The Worst Ever West Ham Player: Your Nominations Please

We all know who our West Ham heroes are – the men who would make our All Time Top Eleven. But who would be your All Time West Ham duds? I thought I would run a poll on this but would be grateful for your nominations in each of these categories…

Goalkeeper
Left Back
Right Back
Central Defender
Winger
Central Midfield
Striker

Feel free to give a critque of your nominations, but let’s steer clear of personal abuse, eh?

Is it Time to Blood Freddie Sears?

Freddie Sears has scored 21 goals in 18 games this season. On Monday night he scored a brace for the reserves in a 3-1 over Spurs. Apparently he is on fire. He’s been likened to a young Tony Cottee in that he has pure predatory instincts. I have never seen him play but those that have are raving about him. How about putting him on the bench sooner rather than later and giving him a few minutes with the big boys?

A Chant for the Phoney Pharoah of Fulham

Please tell me this is true. The Pandora column in the Indy reports this morning…

Chant heard coming from visiting West Ham supporters on the terraces at Mohammed Fayed’s Fulham on Saturday…

Que sera sera
Whatever will be will be
It’s a fugging conspiracy
Que sera sera

Quality.

PS Apologies for the lack of blogging over the last few days.

My West Ham: Daniel Schweimler

Daniel Schweimler is the BBC’s South America correspondent, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
How did you become a Hammer?
The first game I ever went to was West Ham v Burnley in the old First Division sometime in the mid-sixties. My dad, a chef, had a rare Saturday off and took me on the back of his scooter. We lost. We then moved out of London and I grew up supporting Aldershot in the old Third Division. But in my early twenties moved to Forest Gate and a job as a reporter on the Ilford Recorder – back in Hammers territory!

Your first game?
See above

How many games do you get to?
Now, none. I’ve lived the past two years in Buenos Aires where I’m the BBC South America correspondent. I see a fair few on tele – less now that Tevez has gone. When I was living in London I worked shifts so usually get to seven or eight home games and one or two away games a season.

Most memorable moment?
I was in Cardiff for the play-off final against Preston…but the following day walking up Green Street with my kids and seeing the open-topped bus was probably my happiest and most memorable moment.

Have you met any Hammers players?
My wife finished third in a charity running race in Victoria Park and Steve Lomas presented the trophies and signed our football for us.

Favourite current player?
Matty Etherington

Describe last season. How did it affect you?
Traumatic! The good side was that living in Argentina, the drama and Carlos Tevez’s involvement in it put West Ham on the map here. Walking the streets of Buenos Aires with my West Ham shirt on, people would shout ‘Wist Jam’ and put their thumbs up to me. It was big news on the sports pages and nearly every painful, frustrating minute was shown on cable TV. I travel a fair bit and got to see us letting in goals in Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. I was observing penguins on Martillo Island near Ushuaia the day we beat Man U at Upton Park. Martillo means hammer in Spanish!! And my boys (Ben 10 and Lucas 8) and I provoked complaints from the neighbours with the noise we made when Carlitos put the winner in at Old Trafford. We were in London last February and went to that West Ham v Watford (league) couldn’t, mustn’t lose game. As the final whistle blew I looked over and saw my youngest son in tears.

What are your hopes for this season?
I guess we have to be comfortable with mid-table mediocrity. Not sure the nerves could stand another season like the last one and hopefully an improvement next year.

Choose your all time Hammers Eleven:
Ludo in goal. Billy Bonds, Bobby Moore, Lampard (senior), Julian Dicks at the back, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick and Yossi Benayoun in midfield, Paolo Di Canio, Carlos Tevez and Geoff Hurst up front.

What do your colleagues make of your support for West Ham?
Football is the main talking point in Argentina so there’s always interest. Back in London we are a small but elite few.

When you’re reporting on West Ham games how difficult is it to be objective?
I don’t report on them so football is one of the few aspects of life I don’t have to be objective about.

Complete this sentence: The thing I hate about West Ham is…
The lack, often, of any kind of killer, will to win instinct. How many times have we played well and lost? Or been two up with half an hour to go and lost or drawn? It forces you to be philosophical about football and about life.

Complete this sentence: The thing I love about West Ham is…
The apparent lack of any kind of killer, will to win instinct. It’s the game that counts, not just the winning. How many times have we played well and lost? Or been two up with half an hour to go and lost or drawn? It forces you to be philosophical about football and about life.

Is Capello Blind to the Talents of Robert Green?

So Fabio Capello reckons there is no goalkeeping talent in England … this despite him having seen West Ham on at least four occasions so far. Has he been watching different games to the rest of us? He doesn’t think Robert Green is experienced enough, yet intends to give Man City’s Joe Hart a callup. Fills you with a lot of confidence, doesn’t it?

Paolo’s Coming Back!

Paolo di Canio has spoken again of his desire to manage West Ham as reported HERE. He also promises to come to a West Ham game before the end of the season and sit with fans in the Bobby Moore Stand!

“The atmosphere at Upton Park was always special. I haven’t been back for a few years but I hope to go and watch a match in the Bobby Moore Stand before the end of the season.

Quality.

An Olive Branch to the Canaries

I have eaten a but of humble pie in my Eastern Daily Press column this weekend…

When I get things wrong I think it’s only fair to admit it. I was wrong about Glenn Roeder. I hold my hands up. I admit it. Any manager who can revive a team’s fortunes in the way he has deserves credit. I believe Norwich have experienced only one defeat in seventeen games since he took over. The Canaries are now only six points off a playoff position. Few would have thought that possible back in the autumn. Obviously a manager has to be judged on his long term record, and that was the point I was trying to make in a previous column. Since then I have been assailed on my West Ham blog by an army of Norwich fans, disgusted that I should express such a view. Indeed, I gather many of them have written to the EDP demanding I should be sacked from this column! Well, in the spirit of reconciliation, I hope they are satisfied with my admission that I called it wrong.

Mind you, my words obviously put a jinx on Norwich City. They lost 4-0 to lowly Leicester yesterday. Can’t win ’em all.

Feeling Cheated

I’m sure it’s not just me who’ feeling cheated at the moment – I reckon the BBC does too. I’m watching a match which has a place in the quarter final of the FA Cup at stake, and the two leading clubs in Britain seem to have “rested” at least five of their top players each. No Tevez. No Ronaldo. No Giggs. No Adebayor. No Senderos. No Scholes. I could go on.

I’m glad Wenger has got his come-uppance. Shame it couldn’t happen to Fergie too. This is supposed to be the world’s premier Cup competition and yet these two managers treat it as an inconvenience. What a disgrace.

Watching West Ham Abroad…

I’ve received an email from American Hammer suggesting that I do a post on where Hammers fans watch their beloved team abroad. He watches at a bar in Manhatten called NEVADA SMITHS. Wherever you are in the world, let us know in the comments where you go to watch West Ham and I will compile a deinitive list for a future post.

Do We Really Need a New Striker?

A constant theme on this blog in recent weeks in the comments has been the desire for a new striker. Admittedly our goals ratio hasn’t been what we might have expected this season, and people are laying the blame at the feet of Dean Ashton. It’s clear he is not on form and siffering a crisis of confidence. The reaction of sections of the crowd is not helping. Along with Zamora, Bellamy and Cole, you’d have thought we would have our best ever strike force. With Camara also available and Ljungberg and Boa Morte also able to play up front, why on earth would we need a new striker. That, of course, is to ignore all the injuries our players have suffered.

With Zamora ready to return I am fairly optimistic about the rest of the season. It is a shame Bellamy is now out, but if Dean Ashton can get some form back, and Carlton stays in the great form he’s been in (and can get a few more goals) I think we’ll be OK.

But if we DID buy a striker in the summer – and had up to £10 million available, who would you urge Curbishley to go for?

What Could Sidwell Bring Us?

My newspaper of choice (not), the Daily Mirror suggests that we will sign Steve Sidwell from Chelsea at the end of the season for £5 million. Pour qoi? I cannot see anything that he wouldbring to the team which Noble, Parker and Mullins do not. Do you?

That’s Zamora (…and Faubert)!

Great news last night was that Julien Faubert made three of the goals in West Ham Reserves 4-1 trouncing of Birmingham. The even greater news was that Bobby Zamora scored a hat-trick. Jack Collison got the other one. That should get him on the bench for the Fulham game.

My West Ham: Brian Belton

Brian Belton is the author of several best selling books about West Ham.
How did you become a Hammer?
I guess everyone sees this differently, but for me supporting West Ham is something you are born to rather than ‘become’. As a baby my mum sat with me in our yard in Sampson Street, E13 on a spring Saturdays and sang ‘Bubbles’ to me along with the crowd that could easily be heard from where we were. She tells me that when there was a big cheer for a home goal that I’d bounce up and down in my pram and cheer as well. My dad was a goalkeeper in the West Ham Boys side that was coached by Ernie Gregory. Who else was I going to support? Like so many other supporters I ‘am’ West Ham (and West Ham is me). West Ham till I die? West Ham from the moment I was born! But I have good friends who were born from Bangladesh to Trinidad, from Hong Kong to the Falkland Islands whose footballing affinities lie with the inextricable Irons. However, my argument (which they broadly agree with) is that they born to it too. You see there are dozens of East Ends; they exist all over the world. I have a long term pal who was born in the South African East London. His first football shirt put Irons over his heart and there they have stayed (although Orlando Pirates play a surrogate role). Perhaps it is something about being ‘on the edge’, or feeling akin to those who continually punch above their weight or identify with the striving to make something potentially mundane beautiful and exciting. West Ham supporters arise organically but their share a particular ‘soul-nature’ (you can recognize it because it’s claret and blue).

Your first game?
I was taken to my first game at Upton Park by my cousin, Steve, and a few of his mates. I was not really supposed to be in the ground being in my fourth year and my ‘carers’, well, were more than twice my age. However, the dad of one of Steve’s pals worked on the turnstiles and got us in about an hour before the game. We were squeezed up on the ‘shelf’ of the North Bank for the initial Upton Park game in West Ham’s first Division One match for more than 36 years. It was 25 August 1958 and the Wolves of Wolverhampton were the old gold clad visitors.

The first thing that hit me was the shear colour of it all – the turf, the strips and the crowd. I knew the players faces and could recite the West Ham side that had beaten Middlesbrough in the last game of the Hammers promotion season without fault and recall getting on Steve’s nerves as every time a West Ham player received or won the ball I shouted out his name.

It was close to half-time when I yelled ‘Musgrove’ as he picked up the ball on my right (West Ham were playing towards us in the first half). He seemed to run like lightning before sending a perfectly weighted pass to Vic Keeble (‘Keeble!’ I hollered). I can still see him look up for a split second that has lasted the better part of 50 years. His cross blasted into the middle of Wolves goal mouth below us. I found myself shouting ‘Dick’ as the tall Scotsman dodged a challenge before, about 20 feet from the goal-line, in a flash, cracking the ball with a satisfying ‘Tump!’ into the back of the Wanderers net. Unfortunately I don’t recall seeing John Smith’s goal.

How many games do you get to?
I’ve never been a season ticket holder. It feels like joining something and I’m not a great joiner of things. But it also goes against the spirit that first took me to Upton Park; I’d be obliged to sit in the same seat every time I go to a game and as someone who has always gone to football to watch the crowd as much as the game that was never going to suit me. Family, friends and friends of friends loan me their tickets when they can’t make it or I buy in advance (this is usually when my kid and wife come with me). I often find myself sitting with visitors when I cadge on a Gooner or one of my associates who is a Spurs fan. At away games it is not unusual for me to be found sitting with the home crowd. It is relatively easy to get into games at Bolton and Wigan for example. I like talking and listening to different people at matches, it gives me sort of cross sectional view of why people support and keeps me in touch with how people feel about things.

Most memorable moment?
I’ve been present at every final West Ham have made since 1964 and I suppose I should say one of those. The Cup Winners Cup final in 1976 was a great game. Like many of the Irons’ finest moments it was a defeat, but we did it fabulously. But my most memorable moment was something a long way away from that match in time and status.

I used to go to reserve games at West Ham’s Upton Park ground. They don’t do that anymore, the pitch is saved, in the main, for first team games. I started attending reserve games when I was about five or six. My four or five mates and me would play for the Hammers against Spurs, Arsenal or, for some reason I can’t recall, Estudeantes de la Plata in the FA Cup final in Castle Street, E13, waiting for gates to the North Bank to be opened at half-time allowing us to ‘flood’ into the near deserted edifice. The North Bank stood where the Centenary Stand now overlooks the Iron’s sacred turf and from its forsaken, yawning entrails we’d watch snatches of the game between mimicking first-team match days, crushing up together behind a single barrier, shouting warnings like, ‘stop bumming me’ and loudly questioning, ‘who’s pissed in my pocket?’ whilst imploring the claret and blue second string to, ‘Coom-yon-uuu-Iiiiionnnnzzz!!!’. Other distractions from viewing West Ham’s twilight regiment of future and past being pulverised (memory’s a bitch) included games of ‘he’ and standing directly in front of lone pensioners. We would look at these old boys in counterfeit shock as they pelted us with a comfortably predictable deluge of verbal filth. We would also mime ‘crowd riots’ (a challenge for such a small group with a collective age of 35) or line-up one behind the other and ‘do pushers’, sending all of us tumbling down the stand like over-coated dominoes. Another favourite pastime was congering up and down the near uninhabited concrete chanting, to the tune of the Seven Dwarves classic, ‘Hi-Ho!’; Mile End, Mile End, Mile End, Mile End, Mile End…(such performances could go on for an near twenty minutes and occasionally more than an hour). This was the mantra of the ‘Mile End Mob’, a collection of youth gangs that would meet at Mile End underground station to become West Ham’s travelling buccaneer army of the 1960s. The ‘Mob’ was made up of the young tribes of weekday rivals from Stepney, Canning Town, Whitechapel, Dagenham, Hornchurch and all the ‘villages’ North of the River, East of the Tower, an area still then pock-marked by the ravages of the blitz and continuing poverty. Come the next first-team game, this conglomerated ‘crew’ would crush together onto the North Bank to renew their collective allegiance to the mighty Hammers. One day we would join their ranks and carouse around the urban wastelands of England celebrating being ‘us’. But on that winter’s evening, as the flood-lights of the Boleyn Ground broke through the icy mist that shrouded London’s docklands, maybe 500 dawns into the ‘swinging’ decade of the last century, we were far too young to be part of that. Our ambitions were set on becoming ‘Snipers’, the under-13 (more or less) cadet core of the ‘Mile End’. It was just after singing and swaying to the Sniper hymn, Snniiiipuzzz! Snniiipuzzz! that I got knocked unconscious.

In time with our homage my little choir pointed towards what was then the enclosure where visiting supporters would be directed, the despised South Bank (that would eventually metamorphose into the Bobby Moore Stand). The South Bank would be transformed into the ‘home end’ in a rather lame effort to break the cult of the ‘Mile End’ and control match day trouble. The tactic was to mark the end of the MEM, but it gave rise to its more malevolent successor, The Intercity Firm.
Our ‘Sniperian’ sonnet had been going some moments when the ball was murdered by the chest of West Ham’s Johnny Byrne. The stained sphere fell, seemingly as slow as a leaf, to receive a mighty belt from the Byrne right boot. The shot screamed towards the goal, but with the lightest kiss atop the away side’s bar, the oscillating orb cannoned on…straight towards…me. I don’t know how, when or why I decided that I wound head the ball back at Byrne, but spreading both arms wide, I pushed my compatriots aside and flung myself towards the on-coming missile. I saw it spinning in the air, turning like some mad banshee, it screamed its coming and I knew I would make contact; I would meet this challenge and connect with my team. I would be totally Hammered! The last thing I remember before leather met cranium was marvelling that so much turn could be applied at such great force; then the lights went out, at least in my diminutive, infantile nut anyway. In the expanse of my childish unconscious I had a little dream wherein Percy Dalton (the peanut man) was arguing with the West Ham manager Ron Greenwood about the state of the buses, Ron was calling in Yogi Bear to arbitrate, him being smarter than the average bear, when illumination was restored. I awoke looking into the face of Johnny Byrne. Like, England international, most expensive footballer ever, Johnny f****** Byrne! ‘You okay sonny?’ he asked looking concerned. My modest firm were standing round in awe, little Colin Jones, the amazing two foot Trinidadian, smallest giant in the East End, was mutely holding out a crumpled piece of paper and a blue, betting office pencil. Byrne had jumped out of the fantasy realm of the pitch into the stark reality of the North Bank; he had crossed the divide of dreams and run up the terraces to where I lay. ‘Yeah’ I said, trying to pretend that my flight down twenty feet of terraced hardness had been deliberate. I was planning saying something like, I do that all the time John when he remarked, ‘Good header’ and gave a little chuckle as he helped me to my feet. ‘Thanks’ I replied with all the nonchalance I could muster. He signed Tony’s scrap of putrid papyrus and trotted back down to where the other players were, quite rightly, looking up at him from the other side of reality. That autograph would be with Colin forty years on. He carried it into eternity in the top pocket of the suit he wore as he was cremated in little Catholic chapel in New York after a long battle with an evil illness.
My first conversation with Johnny Byrne would not be the last, but our next chat would be separated by the tumult of my teenage years and John’s combustive reign in world football. But we never really parted. As I followed him and his West Ham, we were all Hammers. Incited by Bobby Moore, our coming was felt like the distant thunder of Zulu army jogging, inextricably, across the veldt. At the best of times, just when the opposition thought it had heard the last of the Irons, the portentous presence of Moore would coagulate in the middle of the park and the buzz of swiftness around the ball would start, eliding out space and enveloping it, Byrne, Hurst, Boyce, Sissons, Brabrook would dazzle, dizzy and confuse to weave the Hammers back into contention. Sophisticated in assault out of defence, passing along the ground with intoxicating accuracy, rarely did the ball take flight; darting runs carried it to rock the enemy like lightening bolts from the claret and blue. A collusion of deft passing and on-the-ball skill was their only authority. That West Ham side had the ability to generate an idyll of football. Never had so much soccer anticipation been stirred to be so thoroughly sated. I wrote Budgie’s biography a few years ago (Burn Budgie Byrne). For me he was one of the most talented players that ever graced the claret and blue.

Have you met any Hammers players?
I think it is more than a hundred now. From the earliest days of the club’s existence players would coach in local schools after training in the afternoon. My school was just a few minutes walk from the Boleyn Ground and Clyde would take that stroll to coach us on Southern Road playing field, now the home of Newham United. So he was one of the first I met. He worked alongside another Hammers pro, George Andrews. Clyde would coach on the run, playing alongside us, constantly chattering tips and instructions. George would stand on the sidelines. Clyde’s quiet Barbadian tones were not at all foreign to us, my school boasted dozens of ethnicities, but we had no experience of ‘deep Caledonia’ culture. This being the case, the only thing we could understand from Scots George was his screamed Highland war cry “Will Ye Nay Stoop Shooootin’!”

Later, drinking in the Black Lion in Plaistow I bumped into Bobby Moore and John Charles. I had met Bob many times as he and quite a few other players (Harry Cripps, Malcolm Allison and Noel Cantwell) used to buy shirts from my father’s stall in Queens Road Market when I was very small (dad bought high quality shirts and sold them at a very small profit, but made more money on the ties and cuff-links that went with them). He would now and then come round to our house with the likes of Danny Blanchflower and Ken McKinley (the West Ham speedway captain). Ken would purchase a couple of dozen shirts to sell at Custom House stadium. As a young teenage I’d very occasionally see Bob at the Ilford Palais and a few years on I often saw him at the Room at The Top (also in Ilford). He’d always say hello and when I was with a girl would chat and buy us a drink – nothing to do with the girl of course.

I met fifty of the players from the 1950s when I wrote Days of Iron (which was an honor and an education) and of course, over five years working alongside John Charles, I met quite a few former players. But Black Hammers led me to interview the likes of Bobby Barnes, Anton Ferdinand, Marc-Vivien Foe and Shaka Hislop.

Favourite current player?
I like Mark Noble, but I’m not alone there am I? He is a fine player, but what I like about him most is that he personifies what West Ham is about. He’s a Hammer through and through; born in Canning Town and coming up through the youth sides. If the day comes when we end up like Manchester United, Chelsea and Portsmouth having half the side made up of players from one particular team (in their cases West Ham) it might be time to start restricting myself to attending Academy games. Once a Hammer always a Hammer; Tevez, Cole, Carrick, Rio even Lamps, no matter how much their current clubs might boast about them as ‘their’ players, in the background, tapping on the back door of their consciousness, there will always be the nagging knowledge, ‘they are Hamsters!’

Describe last season. How did it affect you?
I loved it! Every minute. I loved Carlos and everything he did. I loved that we made him Hammer of the Year. I loved how Curbs led us home. I loved watching Mr Bean moan in harmony with Kevin McCabe (Sharpe went blunt) and most of all I loved watching Dave Whelan being all northern and outraged. Well worth £5.5m. The worse thing was old Yoda saying he was going to fight all the way and then fell on his knees to plead guilty to a charge that some alleged could not have been made to stick. That story is of course still to be fully told.

What are your hopes for this season?
Old Russian saying – ‘hope is the last thing to die’ – I hope we can finish above Portsmouth and Tottenham. I hope we qualify for Europe. I hope people will start to appreciate Alan Curbishley a bit more and remember we stayed up under his leadership and how that run in last season was truly magnificent – given our situation it must rate as one of the best performances ever by a West Ham team.

Choose your all time Hammers Eleven
Always a difficult one; you gonna pick the players you love or the best players (not necessarily the same thing). Also, are you going to look to the likes of Len Goulden, Ernie Gregory, Ted Hufton, Vic Watson, Sid Puddefoot and Danny Shea, the great players of the pre-war period? I’ll go for my best XI from the last 30 years, just to keep it a bit straightforward:

Phil Parkes, Ray Stewart, Julian Dicks, Billy Bonds, Alvin Martin, Alan Devonshire, Ian Bishop, Frank McAvennie, Carlos Tevez, , Trevor Brooking, Tony Cottee

I might have included Paulo Di Canio, maybe instead of Cottee or McAvennie, but the Nazi salutes of late don’t seem in the best interests of the game – Controversial selection – Ian Bishop. But ask the players who see him as one of the most talented Hammers ever.

What do your colleagues make of your support for West Ham
I work in higher education and as a person with a passion about identity in sport am probably am a bit of an oddity in this sphere. As such folk mostly ignore my connection with West Ham (although it is hard not to know about it I guess). I try not to sing ‘Bubbles’ at degree ceremonies in Canterbury Cathedral and this is probably appreciated. I think Football is still seen as something essentially masculine, although my mum is the greatest supporter of West Ham in my family and given the strides in the women’s game internationally, but also amongst young women from working class background in the East End and like areas across Britain, I’m not sure this is much more than an out-of-date prejudice. There has also been some wonderful work done recently on the history and social impact of women’s football; to name but a few; A Game for Rough Girls: The History of Women’s Football in Britain – Jean Williams , Boots and Laces: An Insight into Women’s Football in England – Maysun Butros, The Dick Kerr’s Ladies – Barbara Jacobs, Offside?: The Position of Women in Football (Behind the Headlines): The Position of Women in Football (Behind the Headlines) – John Williams and Donna Woodhouse , Out of Bounds: Women, Sport and Sexuality – Helen Lenskyj, A Beautiful Game: International Perspectives on Women’s Football – Jean Williams, I Lost My Heart to the Belles: Story of the Doncaster Belles – Pete Davies, The Game and the Glory: An Autobiography – Michelle Akers, The Girls of Summer: The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team and How It Changed the World – Jere Longman and the new book about Hope Powell, Dream to Win.

Complete this sentence: The thing I hate about West Ham is…I don’t hate anything. Some things are hard to take sometimes; the increasing commercialization of the game (although that has always been there) but perhaps more than that the lack of local players coming though, especially from our local Asian community that has some wonderfully gifted players. I saw one little bloke playing in the street (a rare enough thing these days) not 5 minutes from the ground; he looked like Jimmy Johnstone on the ball. As a youth worker in East London over the last 30 years I have seen hundreds like him; why hasn’t at least one of these kids come through?

Complete this sentence: The thing I love about West Ham is…
That they are mine.

So it Wasn’t a Wind-Up

When I got back from the States and read about the Premier League plan to play a thirty ninth match abroad I genuinely thought it was a wind-up. Incredibly, it wasn’t.

While I generally applaud blue sky thinking I just can’t see how this would work. Imagine you are the third from bottom club and your defeat against Man U in the 39th match relegates you, while the fourth from bottom’s match is against the bottom side and they win it!

I suspect my own negative views are reflected by the readers of this blog!

One thing I would like to see, though, is several of the Scottish teams playing in the English leagues.

Discuss.

Alan Curbishley: How’s He Doing?

Alan Curbishley has now been at West Ham for fifteen months. During that time he has provoked strong reactions both for his style of management and his style of play. If a manager is judged by results then he has been a success. The team unexpectedly avoided relegation last season and has consistently been in the top half of the table this season. That’s the positive side. On the negative side, several of his buys have turned out to be flops and his style of play has often been criticised for being unduly negative. However, his squad has been beset by injuries, the like of which we have rarely seen. The only saving grace has been the size of the squad. He’s been criticised for being a “glass half empty merchant” and for his ability to relate to and motivate players.

What’s your verdict? Hit? Miss? Or is the jury still out?

What Went Wrong?

I’m flying back from Washington today so I didn’t catch the Birmingham game. From what I have picked up we dominated possession, squandered chances and were not at all impressive. And Lucas Neill was jetlagged and should never have played.

How was it for you?

Book Review: Brown Out! by Brian Belton

I spent most of my flight to Washington reading a new book by Brian Belton (author of several Hammers related tomes) called BROWN OUT! It was a slightly weird book in some ways – neither one thing nor the other. It was part biography, part hagiography, part history of the last decade or so at Upton Park. It certainly puts Terry Brown’s side of the story – and no bad thing too, but I did wonder how the book had actually come about. As a commercial enterprise I can’t see how it can have worked, so the reader is left asking if Mr Brown dipped into his substantial pockets to contribute to the costs of writing and publishing it. If that was the case, the reader should have been told somewhere in the book. But maybe I am nitpicking.

Belton writes in an engaging manner and isn’t backward in inserting himself into the narrative. On occasion this can irritate, but there’s no doubt about it that the man is a Hammer through and through, so he usually gets away with it as the reader can easily relate to his own experience.

Although I quite enjoyed the book I felt there were some incidents which were glossed over a little – Harry Redknapp’s departure being one. If you’re going to write a book like this you need to give the reader some kind of insight or detail that he hadn’t had before. In this, I think Belton fails in a number of areas. Anyone who reads this book is going to have quite a bit of knowledge about what happened, so a rehash of the facts isn’t going to suffice. It has to be said that on other occasions Belton does indeed give good insight into what went on – the Bond saga being a prime example. In his description of the players’ reaction and the financial aspects, he tolf me quite a bit that I didn’t know.

So all in all, this book is like the curate’s egg – good in parts. But well worth a read.

Buy BROWN OUT HERE.

My West Ham: Ian King

Ian King is City Editor of The Sun.
How did you become a Hammer?Confession, first – the truth of the matter is that my home town team is Bristol City. That’s where I’m from, it’s the team my dad supported and it’s the team I grew up supporting. And I still do. However, my career took me to London, making it very hard to see the City regularly. Being a regular football watcher – more than 450 matches and rising – I had to get a regular fix. The Hammers were the London club I’d liked the most as a kid and so, on coming to London, were the team I made a beeline to watch in those early days – nearly 20 years ago. It’s grown from there. The Hammers represent everything that is good and pure about the game and the fans are superb.

Your first game?2-0 away at Southampton in 1984.

How many games do you get to?Season ticket holder, so most home matches. Went to every home match last season but have missed a couple this year.

Most memorable moment?Probably the 2005 play-off final. And Paolo di Canio’s volleyed goal at home to Wimbledon in 1999-2000 was the best goal…although I got very excited by Jermain Defoe’s winner at Old Trafford in 2000-01 (which was overshadowed by the FA Cup win up there later that season)

Have you met any Hammers players?
Yes, I interviewed Sir Geoff Hurst in 1999 when I was working at the Mail on Sunday, in connection with a business venture he had at the time. And I met Sir Trevor Brooking in the corporate hospitality area at the England v Sweden match in Cologne in the 2006 World Cup. And Harry Redknapp when he came into The Sun’s offices in 2000. All he wanted to do was talk about what shares he should be buying, though, and how Davor Suker had talked John Moncur into some iffy investments.

Favourite current player?
For their sheer commitment, it’s hard to see past either George McCartney or Hayden Mullins this season.

Describe last season. How did it affect you?
Despondency, hope and then, ultimately, exhileration. Must admit I thought it was all over that grim afternoon when Fulham got an equaliser to make it 3-3 in the sixth minute of injury time. It was certainly a roller-coaster. Tevez was an absolute hero although hat-tips should also go to Mullins, Neill and Robert Green for their efforts also. My partner was very disappointed though – I’d promised her that I’d give up my season ticket and spend more time with the family if the Hammers went down.

What are your hopes for this season?
Mid-table stability and none of last season’s nerve-shredding.

Choose your all time Hammers Eleven
This is based only on the players I have actually seen physically in action (hence no Moore, Hurst or Brooking, unfortunately):
Ludek Miklosko; Ray Stewart; Stuart Pearce; Alvin Martin; Rio Ferdinand; Alan Devonshire; Joe Cole; Mark Noble; Frank McAvennie; Paolo di Canio; Carlos Tevez. On the bench: Robert Green; Lucas Neill; Igor Stimac (a much under-rated player); Michael Carrick (ditto) and Tony Cottee. Manager would be Alan Curbishley with Tomas Repka as motivational trainer (but certainly not driver of the team bus) and Sir Trevor Brooking in there in some capacity. His record as a caretaker manager is Champions League material.

What do your colleagues make of your support for West Ham?Many of them are West Ham fans themselves and so they welcome it. The rest just ask me what I will do if Bristol City are promoted to the Premiership next season.

When you’re reporting on West Ham games how difficult is it to be objective?I pride myself on my objectivity.

Complete this sentence: The thing I hate about West Ham is…… the anti-semitism of a minority of supporters at Tottenham matches.

Complete this sentence: The thing I love about West Ham is…… the Boleyn Ground when it’s jumping

Di Canio to Return as Manager?

Paolo Di Canio has reveleed in the Daily Mail that he wants to manage West Ham. Now that would be an interesting prospect!

“I’m a little too old to carry on playing so I will take up managing next year. I hope to have the same success as a coach that I did as a player. My dream would be to manage West Ham – that would be perfect. I spent four seasons there and I would love to go back and win something with them. The fans are fantastic and the atmosphere at Upton Park was always so special. Every weekend I watch all the English games on TV but I always look out for the West Ham score. I have a special place for them in my heart.”

As far as I know, Paolo has never been back to Upton Park to watch a game. Imagine the roar which would greet him if he came back and watched a game from the Directors’ Box. It would make the Tevez return seem calm.

So what do you think? Is Paolo ever likely to fulfill his dream? Somehow, I have my doubts. He remains the most skilful player I have ever seen, or am ever likely to see, at Upton Park.

Bellamy & Gabbidon Out of Welsh Squad

Thank God for that. If I’m not mistaken, Craig Bellamy has already played for Wales once this season when he wasn’t fit and we have suffered the consequences. He and Gabbidon have withdrawn from the Welsh squad for a friendly next week citing lack of match fitness as the reason. I suspect Mr Curbishley put his foot down and quite right too. We, after all, pay their wages.