Confessions of a West Ham fan

My irritation at fans’ “stay safe” tweets last Saturday reminded me of how often I find myself at odds with my fellow fans. It is a strange truth that a love for a particular football club means that your moods and reference points should be so in sync with tens of thousands of others. But it does not necessarily follow that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.

Last weekend’s annoyance stemmed from the infinite well wishing for those martyrs who made the trip to Bermondsey. I found it hard to empathise with this outpouring of support for fans taking on a self-imposed task. When one fan replied to my tweet to question what I had against his simple reminder to a mate to avoid trouble, I realised I had slipped into sanctimony. At times like these I must remind myself of the Radiohead song ‘I Might Be Wrong’.

On the big things, I think I am pretty well aligned with my co-conspirators. Love: Paolo Di Canio, Billy Bonds, Julian Dicks. Hate: Millwall, Spurs, Glen Roeder. There are a few things, however, that seem to set me apart from the mainstream.

The new Kevin Nolan song is atrocious

“When I see you Nolan I go off my fucking head”. So begins the homage to our new captain. As fans we are slow to pen songs in tribute to individual players, so it is odd that after a relatively underwhelming start to his career at West Ham, Nolan should be so quickly honoured with his own ditty.

Aside from the lack of originality (Newcastle had their own Nolan song that was sung to the tune of the same Depeche Mode song) it strikes me as a paean more appropriate for the object of one’s affection, than for a 29-year-old scouser. The young lad a few rows in front of me at the City Ground last month was getting particularly excited, so perhaps to some fans the two things are not mutually exclusive.

Carlos Tevez is a git

There are few players whom I have enjoyed watching in claret and blue more than Tevez. I will never forget that free kick against Spurs - mainly because I had just nipped out for a jimmy riddle and completely missed him jumping into the section of the West Stand Lower where I had been sat just moments earlier. Even from the gents, the roar of the crowd was deafening. We went on to lose that game, but it was undoubtedly a turning point, as Tevez grabbed our season by the scruff of the neck and helped keep us up.

That does not change the fact that Tevez is as big a mercenary as you are likely to find in the modern game. His mate Kia Joorabchian embodies everything that is wrong with football. After a year at Manchester United, Tevez spurned United for their bitter rivals. Two years after signing for City, his predictably poor attitude has resulted in him being stripped of the captaincy as he sulks on the substitute bench. Claims of homesickness appear to be contradicted by a willingness to listen to offers from Spain and Italy. Thanks for the memories Carlos, but I shan’t be following the rest of your career with any interest.

Terry Brown was not half as bad as was portrayed

Brown appointed Glen Roeder as our manager. For that reason alone, he is a complete bastard. But like most chairmen, Brown was always disproportionately villainised. Saying that you dislike your club’s chairman is a bit like saying you’re not too keen on parking attendants. He can be questioned for selling the club to a bunch of clueless bankers, but the money he made on selling his shares was his right. Would Gold and Sullivan swerve the opportunity to make a profit on selling the club? Of course not. No-one would.

Gold and Sullivan love to cite their record of always bouncing back from relegation. If this is a worthy yardstick, it should be noted that under Brown West Ham were rarely outside the top flight. Over the last decade the appalling financial mismanagement of many english football clubs has emerged. Just ask Plymouth Argyle fans. Or Leeds fans. Or even Everton fans. Relatively speaking, I am not sure as West Ham fans we can feel too hard done-by.

The Academy has not been productive since the nineties

Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Jermain Defoe, Glen Johnson, Michael Carrick. Tony Carr is quite rightly regarded as a hero. The success of the Academy in the late nineties, however, has encouraged many to overlook the dearth of talent produced over the last decade.

With the exception of Mark Noble, James Tomkins and Jack Collison, I can think only of players on whom we wasted our time: Zavon Hines, Junior Stanislas, Frank Nouble, Freddie Sears, Kyel Reid, Richard Garcia. And they are just the ones considered good enough to be given a chance in the first team. The end point of our production line used to be the Premier League. Nowadays, it’s League One.

The best reason for moving to the Olympic Stadium is to leave Upton Park

Anyone who read my blog on this subject last December will be in little doubt as to my views, so I won’t bore you all over again. I may not be alone in my pro-Stratford view, but where I do differ from other fans is that my main motivation is to never have to visit Upton Park again.

Whereas exiting most football grounds is a quick and painless process, the narrow, old-fashioned nature of the Boelyn stands means that a five-minute crush has to be endured before reaching the freedom of, er, Green Street. Queuing outside the tube station for 20 minutes as the police stand idle while people jump the queue is accepted as part of the process.

The only argument for staying at Upton Park seems to be one of nostalgia. As Thom Yorke once said: “Don’t get sentimental, it always ends up drivel”.

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The Joey Beauchamp Effect

If this transfer window has taught us one thing, it is that a number of West Ham fans spend a surprisingly large amount of time watching obscure football matches. Taking time out to watch teams such as AEK Athens, Hamburg, MK Dons and Arsenal Reserves is apparently commonplace.

I say this in light of the number of people who were quick to laud our last-minute transfer dealings. I have to confess to only being partly interested in football, being as I am someone who rarely (or should I say never) watches any of the aforementioned teams. For that reason, I keep an open mind about Sam Baldock, Guy Demel, et al. I am at least familiar with David Bentley’s work.

West Ham seem to be riding a wave of optimism at the moment, which has lead to every new signing being welcomed as the second coming. This seems to be especially true in the case of Kevin Nolan, if the rather homoerotic song in tribute of our new scouser is anything to go by.

A dose of cynicism is a healthy way to analyse any newcomer. Surely, in a post-Joey Beauchamp world it is inevitable.

Having been signed from Oxford United for a fee of £1.2m in the summer of 1994, Beauchamp waited about seven minutes before declaring himself homesick and deciding that he had made a terrible mistake. People made fun of Jon Solako for turning down Newcastle for being “too far north” but at least he had the foresight to think it through.

Joey “it’s too far south east” Beauchamp was subsequently sold to Swindon Town without having played a competitive game.

The deal was valued at £800,000 with West Ham acquiring Adrian Whitbread, who was valued at £750,000. In other words, a £1.2m outlay returned to West Ham £50,000 plus Adrian Whitbread. Whitbread played ten games before being sold to Portsmouth for £250,000.

In short, lily-livered Beauchamp cost us £900,000.

For me, Oxford is tantamount to Milton Keynes. The towns are certainly closer to each other than Moscow and Ludek Miklosko’s home country. So it seems only logical to fear that MK Dons recruit Sam Baldock has the potential to be as big a letdown as Beauchamp. In the spirit of keeping an open mind, however, I did make an effort to listen to his interview on BBC’s ‘Inside West Ham’ podcast. Going forward, this is how I shall judge all new signings.

Being interviewed on this show is an unenviable task. The interviewer poses stupid non-questions, such as: “You weren’t a West Ham fan growing up but you obviously know what we’re about?” Baldock replied: “Well in my lifetime, the club has been about yo-yoing divisions and seeking to play as many aimless five-yard side passes as possible, perhaps best embodied by Ian Bishop”.

Suffice it to say, that’s a lie. Baldock gave textbook answers, quickly ticking the “great fans” and “great tradition” boxes. He also talked of wanting to “hit it off” with the players and “bed in”, but that’s more than enough Ian Bishop references for now.

Having witnessed endless lethargic performances over the years, fans will understandably welcome the enthusiasm of an underdog like Baldock. David Bentley is a different matter.

When I think of Bentley, three images come to mind. There is the time when he threw water over Harry Redknapp. The time when he stood behind someone being interviewed on Sky Sports News and waved comically in the background. And the time when he celebrated his flooky goal at the Emirates and the subsequent result by dancing in front of the Spurs fan like a drunk teenager in Magaluf.

It therefore came as something of a surprise when on arriving at West Ham he gave the impression that he was about as happy to be here as Joey Barton at QPR. No talk of great tradition and great fans from him.

“It’s a club that’s … you know … a good club … and they wanted me … it’s in London, so I don’t have to move my family.” As long as he produces the goods on the pitch then he is entitled to be as miserable as he likes. His performance at Upton Park last season for Birmingham suggests though, that this is far from a given.

Fortunately, Bentley’s interview was followed by Papa Bouba Diop, who might just be the happiest man in the world. There was no interview from Henri Lansbury – just a very promising performance and a goal against Portsmouth. Hopefully he can be spared the torture of an ‘Inside West Ham’ interview. If not, here’s hoping he’s more PBD than Bentley.

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The Departed

"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."

Love In The Time Of Collison after Parker’s 100th game, November 2010

After more than 20 years of watching West Ham, Paolo Di Canio remains the player who has entertained me more than any other. As a teenager in the late nineties I played as a defender, so Rio Ferdinand will always be the player who most inspired me. But when it comes to a player who I admired the most, Scott Parker wins every time.

There has been some childish criticism of Parker over the last week, with some fans even suggesting he was overrated, standing out simply because he was surrounded by unmotivated and untalented teammates.

There is some truth in the fact that he has been surrounded by unmotivated individuals, but does that not make his own unwavering motivation all the more remarkable. Knowing that a move away from Upton Park at the end of the season was inevitable, what motivated him to deliver that half-time team talk at the Hawthorns which inspired the team to a miraculous recovery? Professionalism. Commitment. Class.

The 3-1 victory over Liverpool last season was arguably Parker’s best game for West Ham, though it was not an untypical performance. He simply ran the game. He always had that rare quality in a midfielder of being equally adept at breaking down the opposition’s attacks and creating his own.

Seeing Parker in the white of England over the last week was a helpful way to ease us in to the horror of seeing him in a Spurs shirt. Strangely, few tears were shed at the departure of the club’s best midfielder for a generation. Everyone just seemed relieved that the inevitable had not been delayed any further. The protracted Cesc Fabregas saga and the damage it has inflicted upon Arsenal is a lesson for others.

It would have been wrong to stand in Parker’s way and his destination club is ultimately irrelevant. What is completely scandalous is that we were paid just £5m.

• He is an England international
• He has four years left on his contract
• He was voted player of the year three years in a row (only Trevor Brooking has achieved this)
• He has just been voted Football Writers Player of the Year, ie the people whose work you and I read, who are paid to watch football for a living decided that last season he was better than Samir Nasri and Luka Modric

For this player, we received £5m.

When I am reminded that Liverpool paid £35m for Andy Carroll I have to stop for a few disbelieving seconds and assure myself that this actually happened. When I recall that - in a world where Jordan Henderson is worth £20m - we received just £5m for Scott Parker, I have to sit down in a dark room and reassure myself that everything will be all right.

The argument that we are saving ourselves £70,000-a-week wages is completely spurious, especially as many of those making this case were simultaneously hoping that Joey Barton would jump on board. If you think that we have been throwing £70k down the drain every week for the last four years then, yes, you should be relieved that the burden of Scott Parker is off our payroll. If you think that at market rates this was actually a good investment, then lament with me on possibly the worst piece of business this club has ever done.

The others

One of the downsides of Twitter is that, try as you might to only follow sane people, you cannot then stop those same people from retweeting the garbage of others. By ‘garbage’ I mean views that conflict with mine.

Football fans can be a sentimental bunch, but surely a line has to be drawn at shedding tears over the loss of Zavon Hines. Hines always struck me as someone who in the school playground would makes his opponents look foolish, but on a Premier League football pitch only made himself look foolish. His performance in last season’s penultimate game at Wigan was woeful. Just days after whining on Twitter about not getting a game, he missed the chance to create and score the goals to keep West Ham up.

Rumour has it that Junior Stanislas was never the nicest chap, but having never met him myself I will decline to comment. I always felt he had the potential that Hines did not, but I still do not think he was ever going to become a Premier League player. Another Jobi McAnuff, perhaps. It will be interesting to see how both players fare at Burnley.

Some fans’ sentimentality even extended as far as Pablo Barrera. There seems to be an assumption that anyone who has not played more than a handful of games for the club and thereby not had the chance to prove their worth, was ultimately destined to be the next Paolo Di Canio. Winston Reid is a good example of a player who looked poor under Avram Grant but has quickly come good under Allardyce’s tutelage. Could the same have happened to Barrera? Do we really care?

The demise of Matthew Upson will always remain a mystery to me. I loved watching Thomas Hitzlsperger but he was not here long enough to get too attached. Ditto, Demba Ba. Radoslav Kovac and Jonathan Spector have become figures of ridicule which is a tad unfair, but their departures do draw a line under four years of misery.

The loss of Parker is the one that hurts. He moves on. And so do we.