“Mid table and a good cup run. That’s all I’ll ever need to be happy”
That is the mantra I have heard from my friend Derek, who along with his brother and father had season tickets at Upton Park for years, since the day he infected me with the West Ham virus. And I have lived by those rules ever since. During seasons in which we struggled and fought against relegation, the cups were nothing more than reminders of how bad things were. I rarely watched them, actually. Some will understand the mentality that says football itself provides zero enjoyment when your team is a disaster. But for the first time since 2006 the FA Cup is a priority in Casa Hautzig. And when I found out two days ago that Fox Sports would be showing our game at Bristol City, I was chuffed.
A 9am kickoff over here meant I had plenty of time to drink a couple of cups of coffee, make a little breakfast for the wife and kids, and set myself up in front of the 40 inch Sharp in the living room. Life was good.
And then it wasn’t. Five minutes before kickoff, the power went out.
With the theme from Mission Impossible playing in my head, I sprung into action.
Shut down all apps except Twitter and Messages on my iPad to conserve battery power.
Check.
Turn on very old Mac laptop and find illegal stream from some place like Taiwan or Indonesia.
Check.
Put on socks. It’s cold in here.
Check.
My Internet service at home is very poor, so video streams don’t load quickly and they often freeze. From what I read on Twitter during the opening ten minutes or so, that may have been a blessing in disguise. Bristol City came out flying and another upset by a lower league club was very much in the cards. Early on Matt Smith forced Noble to clear his header off the line, and Alex Song was apparently suffering from some sort of passing dementia.
In the 15th minute….my stream came on. Lots of closing the window and re-launching did the trick. Or maybe it was a coincidence. Whatever, I got the game back on. Not that I got to see anything particularly enjoyable. Thomas put a shot wide from the top of the box, and then Carroll took his turn as defensive savior by clearing another effort from Smith off the line. If the stream hadn’t failed again moments later I might have turned it off.
Back to Twitter. One frustrated Tweet after another. Rich, Mark Harrison, Liam Spencer. Everyone was saying we looked awful, particularly Song and Valencia. One Tweet tried to be positive saying that it’s unlikely we will ever see Alex Song play this poorly again. Thank heavens for small favors, I guess.
The stream came back on during halftime. I guess enough users shut down during the interval that I was able to sneak in. Even with grainy, choppy video I could see Song was having a mare. It’s so hard to see the numbers for the game time online, but the first number looked like a five when he gave the ball away in midfield, then gave up a free kick trying to win it back. The ensuing free kick from Thomas was straight at Adrian. Minutes later Song was put out of his misery and replaced by Amalfitano. At the same time, I saw Valencia coming off but couldn’t make out who was coming on.
Oh my. Sakho. Senegal isn’t the most stable of countries to begin with. I could picture the heads of their FA as cartoon characters with steam coming out of their ears.
A few minutes later, the Stream Space Time Continuum wobbled. Twitter said Downing and Nolan played a nice one-two but Downing’s shot went over the bar. My screen said a Bristol City player (turned out to be Little) lost the ball for a West Ham throw in. A few moments later, the screen caught up and I saw Downing’s shot. What to do? I stayed the course with both sources of information.
Even with a two inch screen surrounded by dubious click through advertising, Sakho’s effort in the 74th minute made me throw my head back. His flick over the defender to himself was the kind of skill that can make the difference in a game like this, and he almost put West Ham on top but his shot skimmed off the crossbar and behind the net. A few minutes later, my Twitter feed went berserk with joy. What will it be? A quick check of the battery power on my Mac assured me I wouldn’t miss the goal that was on its way through cyber space. And when you know it’s coming, you watch differently. More analytically than emotionally. Carroll used both his tremendous strength and his skill to keep the ball, and his lob across goal to Sakho was superb. With the ball in mid air, I knew what was coming. Analytical Dave move over. Fist pumping, jumping up and down while screaming Dave step on up.
West Ham 1, Bristol City 0.
With ten minutes to go, I switched my attention to Twitter. I wanted the game over and with my phone a few minutes ahead of my laptop I jumped on that train.
Smith this, Smith that. I feel like I’m in The Matrix! Will somebody on West Ham become our Morpheus or Neo and get on this guy before he replicates himself?! The actual plays didn’t look as bad as some of the Tweets suggested, but the danger he presented was very real.
Come on. See it out. Be over. Pleeeeeaaaaase.
With only 18 minutes of battery power left, the final whistle blew. Three minutes later, my power was restored. Seriously. You couldn’t make it up.
The football gods decided to have some fun yesterday. They looked down, saw how the game was being managed and decided everyone needed a good, round kick in the arse. Russian Billionaires and Arab Royalty in particular. By all accounts, Bristol City should be very proud of their efforts. They probably deserved a replay. And if the game had been played yesterday, the gods may have granted them that. Or more. Normal Service, however, has been restored and the Premier League saw all three of it’s teams in action today advance to the 5th round.
Time to turn up the heat and make more coffee.