded that Barton had a point. Frank couldn’t help but take the bait and made public his grievance. As his book makes evident, he has the least thick skin in the world.

I half suspected that my friend was winding me up and that on reading the book I would discover that it merely contained a few anecdotes of isolated incidents of over-the-top abuse directed at him by West Ham fans. How wrong I was. Frank hates West Ham with a passion that I could not reciprocate if I tried. His grievances are in equal measure spurious and bizarre.

The target for one of his first criticisms is also one of the most odd – West Ham’s youth development. It’s about as coherent an argument as praising the club for its ability to hold on to its best players. He talks of being tempted away from West Ham before he had even signed, in particular by a guy at Arsenal who used to take him out for sausage and chips (which explains a few things).

For someone who isn’t motivated by money, as he claims he is not, he does rather like to talk about it. At one point he remarks on Lee Chapman, whose boots he used to clean, only tipping him £20 at Christmas compared to Julian Dicks’s £100. He does not exactly ridicule Chapman, but why even mention it?

I would like to think that the pages dedicated to his loathing of West Ham - all 130 of them - are there merely to liven up an otherwise dull book (and it really is dull. He even makes the story of a threesome in Ayia Napa sound like an episode of Little House on the Prairie). This was the mistake Wayne Rooney made. Making up stuff in his book about David Moyes, that is, not having a threesome. I have no reason to believe that Rooney has ever done the latter. It seems safe to assume though that Frank’s hatred of all things claret and blue is genuine.

His egotism knows no bounds. At one stage (and at this point I almost have to go back to the book to check I have not invented this) he actually criticises those West Ham fans who have taken the time to write him a letter condemning the abuse dished out to him by other fans. His reason? A letter is meaningless. They should stand up during the game and implore their fellow fans to keep quiet. Yes Frank, and maybe they should also walk out of the stadium, burn their shirt, go 23 stops west on the district line and start supporting the plastics. Now that really is a place where the fans keep quiet.

In his defence (well sort of) he is the first to admit that he lacks a thick skin, but even this is the understatement of the century. He retells the story of being at a West Ham fans forum when one supporter said that he wasn’t good enough to be in the first team. “That was the moment I knew I had to get out”. No Frank, that was the moment you had to man up and get on with it.

Perhaps most mystifying of all though, is his insistence that he would have stayed at West Ham were it not for all the abuse he received as a West Ham player. I saw him play in a West Ham shirt dozens of times and this supposed vendetta must have been erased from my mind, because I don’t remember any of it.

The book does have its more light-hearted moments. My personal favourite is Frank’s justification for going on an all-dayer just after 9/11 in which he and his teammates proceeded to make fun of the tragic events for the benefit of everyone around them. “I can honestly say that we did not at any point abuse any Americans who were in that bar. We didn’t shout at them or moon at them.” No mooning? Fair enough.

I can only guess that the ghostwriter let this comment slip through the net as payback for having had to spend so much time in Frank’s company. Only this week he was talking on Five Live of the “demanding” experience of working with him.

The book left me feeling not so much an anger at Frank, more a sense of pity that someone in such a privileged position should be so fixated on the negatives in life. He admits to having an intimate knowledge of West Ham fans’ views by reading fans’ websites. He comes across like a Daily Mail reader who tunes into a Russell Brand radio show, just waiting to be offended.

His conclusion then is that West Ham fans are the root of all evil and have made his life hell with their criticism. Well Frank, I really hope you have kept away from the media this week. There have been plenty of people calling time on your England career and, get this – they’re not all West Ham fans.

10 Things I have learned from West Ham Messageboards

With no game this weekend and nothing out of the ordinary having happened last weekend this week’s blog is a little less topical than normal. I could speculate on the wisdom of signing six new players and not selecting one of them in the starting eleven (in favour of Kovac and Boa Morte), but there’s plenty of the season left yet to try to understand how Avram’s mind works.

For now I am pondering the strange phenomenon that is fan websites and, in particular, messageboards. This is the setting for endless unresolved debates carried out by a variety of characters: the rumour monger who bemoans tabloid tittle tattle but still finds time to recount every last story; the depressive who details why we are ultimately doomed; the sentimentalist who wants to know your all time best XI, your first ever game, favourite dog that ran on the pitch; the shameless liar who claims to have inside info on who we are about to sell before going strangely quiet when said info doesn’t materialise; the bitter Sheffield United fan (please excuse the tautology).

I have a love-hate relationship with these sites, choosing mainly to read rather than participate. But as much as they infuriate me they are strangely compelling. Here’s what they have taught me.

1.The only solution to our current problems is to change the starting eleven
Anything remotely analytical, such as “we’re defending too deep”, “we’re not winning the second balls“, “our distribution from the back is poor“, is pretty much forbidden. Any debate focuses solely on personnel. Following the not particularly surprising defeat to Manchester United it was suggested by one person or another on various sites that had any of the following players started, things might well have been different on Saturday: Pablo Barrera, Frederic Piquionne, Winston Reid, Manuel da Costa, Fabio Daprella, Ryan Babel, Guy Demel , Alan Devonshire and Benni McCarthy. Ok so I made the last one up.

2. Spurs fans still don’t consider themselves a top four team
West Ham sites are often infiltrated by rival fans who do not have enough traffic on their own sites to keep themselves occupied. Despite their every comment being aggressively ridiculed (it is generally assumed that they have 12 fingers, are sleeping with their sister or – worst of all – are still at school) they keep coming back for more. Arsenal and Chelsea fans are notable by their absence. They are in a different league to us. Sad but true. You might have expected that, post Champions League qualification, Spurs fans would go away and immerse themselves in their new found status. Alas, no. Methinks they expect their “success” to be fleeting.

3. There is only one thing all West Ham fans agree on – Glenn Roeder
On every issue – be it tactics, Gold and Sullivan, Harry, the Olympic Stadium – opinion is to one degree or another divided, which is of course what makes football football. But on Roeder? No. He is rarely spoken about now; just occasionally used as a benchmark for bad times, eg “Obviously it’s not as bad as under Roeder”, “Obviously I don’t hate him as much as Roeder”, etc. Despite having overseen one of the worst campaigns in our recent history, Zola never really came in for much abuse. I suspect he owes a debt of gratitude to Glenn “Roeder” Rodent.

4. You don’t say a bad word about Sir Trevor Brooking
West Ham fans like banter as much as the next set of fans, but the line is drawn at besmirching Sir Trev.

5. West Ham fans prefer foreign players to English players
Few tears were shed when players who had played an integral part in our success in 2005 and 2006 – Zamora, Harewood, Konchesky, Etherington, Reo Coker – left the club. I suspect the same would be true if Noble were to leave. Yet there were plenty of angry posts this year from fans disgruntled by the departures of Franco and Diamanti. I’m baffled.

6. Sheffield United really hate us
Still. Being hated doesn’t sit that naturally with West Ham fans who are more accustomed to being patronised as a team that “plays nice football”. Personally, I don’t mind a bit of hatred. The fact that it so riles the Blades that since the end of the 2006/07 season we have stayed in the Premier League and they in the Championship is a source of amusement to me. I just wish they would vary their abuse a bit. Remember though, this is one half of the Steel City rivalry in which both sets of fans humorously refer to each other as pigs. “You’re a pig.” “No, you’re a pig”. “No, you’re a pig”. “No ... "

7. Messageboards appeal more to those fans who don’t go to the games
The kind of messages that are posted are not necessarily indicative of the most committed West Ham fans, and by that I mean the type who pay to go to games, not just for their sky sports subscription. One of the obvious tell-tale signs is the number of people who post immediately before, after and even during the game. There is a notable silence when someone posts something specific about a fan’s experience of the game, eg Is the Jubilee line suspended this weekend?, Anyone know any good away pubs near Ewood Park? Shame really, as this kind of information would seem to me to be one of the best uses for a fans’ messageboard.

8. Football fans are incredibly quick to take the bait
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience. Cyberspace is the perfect place to just ignore idiots without even having to respond to their baiting. Surely the best revenge is to leave the baiter (invariably a bored Millwall fan) dangling, repeatedly pressing the refresh button before giving up to do something more useful like playing with the traffic. In reality most fans choose to rise to the bait, turning the messageboard into nothing more than a playground.

9. West Ham fans don’t particularly like each other
Almost every thread involves some kind of cowardly abuse. Apparently it is acceptable to call someone a tosspiece for either not using punctuation or for criticising someone else who criticised someone else’s punctuation.

10. Jonathan Spector’s mum should be kept away from all West Ham messageboards

An Irrational Hatred of Kevin Davies

No matter how much I try to manage my expectations during preseason, nothing prepares me for that feeling of defeat. Another defeat, coupled with victory for each of the promoted sides (who by definition must surely be worse than us) left me feeling lower than Johann Elmander’s socks.

As Manchester United were reminded at the weekend bogey teams are alive and well. Two wins in 17 games against the Trotters means that, far from just being our bogey team, Bolton have effectively spent the last ten years snotting all over us. The fact that we actually played very well for parts of the game only served to increase the frustration.

The omens for a bad day were all there as the tube left Canning Town with those of us still on board slowly deducing that the number of fellow supporters who had alighted must be the result of a closure on the district line. The ensuing trek from West Ham to Upton Park served to underline just how few fans actually know the area they call “east east east London”.

A man with some foresight and a map became our default leader and his followers quickly swelled. It was reminiscent of the scene in Forrest Gump where Forrest “just started running”. Given the tortuously humid conditions there was little chance of anyone breaking out into a run. Everyone was far too sweaty to feel any kind of camaraderie and as we finally made our way onto the more familiar surroundings of Barking Road, we went our separate ways.

It’s been ten years since I last sat in the Bobby Moore stand, but by way of a personal austerity measure I have made the decision to leave the comfort zone that is the West Stand. In fact, the only silver lining of the day was the relief at having a good view with not an idiot in sight (well, technically Kevin “I don’t know what his head was doing down there anyway” Davies was in sight, but those within earshot were all very well behaved).

It’s hard not to feel some kind of hatred towards a man who has scored nine times in 11 games against your team, but with Davies that’s just one reason among many. I cannot begin to understand the mindset of a man who kicks another human being in the face, breaks their nose and has the temerity to suggest that it was face to boot rather than boot to face. To me Davies will always be the embodiment of a thuggish Bolton team who view a succession of passes as a waste of effort. Under Owen Coyle it is becoming harder, but far from impossible, to level this accusation. Arsenal they are not.

My antipathy (almost a week after the game) is doubtless a symptom of my own team’s total lack of brawn. I cheered Mark Noble’s late yellow card almost as vigorously as those around me cheered Carlton Cole’s substitution. Noble’s slide tackle on Jussi Jaaskelainen after scoring the penalty has to be one of my all time favourite player-scrapping-with-keeper-in-the-back-of-the-net moments.

Pablo Barrera looks a potential snip at £4m but even he was not the same after taking a whack from Paul Robinson. It may be simplistic to say that we are too nice but unless we toughen up Saturday’s defeat will be replicated home and away against Blackburn, Stoke et al. As Zola learnt last year, picking up the odd point against Arsenal and Chelsea is scant consolation.

To my amazement, I discovered that not only is the hole in the wall on the corner of the Bobby Moore and East Stand still there but it still serves exactly the same burgers with exactly the same names. For the first time in fifteen years I treated myself to a Mad Dog. Oh for a Martin Allen now.

Why West Ham Lose

If England fans are guilty of allowing the memory of 1966 to distort their expectations of the current national team, then West Ham fans must be doubly culpable. Not only do we cling to this era because of our players’ contribution at international level, but also because it coincides with our own most successful period which peaked with a European trophy in 1965. “30 years of hurt” (44 years now, and counting) applies for us at domestic as well as international level.

On more than one occasion I have heard England’s standing at major tournaments compared to that of last weekend’s opponents Aston Villa in the Premier League. Better than most other teams? Yes. In the top 33 percentile? More often than not. Capable on their day of matching the best? Yes. Ever going to win the thing? No.

I think this is fair and makes me wonder how you would reverse the analogy when it comes to West Ham. The best comparison I could come up with - and I admit it’s not perfect - is Switzerland. More often than not the Swiss qualify for major tournaments (three of the last five World Cups and three of the last four European Championships) in the same way that West Ham more often than not are in the Premier League (seven of the last nine years). Switzerland have progressed past the group stage on one occasion; West Ham have crept into the top half on three out of nine occasions. Although on their day Switzerland have proven themselves to be capable of beating the tournament’s eventual winners, in the same way that West Ham have proven themselves capable of beating Manchester United on several occasions over the last ten years, there is a limit to how far they will ever progress. Switzerland have reconciled themselves to that fact. West Ham have not.

The world of domestic football is clearly very different to that of international football; the main difference being that there is always the chance that a billionaire will take over your domestic club and buy success, as has been the case at Chelsea and may soon be replicated by Manchester City. Until that day, we would do well to manage our expectations which, judging by the outcry at last Saturday’s result, we are a long way from doing.

Are we really surprised that a side comprising James Milner, Ashley Young and Stilyan Petrov was able to so comfortably beat a team containing James Tomkins, Luis Boa Morte and Radoslav Kovac? I was as guilty as anyone of thinking that the Martin O’Neill factor could work in our favour, but once you strip that out (and remember that, on the contrary, the presence of a new manager almost always gives the players a lift) then a Villa win was really a no-brainer.

This is not to say that it is unreasonable to expect West Ham to push for a top ten finish, but there seems to be a misconception that we have a divine right to leapfrog the likes of Blackburn and Birmingham. We do not, and to do so in the next three years, let alone this season would be a significant achievement.

Everyone has a theory about what is holding us back and I do not claim to have the answer but I do feel that we have a certain Newcastle United-esqe snobbery that encourages us to appoint either ex-West Ham players or “fashionable” managers rather than managers who simply have a good pedigree. We would never have appointed David Moyes in 2002 in the same way that Everton in 2002 would never have appointed someone with Zola’s lack of experience. In fact, I do not believe there is another Premier League club who would have appointed Zola as manager. He was effectively recruited on the strength of his abilities as a player. We might as well have given the job to Dennis Bergkamp or Juninho.

Avram Grant may not exactly be fashionable but in the eyes of many his brief flirtation with Chelsea and the Champions League qualifies him for the job, despite never having managed a team for a full season outside of Israel.

What I am about to say will make me about as popular amongst West Ham fans as Joey Beauchamp, but I honestly believe that, had he been willing to leave his present club, Sam Allardyce would have been a great choice as manager. In the same way that Avram is lauded for half a season here and half a season there, Allardyce has been written off on the basis of half a season at Newcastle which, compared with what was to follow, now looks quite respectable. Blackburn’s win at the weekend over an Everton side containing Jagielka, Arteta, Cahill and Pienaar, was for me undoubtedly the result of the weekend but it almost went unmentioned.

Owen Coyle, another over-achieving manager, brings his Bolton side to Upton Park tomorrow, hoping to replicate last season’s deserved victory. I will go to the match with that inescapable first-home-game-of-the-season optimism. It is the right of every football fan to be a bit deluded. And before you query my sanity for suggesting that expecting a victory over little Bolton is deluded, I would point you to the stats: Bolton have beaten us in each of the last six games; we have only beaten them twice in the last sixteen. Then again, in 1968 we did beat them 7-2 …

Octopus Style Predictions

James Beattie today declared that: “Rangers are the biggest team in Scotland.” A nice, albeit obvious bit of PR, I thought. “And one of the biggest teams in Europe”, he concluded. Well, if he can talk cobblers, so can I. Here are my predictions for the new season.

Player of the year
Scott Parker

Player of the year that isn’t Scott Parker
Thomas Hitzlsperger

Least votes for player of the year
Frederic Piquionne

Greatest hopes

1. Jack Collison comes back before Christmas and stays fit

2. Avram keeps up his stony facade and avoids any kissing-the-ground moments or
you-cannot-take-Portsmouth-away-from-me-and-my-heart comments

3. Benni McCarthy goes on Celebrity Fit Club

Greatest fears

1. Benni McCarthy leaves Celebrity Fit Club after two days

2. We fail to win a London derby

3. Nobby Solano brings one of those rabid vampire bats back from Peru

Do say
One year to go and Dyer’s off the payroll

Don’t say
We’ll be alright once Dyer’s fit

The season in numbers:

2

Number of days into the January transfer window Harry will wait before declaring an interest in a West Ham player or a player linked with West Ham

3

Consecutive days Gold and Sullivan will go without giving an interview

5

Number of home games before away fans get bored of baiting Robert Green

8

Years we will try to extend Scott Parker’s contract by

11

Minutes before Dyer comes off injured and his season ends

13

Our final position


C’mon you Irons!

Be Lucky, Avram

In Israel, Avram Grant is known as a “lucky winner”. I believe this is intended as an insult but, if true, sounds like a pretty useful trait. I am yet to be convinced that he possesses many others.

Avram is the current flavour of the month having guided a team to the FA Cup Final (a feat also achieved in the last ten years by John Gregory, Alan Pardew and Dave Jones). Since the prospect of winning the premier league is the luxury of a privileged few, the rest of us have to make do with dreaming of this lesser silverware. Since Avram gave the Pompey fans a day out at Wembley his managerial stock has risen considerably.

In terms of something more tangible, such as managing a team outside of Israel for an entire season, he comes up a bit short. The positive take on his time at Chelsea was that he took them to within a penalty kick of winning the Champions League. I think it might be more accurate to say that Chelsea took him to within a penalty kick of winning the Champions League. Chelsea fans never took to him and inevitably he was sacked after nine months.

It is hard to be too critical of his tenure at the liquidation-dodgers. If you extrapolate his win ratio across the whole season and add back the points deduction, Portsmouth would have stayed up with 41 points. But let’s say that had actually happened. Let’s say he had been in charge all season and Portsmouth had amassed 41 points. Would anyone really have been that impressed? I suspect not.

What seems to impress people is that he managed to do this against the backdrop of Portsmouth’s off-field problems. Such resilience is perhaps laudable but hardly inspiring, especially since his coping mechanism seemed to chiefly involve visiting a certain Hampshire message parlour. The fact that the he is alleged to have visited the brothel (let’s not beat around the bush) in his Portsmouth training gear does make me question his judgement.

Of course the need to find a new manager was necessitated by the worst season it is possible to have without actually being relegated. The 3-1 defeat to Wolves, last season’s nadir, will remain for ever a benchmark in my mind. “Oh well, it’s not as bad as the Wolves game under Zola”, will be my stock response when the chips are down this season. On the subject of the game (since I cannot eradicate it from my memory), how inevitable of Franco to go and give the scoreline a shred of respectability with a last-minute goal. There are great goalscorers, there are scorers of great goals and then there is Guillermo Franco: scorer of meaningless goals.

Gold and Sullivan (I still haven’t thought of a witty abbreviation for the pair. I might just adopt a random double act, such as Pinky and Perky) have done a good job of putting a positive spin on things since Zola’s departure, contrasting nicely with the negative spin they put on things from the moment of the first press conference. Under-promise, then over-deliver. Textbook stuff.

Looking at the club website you could be forgiven for thinking that the only photo taken at a West Ham game last season was that of Scott Parker euphorically celebrating his crucial goal against Wigan. There is a certain irony in Gold and Sullivan milking this photo on the website for all its worth, given that the shot captures Parker en route to jumping on Zola in a show of defiance against the new owners and their lack of support for him.

While the attitude of West Ham fans towards Zola may have been divided, it certainly was not polarised. Those who wanted him out acknowledged that he was a decent man doing his best, while those who supported him did so in the hope that he might come good, not because they were happy with how he was doing.

It is the prerogative of the football fan to pass comment on the decisions of managers and owners without actually having any real insight into the context and complexities of how their decisions are made. At best, we can only speculate. With that in mind, I am going to ignore the idea that Avram possibly was the least worst option and ask why on earth we did not go for or get Mark Hughes. I really hope it was not down to money. Bert and Ernie have already contradicted themselves on numerous occasions. Days after their first press conference in which they berated the previous regime for the reckless spending on players’ wages they announced they were looking to bring in a big-name striker on £100k/week wages. Surely if you are going to spend extravagantly in one area it should be on the manager.

It may be that Hughes did not want the job, but what do Fulham have that we don’t have (aside from a “neutral” stand). If Bodger and Badger simply did not rate him then I would take issue with their judgement, as I think Hughes’s track record is impressive and I guarantee that, at worst, Fulham will have a solid mid-table season. My conspiracy theory is that they all fell out when Hughes took Robbie Savage from Birmingham to Blackburn. I really hope I’m wrong. The idea that we cannot attract a high-calibre manager because our owners pissed them off would really annoy me.

So Avram it is, and I hope that my reservations prove to be unfounded. At the very least I expect us to avoid relegation. Even Glen “Roeder” Rodent had a decent first season. And after that I am hoping to be proved wrong. Be lucky, Avram.

Cruel Summer

July is the cruelest month. As I write, we are in the very centre of the no man’s land that separates the end of the world cup from the start of the new premier league season. The fact that our media-obsessed owners give us a daily presence in the news is little consolation. On the contrary, it is rather embarrassing.

Not for nothing is this time of year referred to as “silly season”. Whether Ronaldinho joining us or Carlton Cole joining Real Madrid is the more fanciful, both pale in comparison to the idea that David Beckham could return as an ambassador in our bid to get the olympic stadium. The justification for this? He’s from Leytonstone.

So, for the record, is June Sarpong who I think would make a much better ambassador. She is already an ambassador for the Prince’s Trust, whilst Beckham is an ambassador for England’s world cup bid - and look how that’s going. Sarpong, once of T4 fame but nowadays seldom seen on TV, would surely have much more time to commit to the cause and so could help out in other ways, such as designing posters, coming up with catchy slogans or smearing Tottenham’s counter-bid. And with her infectious laugh, paralleled only by Kris Akabusi, she definitely … Actually, Hammers fan that ex-Olympian Akabusi is, he would be an even better ambassador. Sorry, June.

The world cup was a welcome distraction from such nonsense. It may not have been the greatest world cup ever but from West Ham’s point of view it was a success. Not as good as ’66 admittedly, but good nevertheless. My fear was that Green, Upson and Behrami would put themselves in the shop window and prompt a flood of bids. How wrong I was. I like to believe that this was a deliberate club-before-country ploy on their part. All three of them are still great players but football is a fickle business where you are only as good as your last game, and it is no surprise that no bids have been forthcoming.

I cannot have been the only West Ham fan to have irrationally leapt to Green’s defence after his howler against the US. Had his predecessors James, Carson, Robinson and Seaman not all made equally great gaffes at equally crucial moments? Maybe, but you cannot defend the indefensible.

What makes it worse, cried the pundits, was that you could see it coming all season. The flapped punch against Fulham. The spill against Bolton. For me that was the one consolation. Having seen the likes of Terry and Lampard hopelessly incapable of reproducing their club form for their country, could there be anything worse than seeing one of our own struggle through the domestic season only to turn it on on the world stage?

My long-held suspicion that I watch football games that don’t involve West Ham in a kind of daze was confirmed on the day that we paid £4m for Pablo Barrera. I am assured that he impressed at the world cup but in all honesty I don’t recall. The fact that he featured predominantly as a substitute in a side that featured Guillermo Franco (a man who also seems to watch games in a kind of daze) concerns me a bit, but I am comforted by his reassurance that “I will play better than I have ever played before”. That’s the spirit.

One of the best players to not have featured in the world cup has to be Scott Parker. The £7m Tottenham offered for him this week can only be described as derisory, a word that to my knowledge is only ever used to describe rubbish transfer bids. It makes we wonder what the motivation is for such a futile offer. Is this the start of a long bargaining process or was Harry just bored that day?

I have been told by more than one person that has worked with Peter Kay that there is no one else whose down-to-earth public persona is so far removed from the actual person. I do not know anyone who has worked with Harry (even the fact that I am referring to him by his first name shows that I am a victim of this media spin) but I assume this to also be the case with him. At Dartford’s Orchard Theatre a couple of years ago I listened to Billy Bonds refer to him as a “spiv”. That’s good enough for me.

You know that the light at the end of the pre-season tunnel is almost in sight when British clubs start embarrassing themselves in the qualifying stages of the Champions League. How Neil Lennon’s tenure at the end of last season merited a permanent appointment at Celtic is beyond me. Similarly, I would argue that a man who has never managed a team for a full season outside of Israel is not qualified to manage a Premier League side, but more of that next week.

As much as I bemoan our owners’ thirst for publicity and their desperation for a big name who will put bums on seats (since when was that a problem at Upton Park?) I am of course a hypocrite. If I did not want to read this speculation I would not head for the BBC’s gossip column every morning; a great way of reading the tabloids without actually reading them. Unless of course you follow the link to the relevant newspaper website, thereby racking up their page impressions. If you do that for today’s update on Beckham you will find amongst the responses to the article: “after the abuse he got from their fans after France 98 he should tell them to shove it”. I remember well Beckham’s first game at Upton Park after the 1998 world cup and could not agree more. Beckham, of course, has too much integrity for that. A trait sadly lacking in our new owners.