The Daily Mail reports that Yossi Benayoun has signed a new five year contract, putting an end to speculation that he wanted to leave. I’m really pleased as he adds a lot to the team wherever he plays. I still think we need to sign a top class winger, whether on the left or right – preferably both.

Noreena Hertz has spent the last 2-3 months touring football clubs trying to get as many players as possible to give a day’s pay to maydayfornurses.com. Needless to say, West Ham’s entire squad coughed up – the only one I think to do so man for man. Needless to say the tightfisted gits at Wigan refused to contribute, bar one solitary member of their first team. Anyway, she’s raised £750,000. Rumour has it that the party leaders are making time to see her personally about this.

There’s an Early Day Motion (1422) which about 85 MPs have signed congratulating the Mayday For Nurses campaign on their efforts. Noreena Hertz has made a documentary for Channel 4 to be broadcast on 7 June about her tours round the football grounds of Britain. Here’s a message I had from Noreena Hertz…

from Noreena: Please tell Iain i thought westham were wonderful and that the first team all came on board and that nigel reo coker was one of the first to support the campaign and has been a real support all way through. tell him also that westham feature as heros in the channel 4 film coming out june 7th chronicling my adventures in world of football trying to pull this all off… x

My respect for Eggert Magnusson grows by the day. There’s a great interview with him in today’s Telegraph HERE.

One unhappy side-effect of the threatened legal action by Sheffield United is that Alan Curbishley may lose several of his transfer targets. Take Scott Parker, for instance. He is said to be Curbishley’s first choice replacement for NRC. But if you were Scott would you really be prepared to put pen to paper unless you were 100 per cent sure of playing in the Premier League next season? I think not.

Mr friend Danny Finkelstein (who’s a very important person – he’s Comment Editor at The Times) heard someone on the radio this morning joking that as Mourinho hasn’t registered his dog it would soon turn up as a midfielder for West Ham. Bloody cheek.

This is from Robin Burt who lives in Los Angeles…

After Sunday, it’s hard not to get emotional and reflect on the decisions that we all make in life – like the decision to follow West Ham. Yesterday was one of those days when all of the emotion and relief came to a head. I can’t remember a season that felt like it would never end – what with the ongoing legal issues and waiting for Saturday to come around (in this case Sunday).

My wife asked me the other day, why I supported West Ham and I responded by saying BECAUSE. Not happy with the fact that I was born near the ground and recounting the story of my first game as an 8 year old lad standing on a milk crate watching WH beat Liverpool 2-0. She came back with, you didn’t have to; you could have supported a big club – Chelsea, Man U or Arsenal. Well that’s a show stopper, right there.

I now live in Los Angeles (which has five West Ham fans at the last count) and without fail, every Saturday at 7am I get my coffee and watch the WH game (if it’s playing). Yesterday was one of those days, the WH game was live and I had my son’s laptop following the Sheffield/Wigan game. What a first half that was! It could not have started any worse with Wigan scoring as early as they did. Watching the onslaught on the WH goal was not for the faint of heart. I didn’t wake my son as having two loonies watching the game would not have been good. So there I am sitting with the dog with all these highs and lows running through my brain. If it wasn’t for Green, we wouldn’t be celebrating our survival. With seconds to go before half time the incredible happens (just like at the Emirates), we bloody SCORED. Now let’s be honest here, a little against the run of play, but who cares. United had a ton of opportunities to score – Advantage WH.

At half time my wife joined the game and asked me how I was. How was I? I was bloody magic, Tevez had given us a life line going in at half time and we had 45 minutes separating us between survival and Championship football. She thought I was high, how could WH possibly be beating MU at Old Trafford and she had a good point. For the next 45 minutes, she was in to the game, referring to Ronaldo as that Nancy boy with the foot thing. It was poetry to hear my wife refer to WH as WE and put down MU in the same sentence. She was so confident that WH were going to win, I on the other hand pointing out that we were still playing the second half at Old Trafford.

Fortune was indeed hiding around the corner on Sunday. What a day for the traveling fans, the Chairman and for everyone associated with WH, even the five of us in Los Angeles. On Sunday, I was really hoping Wigan would go down; they are a poxy club that is poorly supported, a town that could care less about their football, stick to the oval shape thing…please! On the other hand, Sheffield United epitomizes the passion of a true football club, I wish them well and I hope they bounce back next season. As ridiculous as their Greasy Chip Butty song is, it’s not as sad and pathetic as the Wigan song entitled “Mudhuts”, which goes something like this -

“We come from Wigan and we live in Mud Huts;

Ooh Ah Ooh Ooh Ah You should be a Wiganer”

Well there you have it, Wigan supporters are twats.

Even though I’m thousands of miles away from the Boleyn ground, I still get goose bumps every time I watch West Ham and hear our fans sing our song. Outside of Anfield, there is no other team in the country that chokes people by the neck with the emotion and passion that comes out of Upton Park (as well as the other Prem grounds that we travel to). May we always play entertaining football and may each and every West Ham fan be thankful that we were chosen to support this beloved club.

Thank you West Ham

Robin Burt
Los Angeles