As Ray Winstone is fond of telling me, a lot can happen in 90 minutes. The truth is a whole lot more happens outside of the 90 minutes – you just can’t bet on it. I suspect that of the time I dedicate to football (reading about it, thinking about it, talking about it, watching other people talk about it) the actual activity of watching West Ham only makes up a tiny fraction of the whole.
Although the international break is always a bit of a ball ache, the two weeks between Tottenham and Man United have been far from uneventful, with many things happening that may impact our fate. For those of you out of the loop, these were some of the highlights:
Scott Parker shines for England
Following the recent death of his father Scott Parker was as strong as ever against Tottenham and impressed for his country in the Wales game. There is a growing feeling that Scott may just yet become Premier League player of the year. As a fan, the pride of seeing Scott shine on the international stage was tempered by the fear that he may wake up any day soon and wonder what the hell he is doing at Upton Park.
The Brady Hunch
Just when you think Karren Brady cannot get any more nauseating, she goes and takes nausea to a whole new level. In her Sun column, the scribe wrote: “I make a quick calculation that today's FA Cup defeat at Stoke is costing us about £1.2m. Neither did we get much of an immediate return on the players' warm-weather break in Portugal so there will be another hard think before I agree to it again."
It’s not a particularly healthy attitude to measure everything in terms of the opportunity cost. What next? “I make a quick calculation that this season’s poor home form has cost us £50m Champions League revenue”.
Her understanding of return on investment seems worryingly hazy. It is concerning that she sanctioned the “warm-weather break” on the basis that it would guarantee victory in the following game and begs the question why then she hadn’t previously sanctioned similar breaks before other big games. Yet another example of our management team failing to grasp the limitations of their role.
It was especially unfortunate that she couldn’t for a moment reflect on the gross injustices inflicted upon the players in this particular game, and think better of her tirade.
Moaning Mackems
The Mackems are having a whinge after West Ham decided that the final game of the season - a game that is likely to decide whether we stay up - will be classed Category A, meaning that tickets for away fans will be £46.
“The appalling rip-off merchants who have charge of West Ham have decided that Sunderland supporters should be mugged for £46 apiece for the dubious honour of a seat at Upton Park/Boleyn/pre-Olympic Plaza,” whined the fans website ‘salut! Sunderland’.
The rant quotes “the economic crisis” – the severity of which first emerged in late 2007 when a certain bank from the north east asked the rest of the country to bail it out – as a reason why West Ham should minimise ticket prices.
“The reality is that given the huge loyalty Sunderland commands among its fans, especially those who follow the club away, our allocation will almost certainly sell out,” continues the Mackem, by this point frothing at the mouth. “Which is a perfectly good reason for hoping that West Ham go down, a relegation this Sunderland supporter would not otherwise have wished on Hammers fans.”
West Ham fans stopped worrying about what people thought of them a long time ago, so here’s an idea: read up on the theory of supply and demand, decide whether or not you are willing to pay £46, and then shut up.
Doyle out for rest of season
Wolves’ top scorer Kevin Doyle is likely to miss the rest of the season after tearing a knee ligament. Doyle, scorer of eight goals for Wolves this season with five in the league, was injured playing for the Republic of Ireland.
While no one should take any pleasure in Wolves’ misfortune, there is no point in ignoring the fact that this could have a key impact on the relegation battle. Having had a torrid first half of the season, our own injury problems have largely resolved themselves.
Mad Dog becomes Barnet manager
Barnet have re-appointed Martin Allen as manager of the League Two strugglers until the end of the season. Mad Dog, whom I loved as a player, but who worries me slightly as a human being, last surfaced as a manager at Cheltenham – a tenure which ended in an abrupt and controversial manner.
Jack Back
Rumour has it that Jack Collison is finally set to make his long-awaited comeback from a long-term knee injury, when West Ham reserves play Manchester United on Friday.
Collison, named after a popular West Ham blog, is set to play his first game when the reserves play at Bishops Stortford on Friday afternoon.
Thursday 31 March 2011
Thursday 17 March 2011
Must we play you every week?
If the following sounds like I am bitter that’s because I am bitter. Like any fan who invests time and money in following their club, I am a bad loser. But some defeats are harder to take than others. Losing the 2006 FA Cup Final was heartbreaking for obvious reasons, but coming away from Cardiff the next day there was at least a feeling that we had been part of something special which would be remembered for decades to come. Driving back from Stoke on Sunday I felt that we had been part of something ugly that had very little to do with football.
Avram Grant has subsequently been fined for describing referee Mike Jones as “weak”. Jones missed fouls by Stoke players in the build up to both goals, was duped by Matthew Etherington’s dive and failed to give a blatant West Ham penalty. The implication from Grant was that Jones felt he needed to balance things up having awarded Freddie Piquionne’s contentious goal. Avram, having already said enough to get himself in hot water, was not able to elaborate. I will. Jones was the perfect facilitator for Stoke’s underhand tactics.
Pulis’s unimaginative style of play has been talked about by many ad nauseam but that does not make the experience of witnessing it any more tolerable. Only someone with rock-bottom expectations, not only of their football viewing experience, but of their very life would voluntarily give up their Saturday afternoons or worse, travel the country, to watch this anti-football.
“You only score from a throw-in”, was the chant from the West Ham fans. In truth, this is one of the least ugly aspects of their game, and who can really blame them for adopting this tactic, given its effectiveness. The vulgar aspect of this set piece is how Jonathan Walters and co impede opposition defenders who are trying to deal with it. Referees such as the woefully inept Jones should take a share of the blame for not stopping it, but ultimately it is the manager who instructs his players to break the rules. If someone breaks into your house, do you blame the burglar or the policeman who fails to catch him?
Their tactics are not unique. The Wimbledon of the eighties and nineties were similar both in terms of directness and sheer brute force. If only the Potters would meet a similar end. Whereas the Dons could claim to be working with limited resources and therefore limited players (a Premier League game against Everton in 1993 attracted just 3,039 fans. Dean Holdsworth is considered a legend), Stoke have no such excuse.
Wimbledon never had the luxury of fielding a player who has won La Liga and has scored in a Champions League Final. Under Pulis, Carew is reduced to trying to get on the end of Rory Delap throws and long balls from Ryan Shawcross. It makes for a rather sad spectacle.
Of course the life of a football fan is not all about watching pretty football. Many is the time this season that I would have gladly sacrificed a few sideways passes for three points. However, there is no reason to suggest that a less direct approach would lead to a deterioration in Stoke’s performance. With one of the most limited squads in Premier League history, Blackpool have completely overachieved this year whilst playing free-flowing football.
The good news for the Potters is that they are not short of people ready to take pity on them. Or at least that’s the only way I can get my head round the decision of Hollywood Monster – “a leading supplier of Signs, Banners and Wide Format Digital Print in Birmingham, the West Midlands and Nationwide” – to sponsor, of all things, Stoke’s substitutions. That’s right: the substitutions at the Britannia “are brought to you in association with Hollywood Monster”. It seems perverse that a company concerned with style and presentation have made a strategic decision to associate themselves with the two ugliest teams in the Premier League – Birmingham being the other. What next - Midsomer Murders being sponsored by the Commission for Racial Equality?
The reality is that if every team played like Stoke, football as we know it would cease to exist. Who could possibly endure that every week? I have witnessed three of the four games against Stoke this season and, including travel and tickets, have spent around £150. To endure that 40 times a season I would need someone to pay me.
As a fan I think you have to ask yourself what motivates you to watch a football game? Is it the possibility of winning or the spectacle of a good game? Presumably it’s a bit of both, but surely what attracted you to football in the first place was the latter. Otherwise, why football? Why not another sport? And what interest would you ever have in a game where you are just a neutral observer?
If there was one moment that embodied the nastiness of Sunday’s game it was Matthew Etherington’s dive. The man whose gambling debts West Ham United paid off to stop him going bankrupt. And my, how he celebrated the winning goal. Oh, what a lovely club. Matty, you have found your level.
Avram Grant has subsequently been fined for describing referee Mike Jones as “weak”. Jones missed fouls by Stoke players in the build up to both goals, was duped by Matthew Etherington’s dive and failed to give a blatant West Ham penalty. The implication from Grant was that Jones felt he needed to balance things up having awarded Freddie Piquionne’s contentious goal. Avram, having already said enough to get himself in hot water, was not able to elaborate. I will. Jones was the perfect facilitator for Stoke’s underhand tactics.
Pulis’s unimaginative style of play has been talked about by many ad nauseam but that does not make the experience of witnessing it any more tolerable. Only someone with rock-bottom expectations, not only of their football viewing experience, but of their very life would voluntarily give up their Saturday afternoons or worse, travel the country, to watch this anti-football.
“You only score from a throw-in”, was the chant from the West Ham fans. In truth, this is one of the least ugly aspects of their game, and who can really blame them for adopting this tactic, given its effectiveness. The vulgar aspect of this set piece is how Jonathan Walters and co impede opposition defenders who are trying to deal with it. Referees such as the woefully inept Jones should take a share of the blame for not stopping it, but ultimately it is the manager who instructs his players to break the rules. If someone breaks into your house, do you blame the burglar or the policeman who fails to catch him?
Their tactics are not unique. The Wimbledon of the eighties and nineties were similar both in terms of directness and sheer brute force. If only the Potters would meet a similar end. Whereas the Dons could claim to be working with limited resources and therefore limited players (a Premier League game against Everton in 1993 attracted just 3,039 fans. Dean Holdsworth is considered a legend), Stoke have no such excuse.
Wimbledon never had the luxury of fielding a player who has won La Liga and has scored in a Champions League Final. Under Pulis, Carew is reduced to trying to get on the end of Rory Delap throws and long balls from Ryan Shawcross. It makes for a rather sad spectacle.
Of course the life of a football fan is not all about watching pretty football. Many is the time this season that I would have gladly sacrificed a few sideways passes for three points. However, there is no reason to suggest that a less direct approach would lead to a deterioration in Stoke’s performance. With one of the most limited squads in Premier League history, Blackpool have completely overachieved this year whilst playing free-flowing football.
The good news for the Potters is that they are not short of people ready to take pity on them. Or at least that’s the only way I can get my head round the decision of Hollywood Monster – “a leading supplier of Signs, Banners and Wide Format Digital Print in Birmingham, the West Midlands and Nationwide” – to sponsor, of all things, Stoke’s substitutions. That’s right: the substitutions at the Britannia “are brought to you in association with Hollywood Monster”. It seems perverse that a company concerned with style and presentation have made a strategic decision to associate themselves with the two ugliest teams in the Premier League – Birmingham being the other. What next - Midsomer Murders being sponsored by the Commission for Racial Equality?
The reality is that if every team played like Stoke, football as we know it would cease to exist. Who could possibly endure that every week? I have witnessed three of the four games against Stoke this season and, including travel and tickets, have spent around £150. To endure that 40 times a season I would need someone to pay me.
As a fan I think you have to ask yourself what motivates you to watch a football game? Is it the possibility of winning or the spectacle of a good game? Presumably it’s a bit of both, but surely what attracted you to football in the first place was the latter. Otherwise, why football? Why not another sport? And what interest would you ever have in a game where you are just a neutral observer?
If there was one moment that embodied the nastiness of Sunday’s game it was Matthew Etherington’s dive. The man whose gambling debts West Ham United paid off to stop him going bankrupt. And my, how he celebrated the winning goal. Oh, what a lovely club. Matty, you have found your level.
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