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.
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