EXTRA TIME

Back to London for Newcastle

November 10, 2019 at 1:09 am Leave a comment

RAPIDHAMMER was back in town, but his presence was not enough to help the Hammers beat Newcastle at the London Stadium.

I walked to the stadium from Stratford where I had got via the Jubilee Line this afternoon. I had been in central London in the morning with my spouse Eva. She didn’t go to the game because it was my mate Alfred who I was going with this weekend. I had parted company with her near Covent Garden, walked down to Aldwych to catch a bus from there to Shoreditch where I had to store the parcels from our shopping in the Seven Dials neighbourhood, and then I took the Overground to get to Stratford from there.

I changed for the Jubilee Line at Canada Water, and then I had to make my way to the ground by feet of course. As Alfred would arrive late, because he had been to Oxford in the morning, I was walking on my own on that cold and rainy day, buying a match day programme, having a talk on the phone with Paul, who didn’t go that day, and exchanging sms with Sam who didn’t go either.

Crossing one of the water ways around the stadium I seized a view of the ground with a lot of trees in the foreground (above) which reminded me of the installation “ForForest” in Klagenfurt’s Wörtersee Stadion – but there the trees had been on the pitch, not in front of the stadium!

I treated myself to a visit to the West Ham Store. My purchases were the new home and away shirts and a red short, not to forget a small can with soap water for blowing bubbles! I bought two white away shirts, one as a present for my son Johannes who likes to play football in a cup winning shirt like this, I’m sure of that!

Finally I made up my way to the seat in sector A, as always!

But it wasn’t as it had been on my last four visits to the London Stadium, when Eva and I had witnessed all but wins over Burnley, Crystal Palace, Arsenal and Southampton! There was an army brass band playing and a minute of silence was held afterwards for the British soldiers., and almost as silent as within this one minute the stadium was throughout the first half. The Irons started into the game much to slow, couldn’t string hardly any dangerous attack together and were 0-2 behind at the interval.

They began to play a little better in the second half, but it didn’t take long and a free kick was directly converted into substitute goalkeeper Roberto’s goal. West Ham finally started a rally, pulled two back before injury time, but they were unable to score a third goal which would have meant to get a draw from that game. But it wasn’t to be, and Alfred again saw West Ham lose as he unfortunately always does on his visits to east London! I really like Alfred, and we have watched a lot of good games together in the past when we went to Rapid Vienna, but he never should be at West Ham again! Oh Eva, why didn’t you come to the ground with me this afternoon?

After the game all of us met up in a rooftop restaurant in Shoreditch, enjoyed the evening and forgot about the football! It was a beautiful weekend with two beautiful concerts, good Indian food (twice) and two wonderful services – one in Westminster Abbey on the All Saints’ Day, and the other one on Sunday afternoon at Hillsong Church in a theatre near Tottenham Court Road.

Come on you Irons, (maybe) bounce back next weekend against Burnley away!

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