My mind was made up before the Crystal Palace match.
If I had to pinpoint the exact moment I knew I wouldn’t renew my season ticket
for a fifth season, then I'd guess it was some time during the Norwich City
match in February.
That's right. A game that we won 2-0 was the
trigger. For this has been the season when even winning (which we have done on
the minimum required number of occasions) became boring.
Regular readers of this blog will know that for the past
three years I have largely been a supporter of Sam Allardyce: I greeted his arrival in the summer of 2011; a year later I backed him to be the next David Moyes (back when such a sentiment was a compliment); I urged the club to renew his contract at the end of last season; and I backed him during tough times
this year, both in November and again in January. If there is anyone who has
written more words in praise of Allardyce I would like to meet them (what a
fascinating pair we would make).
But the 2013/14 season has been one like no other I
have experienced during my 25 years as a fan. My enduring image will be one of a
defender – let’s say James Collins – clipping a 60-yard pass in the vague direction
of a solitary Modibo Maiga, Carlton Cole or Andy Carroll. More often than not
the opposition centre halves mop up the danger. Sometimes the striker flicks it
on to no one. Sometimes he holds the
ball up only to realise he has no support. Sometimes he holds it up and finds a
pass. Occasionally this pass might result in an attack and, even more occasionally,
a goal.
And that's what watching Allardyce's team has felt
like this season. Percentages. We accept that the majority of a typical game
will contain minimal attacking football. It’s a system that has nothing to do
with entertainment and everything to do with grinding down the opposition.
Often it is very ineffective, as was the case at the weekend. The best you can
hope for is to nick a goal and three points – something you could have
witnessed via Teletext and still derived the same amount of pleasure.
We spent a quarter of the season playing without a
striker. That actually happened.
We almost never attack in numbers. When we do attack
it is in the same predictable way: move the ball slowly to the wings and hope
that Stewart Downing or Matt Jarvis can find some space to make a cross. Ravel
Morrison appeared to offer the perfect opportunity to bring some creativity and
an element of surprise to the centre of midfield. Instead he was stationed in
front of the defence, before being shipped out on loan to QPR.
Match of the Day pundits will tell you that as a
West Ham fan this is the most you can hope for. Messrs Shearer and Savage do
not offer any further analysis, refusing to accept that fans, in return for a £900
season ticket, would like to be entertained. It must be easy to have that
attitude when, far from paying to watch football yourself, you're being paid by
the rest of us to do so.
While I hold Allardyce responsible for what happens
on the pitch, the lack of pleasure I derive from the matchday experience isn't
just down to him. I have become equally disillusioned with my fellow fans.
Telling him to "f*ck off ", as has been the case by a large section
of supporters at several games this season, is completely disproportionate and
verges on a paranoia that he is trying to sabotage the club.
He is a capable manager who is doing what he thinks right.
Over three years, in terms of results, he has largely delivered. Fans are quick
to blame him for the bad times but never was he given sufficient credit for
promotion at the first time of asking and a mid-table Premier League finish,
also at the first time of asking. I have often considered our fans to be the
best there are. Many now seem to me as fickle and hateful as all the rest.
Every time I hear someone mention Ron Greenwood or John
Lyall as a juxtaposition to Allardyce I feel more and more alienated. The past
is the past. The game has changed – if only because there’s more to lose from
being relegated. It is not the fault of Brian Clough's predecessors that Forest
have not won the European Cup in the last 20 years. Similarly, anyone who thinks
West Ham continued playing the beautiful game between Lyall's reign and
Allardyce's is quite simply wrong.
In fact, many of those fans have more in common with
the man they abuse than they know. One blogger yesterday issued a poll asking
that eternally stupid question: what is more important – results or
entertainment? Since when were the two mutually exclusive? Since when was a
failure to retain possession the best way to three points?
Many fans now prefer to mock the team, than support
them. ‘How shit must you be, we’re winning away/at home’, was funny the first
time, not the hundredth time. Bizarrely, one of the few supportive chants this year
has been for Mo Diame, a player who has been ineffective all season and who has
publicly stated his desire to leave.
I give up.
I harbour no resentment towards Sam. He
took over a squad that was a shambles and he instilled much-needed discipline.
He has the players playing in a way he believes to be right. He doesn't see a
better way of playing or of evolving the current squad. Personally, I still hope for
better. I would like nothing more than for him to prove me wrong – but I no
longer think he will. His favourite excuse for playing negatively is that he
has to play a certain way to counter the opposition, whether it’s Chelsea or
ten-men Hull City. This fails to explain why the rest of the division do not
play the same way.
Going to West Ham matches has got in the way of my
love for the club. I resent the time and money I spend to watch unattractive,
negative football in a negative atmosphere. If I spare myself the effort and
expense of being a season-ticket holder, I may just learn to feel more supportive again.
Some of the anti-Allardyce sentiment flying around is
based on long-running agendas. Some of it is spiteful and nasty. I do not want
to be associated with that. I am, to use the word so often associated with
Allardyce, a pragmatist. The current
conditions are such that I want a break. I look forward to the day I come back.
saw loads of fans on twitter having a go at the club for their £10 subsidy of the Man City ticket.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't much, granted, but thought they were being so ungrateful. what were they expecting?
Apparently the football was just as poor under Pardew, in fact I remember commenting that Tevez' neck injury was from constantly watching the ball sailing over his head. I agree with your comments which are well put - it is a sign off the times, we should not expect the players we have to have the confidence to play the ball out of defence when a 60 yard hoof is easier and less scary. Alan Shearer commented on MOTD that we harden back to days of yore when we played more entertaining football but that it didn't get us results. Maybe not. But it made it more interesting to go and watch the team.
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