Guest Post by Neil Clack
I was lost but now I’m found. Hallelujah, Hallelujah. I am born again. Oh happy days, Oh happy days…..and it was the Reverend Sam Allardici who saved my soul.
I had a strict upbringing. Right from an early age I was made to go to church. I was so young I didn’t really understand what was going on most of the time: services were long and I used to just fidget about in my seat, finding it hard to concentrate although I always enjoyed the hymns. Land of Hope and Glory was one of my favourites. I liked the verse about following ‘Over Land and Sea’ and another I remember is, “You’re gonna get your f***** heads kicked in” when the congregation all passionately sung in unison, pointing and waving their arms at other sections of the church in the process. That was true spiritualism.
All my family were religious. After the service we used to meet up round my Grandfather’s house in East Ham and he read from the holy programme notes, while Nan made cups of tea. My uncles, who were my godfathers, brought me up properly, taking time out to explain the teachings of Reverend Ron and the complex workings of the holy trinity, Hurst, Moore and Peters.
Grandad would tell the stories of the old testament – “Vic, Vic, Vic Watson, score a little goal for me”, and how Moses Allison led the tribe out of the 2nd division, handing down the ten commandments which are written in stone – Thou Shall Not Hoof The Ball Long, Thou Shall Wear Continental Style Kits, Thou Shall Wear Modern Lightwight Boots, Thou Shall Not Worship Any Other God etc However, with his unkempt hair and scraggy beard, it was Bonds the Baptist who was always my favourite biblical character.
There was no freedom of choice for me. I never sat down and weighed up all the different religions. Even at the age of four, there’s a photo of me and my brother standing in Valentines Park wearing claret and blue replica kits with ridiculously big baggy shorts. It was religious indoctrination really and I have sworn that if I have kids, I would never subject them to that kind of cruelty, even though it would break my heart and worry me if they don’t go to church.
It would be wrong to blame parents for everything though because when I was big enough and old enough to work things out for myself, I lapped it all up and became even more involved with the church. I joined the youth group on the South Bank where we sang spritual songs, clapped and even danced in the name of the lord – “knees up mother Brown, knees up mother Brown, under the table you must go…” and “ooohh the Okey Cokey” and “twist and shout”. We even traveled to other churches, preaching, singing and defending our faith.
But Brothers, what I want to share with you in my testimony today is that something quite traumatic and debilitating happened to me last year. I haven’t been able to talk abouit it properly until now but I had a crisis of faith. I realise now that it’s nothing to be embarassed about and that it can happen to the best of men but what happened is that I lost my way in life. I became a doubter. I began to question the holy trinity, I was a non-believer almost, and, I confess, I even started skipping church on a few occasions.
It’s difficult to explain as the roots go very deep, and maybe age contributed to my loss of faith, or maybe also it was just a realisation that I had dedicated so much of my life to the church and religion that I felt I was missing out on other things – stamp collecting, flower pressing, visiting museums on a Saturday afternoon, things like that. Don’t get me wrong, I never went so far as to join another church, but it was more a case of just losing interest altogether really. I even stopped watching Match of the Day at one point!
Looking back, I suppose the goings-on and disagreements at our church had affected me deeply. I had always liked the Reverends Lyall and Redknapp and enjoyed attending their services, but sections of the congregation were getting into new evangelism, modern spritualism and claiming the old ways were out of date.
It divided us. We started bickering among ourselves and I found it difficult to take. Some even alleged that the new vicar was really a non-believer, and some said that the high priests in their Ivory towers – sorry, plastic turrets – were not to be trusted either. We were a flock without a Shepherd.I became all-nostalgic for the past, longing for the old days although I did try to keep going to mass every week and still partook in the holy communion of beer and pies, and sung and praised the name of the Lord during the service but it just didn’t feel the same. I had an emptyness inside, a spiritual void.
Rev Allerdici came form the Church of New Statisitcs, an American phenonomen, almost more of a cult religon than mainstream (although some doubts towards the new man were eased by the fact that he was backed by Deacon Brooking, whose opinions I’ve always respected, and who had done such a fine job himself, filling in at the pulpit when the church was in crisis, a man who has never lost faith in the ways and teachings of the ancient Reverend Ron).
But now brothers, I must make my most shameful confession of all. When I was really low, I commited the greatest of all sins and that is I didn’t care anymore. It’s worse than blasphemy! At least the blasphemers show a bit of passion when they’re screaming abuse at the church and it’s choir boys, and, ironically, it’s often the blasphemers who are the first to sing and give praise as soon as there’s a good service so, no, my sin was far worse than mere swearing in the name of the Lord, mine was the sin of indifference, a deep-rooted negativity that left me coming away from church really not caring anymore.
The devil moves in mysterious ways. I had come under the influence of satanic writings. Sean Whetstone and Dan Silver were writing humerous articles, and Iain Dale was holding polls that showed the Reverend should go, and they weren’t the only ones; there were numerous other posters on West Ham Till I Die as well, and that’s the thing with the devil – he’s clever, very funny at times, cool, he sucks you in without realising it and goes about his demonic work in a sarcastic, witty, and tempting manner.
The Rev Allardici tried to give his congregatioin a new a philosophy for life, something so different from what they were used to. He spoke in acronyms, and statisitcs, PBEs and POMOs. The parable of Bolton Wanderers qualifying for the Uefa Cup was one that always stuck in my mind.
The Reverends Ron, John, Billy, Harry, Pards, and Gianfranco were all zealots, who passionately believed there was only one way to internal happiness, and that you must not adjust, that you must stick to our religious dogma under all circumstances, but Allardici seemed intent on putting his own new interpretations on our Holy Scriptures. He even offered forgiveness to Henry Winter, a scribe who had once testified, to damaging effect, against our church in court, which forced us to pay tribes from the North millions of sheckels, but now, through Winter, the Rev Allardici is preaching a new doctrine,
“There are two types of coaches. There’s coaches like me who weigh up the opposition and ask the team to adjust. Fergie was similar. Jose [Mourinho] is similar. Then there’s Arsène, who won’t adjust. There’s Brendan [Rodgers], who looks like he won’t adjust. There’s Manuel Pellegrini, who looks like he won’t adjust, even in the Champions League. He seems to favour what he’s got. City are quite open.
“Their [Wenger/Rodgers/Pellegrini’s] philosophy is different to ours. Ours is more about who are we playing against. Their philosophy is more, ‘We always play this way’, and they won’t change, they carry doing on the same thing. That’s why you can beat them.
Of course, he conveniently forgot to mention the very successful Barcelona congregation, who never wander from their philosophy, and it’s probably a good moment to have a little dig at fathers Wenger and Rogers, but perhaps we can allow him that, as all preachers distort the truth a little, don’t they?
The masses didn’t like the new vicar’s services in the beginning. Suspicious of an outsider, they threw sticks and stones at him and refused to praise his name, but he never flinched once. They placed a crown of thorns upon his head and hung him on a cross but, with blood pouring down his face, he looked upto the heavens, cupped his ear, and cried the immortal words, “Forgive them Lord, for they know not what is the West Ham Way is – nobody’s ever been able to explain it to me properly -and I’ve got a year left on my contract, anyway”.
And then he walked out into the pre-season wilderness, 40 days and 40 nights, and the devil, in the form of an agent, came to tempt him, “go on, buy Connor Wicked”, he said, " he’s got Premier League experince, you know", so Allerdici summoned up his most trusted disciples, the local lads James and Mark, and James known as Ginge, and he spoke to the high priests, and all of them, working together as one, held strong and resisted the tempation to buy Connor Wicked, befriending the humble Diafro Sakho, a Senegalese Traveller, instead, giving him the job working under Tireless Ted, that wise old man of Yiddish descent who possessed special powers of never growing old.
And at long last the people began to listen. They began to praise his name and started to believe, realising that this new approach was the the key to life, and Allerdici saw what he had made and saw that it was good. Happy that his church was moving in the right direction, and that even the most cynical had been converted, Allerdici knew that the time was right, and it was at that precise moment he rewarded his people for their new found faith and he delivered the miracle of Manchester City at home.Oh Happy days. I believe, I believe. My soul is saved. Please put your hands together and join me in the Lord’s prayer – I’m forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air, they fly so high…..