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.
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