And now, the end is near

Without wishing to put a dampener on our first victory of the year outside London, there was a remarkable quote from vice-chairman Asgeir Fridgeirsson in Friday’s Sun.

‘West Ham is well funded for the remainder of the year and I am convinced the club will go on,’ he asserted.

Now I know that the Icelandic banking crash, recession and lack of a sponsorship deal are having an impact on the club’s finances, but is there anyone who thinks that our position is so precarious that we might go out of business in the next five weeks.

Or is our plight more serious than is being let on?

Always the Run

My first game at West Ham was a 2-1 win against Spurs on Easter Monday 1986. Tony Cottee and Frank McAvennie scored for us, with Ossie Ardiles replying for Spurs. Everything about the day was enthralling – and not because I was 15 years of age and the only previous matches I had attended had been at Brisbane Road.

I could wax lyrical all day about the passion of the crowd and the derby-day atmosphere. But what really excited me was the area of the ground in which I was standing – the East Stand lower tier. The view was incredible (I read somewhere that it was the steepest terrace ever built in the UK, although I don’t know whether this is true) and you were so close to the pitch that you could make out the players’ expressions. There was also a self-assuredness about its patrons, as if they felt superior to those in other areas of the ground. I knew that this was somewhere that I wanted to be.

And apart from a handful of games in the North Bank, two games in the West Stand/Dr Martens Stand, half a season in the South Bank (a rite of passage as a 16-year-old) and one match in the Bobby Moore Stand (and that was for a beam-back from Maine Road), I have been a fixture in the Chicken Run for the past 22 years.

I used to stand on the same crack in the concrete, about 20 yards from the South Bank touchline, three steps from the back. A large group of men used to stand next to us. They were real characters, always ready with a wisecrack. Fat Les (who inspired a column in my fanzine, The Water In Majorca), Paul, the Dennis Waterman lookalike, the short one with the squeaky voice. If the game was rubbish (and with the likes of Tommy McQueen, David Kelly and Allen McKnight in the side, it generally was) the atmosphere and humour took centre stage. But one by one, the characters stopped going, to be replaced by racist and humourless meatheads.

On the sad day that they put seats in the Run, I managed to secure one only a few yards from where I had stood so often. But it was never the same. The atmosphere was lost, the characters gone. Then they raised the pitch and moved it 30 feet away from us. It was as if everything was being done to detract from the unique experience of watching football in the Chicken Run.

I’m still there, in row E. I’m now in my 21st year as a season-ticket holder. But it’s not the same. Consequently, when I recently had the opportunity to watch the game from somewhere else in the ground, for only the second time in a decade, I jumped at the chance.

Unfortunately, rather than the luxury of an executive box, I was going to be watching the Portsmouth match from the front corner of the upper tier of the Bobby Moore Stand. The experience started well enough. I had twice as much leg-room as I usually did, and with an aisle on one side and the disabled enclosure behind me, I was certainly not short of space.

But as the match kicked off, I soon realised what a different kind of experience I had ahead of me. Perhaps it was the distance from the action, but the supporters were so quiet. I didn’t expect any singing or chanting, but there was hardly any talking or even comments. I am used to continual abuse of the referee, criticism and howls of derision at every misplaced pass, and constant abuse of the opposition. Don’t get me wrong, I hate several of the men that sit behind me, who shower me in spittle for 90 minutes as they spew forth their hatred.

But football is a passionate game – and sitting in the Bobby Moore Stand made me feel as if I were at the theatre. We were consumers rather than fans. Roy Keane’s comments about the ‘prawn sandwich’ brigade came to mind a I looked wistfully at the decrepit East Stand.

As a modern stand, at least the facilities would be suitably luxurious. But the concourse was more crowded than that of a stand built in 1968, while only an in-house channel was available on the TVs, rather than Jeff Stelling and his Soccer Saturday acolytes, as could be enjoyed in the Chicken Run.

My brother had a season ticket at Highbury for 15 years, but has now given up, after only a season at the Emirates Stadium. He said it was no longer the game he fell in love with – and from my sanitised experience last weekend, I can see his point. If that’s the future of football, you can keep it. I can’t wait to get back to the vitriolic inhabitants of the Chicken Run – at least they care about what they are watching.

Keeping up appearances

The aspect of England’s victory against Germany this week that I enjoyed most was not having to watch David Beckham being wheeled on for the last five minutes, to add another undeserved cap to his collection. Like a Hollywood star coming to the end of his career, he is suitable only for bit-part roles these days. But should he even be getting those, bearing in mind how far he is behind the likes of Joe Cole, Theo Walcott and Shaun Wright-Phillips (and even Stuart Downing!)?

Fabio Capello said he wouldn’t pick Beckham for the squad if he were not playing competitive football. And at least he was true to his word. But over the first few matches of his reign, the England manager was complicit in Beckham’s vain pursuit of glory, as he desperately sought to become the most capped outfield player in English football history. In England’s past four competitive internationals, Beckham has been brought on for a total of 32 minutes – and on only one occasion was the result in doubt when he entered the action.

Watching Beckham shuffling on for a few minutes when a game is already won, perhaps getting a couple of touches of the ball and taking a free kick, has been embarrassing. Could you imagine Zinedine Zidane or Diego Maradona being brought on in their mid-30s to play three minutes of injury time against Belarus, with the score already at 3-1? They would be adamant that they would run the show or not play at all. It would be demeaning to their status as legends.

But does qualify as a ‘legend’? As a West Ham fan, I’m hardly impartial, with Beckham set to win his 108th cap in a friendly against Spain in February, equalling Bobby Moore’s total. Is he really on a par with Bobby Charlton (106 caps) and Bobby Moore as the greatest outfield players in England’s history? Ask anyone to name a classic Beckham performance and they will come up with the 2-2 draw against Greece at Old Trafford in 2001. No one can argue that Beckham was a colossus in that game, almost single-handedly ensuring that England secured the point needed to ensure World Cup qualification. But name another one? There were obviously some great goals and crosses, but he never again grabbed a game by the scruff of the neck at international level. His most memorable act in an England shirt was to get sent off against Argentina during the 1998 World Cup for petty retaliation. He has been a decent international, but is not fit to lace the boots of Moore or Charlton.

Legends propel their side to success. Take Michel Platini in 1984, Maradona in 1986 and Zidane in 1998. If anything, Beckham has hindered England’s attempts to win silverware. He went to the World Cup in 2002 when clearly unfit. The overall good of the team was sacrificed on the back of Beckham’s determination to be part of the greatest football show on earth. And by creating the media circus that surrounded the England team throughout the Sven Goran Eriksson era, he succeeded in undermining the chances of the ‘golden generation’.

The cynic in me thinks that Beckham not having been put out to grass a couple of years ago is linked to his ability to help the FA secure multimillion-pound advertising contracts from sponsors. Mind you, it could be worse. If Gary Neville hadn’t suffered a long-term injury and consequently not added to his total of 80 caps since June 2006, he might also be approaching Moore’s record. Now that would give me something to moan about.