Archive for November 2, 2021
It’s So Unfamiliar To Win And Win And…
I am writing articles for the West Ham blog WEST HAM TILL I DIE from time to time. As I came across this Guest Post on the blog WEST HAM TILL I DIE by Simon Walters, I found it was such an accurate description of what Hammers fans feel right now, that I should dare to post it on my blog, too. That’s what Simon Walters, Assistant Editor of the Daily Mail, wrote:
Am I the only West Ham fan who is both delighted and discombobulated by the team’s continuing success?
Have we really knocked out both ManU and ManC out of the EFL Cup in successive matches; done so without Rice and Antonio; are unbeaten in the Europa Cup without conceding a goal and are one match away from guaranteed progress to the last 16; and, oh yes, I nearly forgot, are fourth in the Premiership.
It is a whole new conversation for a West Ham fan. Usually, by this stage of the season, we are discussing whether it is 40 or 37 points we need to avoid relegation.
West Ham fans adopt a Tony Hancock style of hangdog humour to cope with the stress. It is a way of coping, a way of life.
We say: ‘We’ve got Palace and Burnley at home in the next fortnight, if we win those we will be four points clear of the drop.’
My optimistic West Ham mantra has always been: ‘If we win the next three games we should be eighth.’
Trouble is we would often lose all three and end up 18th.
It wasn’t all misery. The thrill of the final whistle when we clinch the point we need to avoid the drop in late April is exhilarating, even if only in the sense that an unexpected reprieve from a year long prison sentence would be exhilarating.
The joy of seeing the Hammers scrape home at Wembley against Blackpool in the 2012 Championship play-off final felt as good as an FA Cup win.
After last season’s success, many West Ham fans feared normal service would be resumed this season.
Doubters like me whinged: ‘We haven’t the squad to do the Europa Cup, half the team will crocked by November and we’ll be struggling in the league.’
Well, it’s cold outside but it hasn’t happened. Yet.
The discombobulation of the team’s continuing success comes from having a football fan’s version of imposter syndrome.
Are we really the new Spurs? Embedded on the fringe of the top four?
Dare we set our sights on the Champions League? I am looking over my shoulder just saying it.
Might we even become the new, or rather old, Arsenal, actually a member of the top four?
The unloved London Stadium becomes the Stratford Bernabeu.
OK I have gone too far. That’s ridiculous.
The point is that West Ham fans like me don’t quite know what to talk about. We need a new language.
We came to know our below stairs place in the Premiership pecking order and what was expected of us, how to behave, we knew the lingo of football’s lower classes.
Now we have clambered out of the relegation scullery and are tiptoeing towards the Premiership banqueting halls of Liverpool, Man City and Chelsea.
We haven’t plucked up the courage to knock on the door yet. What will we say if they do let us in?
But old habits die hard. To turn my mantra on its head, if we lose the next three we won’t even be eighth.
And it could be downhill all the way after that.
Or worse, Chelsea ‘do a Lampard 2.0’ and buy Rice for £150 million.
We’d certainly have the lexicon to talk about that.
Most of it unprintable.
EXTRA TIME 
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