The Italian job

You can’t help but love Newcastle, can you? However much of a mess your club is in, Newcastle are guaranteed to be more of a laughing stock (even if they didn't turn out for a match with a different-coloured patch of material laughably stuck over their defunct sponsor's logo).

Their fans worship an anachronism of a manager who hadn’t watched a match in the three years before joining them and whose tactics and approach to the job are stuck in the 1970s, as ‘the messiah’. They parade banners proclaiming ‘Cockney mafia out’, despite the subject of their contempt, Mike Ashley, having been born in Buckinghamshire. And when our new manager needs three points to win over the inevitable sceptics, they make us look like world beaters.

The only downsides to a fantastic performance were IBM (idiot behind me) and his chip-off-the-old-block son IBM Junior (idiot beside me). From the first minute, they were slating David di Michele’s every touch of the ball. Apparently, he was awful on his debut at West Brom, refusing to pass the ball. No matter that this was his first 71 minutes in English football, it was enough for them both to unleash a string of racist expletives every time he went near the action. They even refused to celebrate his goals. Luis Boa Morte’s two late howlers didn’t even invoke such invective. And he hasn’t put a foot right in 20 months, despite costing £5m and earning probably twice as much as di Michele.

Gianfranco Zola must have dreamed of such a start. There has been enough newsprint on Curbishley’s departure and the ensuing recruitment process. All I’m going to add is that I think the plan was to axe Curbishley from the minute Gianluca Nani was brought in as director of football in the spring. I wasn’t particularly a fan of our ex-manager, but neither was I desperate for him to leave. But I admire his principles for walking out in what had clearly become an untenable situation. If he had stayed, he would have walked into training the following morning and had to introduce himself to two of our three new signings of September 1 (Herita Llunga had apparently been on trial at the club, but the decision had been made not to keep him). Surely directors of football should be working in tandem with the manager, rather than buying and selling players behind his back?

It was interesting that the club insisted that George McCartney had handed in a transfer request, while the player himself and Curbishley were adamant that he had not. I know who I believe. After the previous regime, I had hoped that our new owners were going to return us to the days of respectability and integrity. But it appears that duplicity is still prevalent, particularly with one senior member of Terry Brown’s entourage still on the payroll.

My only other comment on Zola’s appointment was that if we had to opt for an inexperienced Italian, could we have not chosen Paolo di Canio, the only West Ham legend of the past decade, rather than a man voted Chelsea’s best-ever player?

Talking of di Canio, his two goals in the Soccer Aid match at Wembley were sublime. As much improved as Carlton Cole undoubtedly is, it certainly put his finishing into perspective. Yet Cole gets a standing ovation every week from IBM and IBM junior. Now imagine if he was Italian…

Game for a laugh

Good movement, stylish footwork and great team spirit. The fans' conga at the City of Manchester Stadium was certainly worth watching. Unlike our performance on the pitch, which was atrocious.

We didn't have a single shot on goal against a side which was in crisis going into the game, having lost its first two matches of the season and with the spectre of corruption charges hanging over Thai owner Thaksin Shinawatra.

You could point to the sending off as Mark Noble as a mitigating circumstance. But Man City had already hit the woodwork twice when we had 11 men on the pitch.

Most of our players looked out of their depth. While some, such as Neill and Faubert, couldn't put a foot right, the likes of Etherington just hid on the wing. Only Green and perhaps Parker came out of the game with any credit.

The problems were compounded by replacing Freddie Sears with Hayden Mullins at half-time. If you're going to play with one man up front, it has to be someone quick and energetic such as Sears, rather than someone as immobile as Dean Ashton. It was nothing but a damage limitation exercise, even though the match was still goalless.

West Ham fans are renowned for their humour in adversity. We've certainly had enough practice. But many more performances such as yesterday's and the smiles are soon going to be wiped off everyone's faces. We should be singing 'We're gonna win the league' until at least the first week in September. As the Piranhas once sang, 'You have to laugh or else you cry'.

Macclesfield must be rubbing their hands in anticipation.

We were top of the league

So much for my apathy towards Saturday’s match. By 15.10, I had even forgotten that I’d had to leave the march to save Walthamstow Greyhound Stadium early, as we went two up and soared to the top of the league – and in glorious sunshine.

Even IBM (idiot behind me) was full of early-season optimism, although he did blot his copybook when he declared that Dean Ashton’s substitution was to save him for Wednesday night’s England match. It was a conspiracy theory that ranked alongside Neil Armstong’s moon landing being filmed in a studio, bearing in mind that Ashton had just pulled up sharply after striking a free kick into the upper tier of the Bobby Moore stand from about 15 yards in front of us. He then went straight to the bench to receive treatment. You hardly needed to be Hercule Poirot to deduce that he was injured.

But it proved to be yet another false dawn and by 16.50, we were clinging on for an undeserved three points, as Wigan ran rings around us. Suddenly, that 15 minutes of believing that we could really achieve something this season seemed ludicrously unrealistic. And I remembered that 24 hours earlier, I had been looking forward to eviction night on Big Brother more than I had to my first visit of the season to the Boleyn Ground.

Not that I was the only one who was hardly enamoured of the start of the new season. The crowd of 32,758 was 1,000 fewer than for the corresponding game last season. But with the cheapest tickets in the ground costing £35 – and the cheapest offering a decent view £45 – the swathes of empty seats at the back of each stand was hardly surprising. But it was only Wigan. You won’t be able to get a seat for love nor money when we play Stoke, Hull, West Brom, Fulham, Bolton, Blackburn…

Seasons to be cheerful?

I was up at 3am this morning. I was so excited at the prospect of West Ham v Wigan that I just couldn’t. sleep. All those new signings, our flowing style of football, Wigan’s large and passionate support…

In fact, I set the alarm so that I could watch swimmer Rebecca Adlington claim her second Olympic gold medal in the 800m freestyle. She won by six seconds, while knocking 2.12 seconds off the world record. Athletes such as Rebecca get up in the middle of the night to swim hundreds of lengths in their local pool, day in day out, all year-round. And as amateurs, all they receive is sponsorship. Contrast this with West Ham having to pay Freddie Ljungberg £6m just to get him off the books. It leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

So what are our prospects for the season? In my pre-season preview for When Saturday Comes magazine, I opted for 12th place. But that was before we signed Valon Behrami. It was also before I realised that we would be starting the season with the traditional 10 or so injured players. It’s just as well that we’ve got a relatively easy start to the season because otherwise the lack of quality in reserve could see us in the relegation zone by the time the likes of Bellamy and Dyer are back. The Racing Post has tipped us to be relegated, and while I think there are too many other weak teams for that to happen, it is hard to see us finishing above lower mid-table. And I fear for Curbishley’s future.

I’m off to participate in the march to save Walthamstow greyhound stadium. If it finishes in time, and I don’t get sidetracked by the Olympic rowing, sailing and cycling, or Essex’s appearance in the Friends Provident Trophy final at Lord’s, I might take my place in the Chicken Run this afternoon.

Some habits are hard to break - however bad they are for you.

No one likes us - do we care?

I didn't go to the Villarreal match on Saturday. In all honesty, I didn't even know it was taking place. Our 'glamour' pre-season friendly is usually staged on the Sunday before the season kicks off. My excuse is that I'd got back from a month-long holiday in Central America only the previous day, and I was due to compete in the London Triathlon on the Sunday.

I think the last pre-season friendly I went to was at Brisbane Road. We beat Orient (as they were then known - it was that long ago) 2-1, with Frank McAvennie scoring the winner. That was in the days when I couldn't get enough of West Ham. Despite entering my 22nd consecutive year as a season-ticket holder, nowadays I look for excuses not to attend matches. Wigan at home? I'm afraid I'm going to gatecrash the wedding of my second cousin twice removed - in Grimsby.

The nature of the opposition on Saturday made the idea of attending the game even less appealing. The last thing I needed was 90 minutes of the Idiot Behind Me (IBM) - how I pray that he hasn't renewed his season ticket - spewing a hate-filled diatribe about 'paella eaters', while managing to fit an insult about Frank Lampard's weight into every sentence (I'm sure Frank would love to swap places with a foul-mouthed loser with a waist size higher than his IQ).

It was interesting to hear that triallist Ben Thatcher - who not only started his career at millwall, but has also gained a well-deserved reputation as a snarling thug, epitomised by his forearm smash on Pedro Mendes a couple of years ago - was booed. It seems that Curbishley has got his eye on one title this season - that of most hated club. We came eight in such a poll recently, largely thanks to the Tevez affair and counting the likes of Bellamy and Bowyer in our squad, and Thatcher's addition to the ranks should help us rise a few places.

It's a far cry from when the Academy of Football was everyone's second-favourite club. Looks like I'm not the only one who has fallen out of love with all things claret and blue.