History Not Repeating Itself

The sight of Tomas Repka at Anfield last week brought back unhappy memories of a season, not too dissimilar to the current one, in which West Ham sleepwalked into the Championship. In February 2003, Liverpool came to Upton Park and tore apart a West Ham defence containing Repka, Rufus Brevett and a soon-to-be-retired Nigel Winterburn. Yesterday, with Joe Cole and Glen Johnson having long since swapped claret and blue for red and white, it was Liverpool who were torn apart.

On the basis of this performance it would be grossly unfair to compare James Tomkins and Matthew Upson with the defence of eight years ago, though Wayne “I’ll just put my foot through it” Bridge did a relatively good impression of a Nigel Winterburn on his last legs. There are few greater injustices in football than Bridge’s £90,000-a-week wages.

Contrary to rumours that he was out for the season, Upson was back in the side, silly superstitious pre-match hop, skip and jump and all. That wasn’t the only pre-match entertainment. 9-year-old Jonjo Heuerman, who walked from Wembley to Upton Park to raise money for the Bobby Moore Fund, did a lap of honour (because having walked halfway round London that’s just what he needed) and received a well-deserved standing ovation.

The feeling of goodwill was tarnished slightly when a representative of SBOBET presented him with a surprise gift: a weekend away for him and his family in the Isle of Man. All Jonjo wanted to do was raise some money for charity, and now he has endure the holiday from hell due to the aggressive tax avoidance policy of the club’s sponsors. Only Mad Dog Martin Allen’s bizarre half-time interview got a bigger laugh.

If things had been different, Jonjo might have made that journey in the opposite direction. Travelling on the Jubilee Line before the game, it was hard not to think that we should all have been heading westbound to Wembley Park. I am all for the underdog having its day, but I take no pleasure in Birmingham’s victory.

Brum beat us fair and square (Stephen Carr’s scything down of Dyer aside) and Alex McLeish deserves credit for his superior tactical nous. But Birmingham remain an ugly club, who play ugly football in an ugly kit in front of ugly fans. Stoke remain the team everyone loves to hate, but the squealing Brummies are no different.

That game in 2003, also an early Sunday afternoon kick off, saw Steven Gerrard score and get man of the match. Yesterday he and his midfield were totally overshadowed by Scott Parker and Thomas Hitzlsperger. In stark contrast to the hapless defending of Repka, James Tomkins dealt admirably with the threat posed by Luis Suarez.

Back then team spirit only really returned for the last three games when Sir Trev stepped in. Glenn “Roeder” Rodent’s best attempt at team bonding was to get the players in a prematch team huddle. There now seems to be a genuine team spirit, encapsulated yesterday by the euphoric celebrations on the bench.

The footage of Scott Parker kissing the camera will inevitably be repeated ad nauseam in plugging this season’s highlights dvd. In fact the only hint of disharmony came after Liverpool’s solitary goal when Robert Green raged at Lars Jacobsen as if the Dane had just run over his dog.

Eight years on from the season in which Rodent managed to sink the unsinkable, there was something cathartic about seeing this suddenly promising-looking set of players get the better of Joe Cole and Glen Johnson. The pain at seeing them leave so early in their careers to join a Russian oligarch’s crusade has never really subsided.

The close of the 2010/11 season will bid farewell to the last vestiges of the Icelandic era, as Kieron Dyer and Julien Fau-Paux disappear from the payroll. Relegation this year would also prompt the exit of Scott Parker and Thomas Hitzlsperger, but the younger players - Tomkins, Collison, Hines, Stanislas - would be expected to stay. A few more performances like yesterday’s, and we might just get to keep the whole lot.