We all follow the West Ham over land and TV

Armchair supporters have never had it so good. September has not yet arrived and already the third televised game of the season is upon us. Non-televised games can often be streamed through the internet, the Football League Show provides a mini Match of the Day and Sky Sports News never stops.

As little as 15 years ago, the most you could hope for from the media coverage of West Ham was a Ken Dyer-penned article in the Evening Standard or a mention on Ceefax’s ‘news in brief’ (page 312). Even then you would have to wait another five minutes as the page came back round and you found the hold button on your remote control.

Now there is Twitter and an infinite number of people lining up to interact with you: David Gold, John Carew, Pablo Barrera (both real and fake), Jordan Spence, Blair Turgott, Matthew Fry, David Sullivan’s son, Jack Collison’s brother, West Ham-supporting journalists, West Ham-supporting supporters. Sam Allardyce’s emails. Karren Brady’s Sun column. Podcasts. Blogs. Endless poorly-written, sanctimonious blogs. Even fanzine Over Land and Sea appears to be soldiering on after announcing its cessation last season.

You could quite easily quit your job, dedicate yourself to all things West Ham and still feel out of the loop. As for being an armchair fan, there will never be a substitute for going to the games, especially when the Football League Show is the main medium for following Championship football.

Manish Bhasin is a strange one. Jeremy Paxman, he is not. His interview technique consists of stating the bleeding obvious in question form. Take this Wednesday’s show for example. Following Swindon Town’s win over Bristol City, Manish asks, or rather states: “Having lost their last three games, victory tonight was exactly what Paolo Di Canio would have wanted”.

Not necessarily, Manish. Maybe on this particular night Paolo was feeling a little masochistic and was hoping his team would get annihilated. That would have been my response. Leroy Rosenior instead replied dutifully: “Absolutely, Manish. Blah blah blah ... ”.

On most shows Manish has the company of Steve “so to speak” Claridge. I actually have time for Steve “shall we say” Claridge. Having played for all 92 league clubs, he is unquestionably speaking from experience. Judging by the fly-on-the-wall documentary that followed him round as manager of Weymouth in the early noughties, Steve “as you say” Claridge is not the brightest but has clearly worked hard to get where he is. His enthusiasm is also quite infectious.

Amongst the personalities in the Championship, I already have a few that I look out for. Burnley manager Eddie Howe always looks like he is about to burst into laughter at any moment, which is ironic given how dire his team is. Nigel Adkins must be doing something right at Southampton, but every time he opens his mouth I cannot help but feel he should be doing something else. I cannot put my finger on what but it definitely has nothing to do with football.

In its role as public service provider, the BBC has outbid its commercial rivals for football league highlights, and sees fit to schedule its coverage after midnight. By this time of night I have either fallen asleep on the sofa or drunk so much beer that I need to watch the show again in the morning to remind myself what happened.

Having attended this season’s live games, I have only seen bits of the coverage from BBC and Sky Sports. It is difficult to find too much fault, although the pundits do seem overly keen on reminding viewers that the Championship is a tough and unpredictable league where “there are no easy games”, as if they were the first person to stumble upon this observation.

Then, er, there’s the, um, West Ham, erm, podcast, as two West Ham fans stutter their, erm, way through 40 minutes of West Ham chat every week. Maybe one day I will understand what is funny about pretending to not know how to pronounce Watford. Until that day, I will continue to tune in sporadically, in the hope that the show will improve.

Twitter is a strange dichotomy. Aside from the fact that I lose a couple of hours a day to it, it is a brilliantly simple way to keep up to speed with football news and to follow the sublime ramblings of @TheBig_Sam. Unfortunately, it also brings out the worst in our football club.

David Sullivan’s pre-pubescent son, Jack, recently started tweeting. I have no problem with Jack tweeting about his 11-plus or the onset of hairy armpits, but instead his account is used to discuss the club’s transfer intentions. Gold and Sullivan have always enjoyed hanging their dirty washing in public but this has to be a new low. This week Jack found himself tricked into interacting with the fake Pablo Barrera twitter account. This will all end in tears; it is just a wonder that no-one at the club can see that.

Finally, there are the blogs. In the modern world any idiot can set up a blog in five minutes. Trust me on this one. There must be around 30 West Ham blogs that are updated regularly, many of which have links to each other’s websites. Love In The Time Of Collison sits outside of this fraternity, which is just fine with this blogger (he says, crying into his copy of ‘Blogs for Morons’). Of the more subjective, as opposed to news-based, blogs, Just Like My Dreams is an intelligent and worthwhile blog. That aside, I am struggling.

Possibly the most popular blog is The Game’s Gone Crazy which, judging by its performance on Google search, is a big hit amongst Hammers fans. During the summer it posted an interesting article entitled ’Is it racist to be happy that Nolan is English and white?’ I forced myself to read the deliberately provocative article, and concluded by answering a question with a question: would the blogger have written an article entitled: ‘Is it racist to be disappointed that Carew is black and foreign?’

I could always ask @JCarew10 directly on Twitter. And on it goes ...