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.

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.