The best of a bad lot?

Now the dust has settled on what can only be described as a better-than-expected season, I have to admit that I found it all a little boring. Yes, the quality of football has improved (although that’s not saying much after the past couple of seasons), but there were so few memorable matches – or even exciting moments.

Ask a fan to name their highlight of the season and they will be scratching their head. Securing a lucky point at Anfield? Thumping Portsmouth at Fratton Park? A draw at Stamford Bridge? Ask a fan who doesn’t attend away matches and the choice is even more limited. Hammering Blackburn 4-1? Dominating Hull? Coming back from a goal down to beat Macclesfield – after extra time? For me, the highlight was Carlton Cole winning Goal of the Month in March – something I watched on Match of the Day.

As a West Ham fan, I don’t expect to be challenging for the title. Realistically, with the big four’s resources and the money being spent by Spurs and Man City, seventh place is about the best we can do. So to come ninth is pretty respectable. But I do expect to have given one of our main rivals a ‘bloody nose’ or at the very least attended a couple of end-to-end matches, full of goals and excitement, with the result in doubt till the final whistle – and with an atmosphere to match.

If we take our biggest games of the season – the ones the fans most want to win – as those against Man United, Arsenal, Chelsea Spurs and Liverpool, 2008-09 must go down as one of the worst season in our history. In those 10 matches, we managed no wins and three draws – scoring only a single goal in the process. The results of the five home games make particularly sorry reading: 0-1, 0-1, 0-2, 0-2 and 0-3. Even more depressingly, it wasn’t as if were unlucky in any of them. We hardly created a chance and were easily beaten, which did nothing for the atmosphere.

Extending our results sequence to the matches against the fifth- and six-placed teams, Aston Villa and Everton, provides one draw and another three defeats – and only two goals. We scored at home against only one side that finished above us – Fulham. And taunting John Paintsil and Paul Konchesky hardly ranks alongside baiting Jermain Defoe or Frank Lampard.

Where was a match to rival the thrilling 3-2 win against Arsenal in January 2006, when we became the last side to win at Highbury? Or the 4-3 home win against Spurs in February 1997? What about the ‘obscene’ effort an already relegated side put in against Man Utd in April 1992, when Kenny Brown’s volley denied the Reds the title? Or the 4-1 victory at White Hart Lane in April 1994 (Steve Jones’ finest moment), Paolo di Canio beating the arm-waving Barthez in an FA Cup tie at Old Trafford in January 2001 or Leroy Rosenior’s late header to secure an FA Cup victory in Highbury in January 1989?

To put such a mundane season into perspective, I have had to look up most of our early-season results. And there it all was, in black and white. Six defeats in seven home games before Christmas. Going out of the cups after insipid performances at Championship strugglers Watford and soon-to-be-relegated Middlesbrough. Only scoring more than once twice in our last 17 games.

I know that I am in the minority – and perhaps I’ve got masochistic tendencies – but give me a relegation dogfight any day. Even an unsuccessful one.