I meant to write yet another deeply critical piece, delving into the future of our club, the next level, the owners, the upcoming transfer window, the changes we need in the squad, the case for keeping Bilic or letting him go and so forth. Yet I’ve decided against that in the end because my column can get quite gloomy at times and I can imagine that most of you enjoy a gloomy West Ham article at the start of the week on a Monday as much as root canal work at your local dentist. Plus it’s been a very successful weekend football wise for my two clubs and I’ve also had a nice encounter with some random British football fans at the Concordia game (!!!) which is also where the headline of this post originated from, but more of that a bit later.
We won! I had almost forgotten what it felt like to enjoy a three pointer for the Hammers and we simply did on the day what we needed to do. I love watching beautiful tippy tappy passing football as much as the next bloke and to be fair, the Swansea game wasn’t much to write home about really in terms of skill and panache. But relegation six pointers rarely are beautiful affairs, it was two teams that were shockingly low on confidence playing each other and at times it was hard to tell which of the two teams was more afraid of the opposition, both looked scared stiff at times.
Kouyate’s goal was worthy of winning any game of football though and he certainly hasn’t scored a more significant one in his West Ham career so far. It was a proper team effort and all the substitutes put in a good shift too, especially Calleri. We have now put some much needed daylight between ourselves and the relegation pack, in all likelihood this should be more than enough to see us through as I cannot see Boro, Sunderland or Swansea going on mesmerising winning streaks all of a sudden.
Sunderland away should be a game for us to attack, despite missing the likes of Antonio and Noble we need to go for the jugular in this one. Sunderland are struggling mightily at this point scoring any goals whatsoever (they scored their most recent competitive goal three months ago in mid-January) and while I am aware our defense may gift them a few opportunities to change just that I am convinced we will ask them a few serious questions at the other end too. The Mackems will be nervous as long-tailed (Black) Cats in a room full of rocking chairs. We are bound to unleash Carroll and/or Sakho against them at some point and maybe even someone like Calleri would enjoy getting a start against a struggling side like Sunderland.
We’ll see.
So, why am I not moaning about the club’s owners here as usual ? Because I feel far too much relief that we have put ourselves in a good position to see Premier League football at West Ham again next season. That alone will make things a lot easier for us and I guess you will agree with me we have more than enough issues at hand to deal with here. Doing it as a lower midtable Premier League club will be challenging enough, trying to sort out the various building sites around our club on and off the pitch as a freshly relegated side would be a nightmare of epic proportions in comparison. I suppose our board are well aware anyway that the eyes of the West Ham fans and pundits alike will be on them all throughout the summer.
So, while West Ham certainly have done their bit on Saturday, Concordia followed suit the day after, but it was nerve wrecking stuff: Going 1:0 up early on, then conceding (and saving) a penalty shortly before half time, only to lose two sloppy goals in quick succession with fifteen minutes to go in the second half, Cordi managed to turn the game around with two late goals to nick a crazy 3:2 win in front of 154 delirious fans. As promotion rivals Altona drew their away game 2:2 in very lucky fashion (two penalties scored in the final nine minutes or so) the gap has now narrowed to six points again, Cordi have the better goal difference with seven games left to play. Doable, but difficult. It’ll be emotional.
Talking of which the Cordi game on a purely personal level was a bit different than usual for a simple reason. As promised, I had brought the club executive Florian Peters a West Ham pennant as a gift for him to display in Concordia’s club house. He was well chuffed with that (remember he’s also the one who will one day join me to watch a West Ham game at the London Stadium), but he also told me "Look, we seem to have some English geezers here again today, pointing towards a group of six or seven guys of varying age, with one of them sporting a Crystal Palace shirt, another an Accrington Stanley one.
I obviously started chatting to them and found out they were a group of friends sharing not only a passion for football but also the fact they were all Old Bill, some still on active duty, one or two of them already retired. They all live around London but support different clubs, Palace, Fulham, Arsenal, Middlesbrough, Man United and Accrington Stanley.
Every April these guys meet up and go on a football groundhopping tour, so far they’ve been among other destinations to Istanbul, Copenhagen, Holland, Bavaria, Berlin and now Hamburg.
They took in the Hamburg SV home win against Hoffenheim on Saturday and then went on to watch a Sunday doubleheader of lower league football in Hamburg’s East End, following the Condor-Turkiye fixture at noon and the Concordia-Wedel game straight after. Make no mistake, those guys are very serious about their football.
I was even given the task of teaching them some German football chants and I duly obliged, stopping short though at translating the nasty ones about the referee’s mother.
I had a smashing time with the lads, we had a few beers in glorious sunshine and were chatting about football, the London Stadium, Gold&Sullivan, beautiful places to visit in Germany, the appeal of Middlesbrough as a tourist destination, the good old Brexit issue and the ineptitude of the referee trying his best to ruin the game for everyone (yes, in between the banter we were watching some of the football too). The ref even failed to send off an opposition player for headbutting the Cordi midfielder who had just scored the equaliser.
The ref booked both players in fact. I’ve never heard of a headbutt warranting a yellow card only, but maybe that’s a local rule being employed at this level which has escaped me so far. One of the Brits was claiming he had just been watching the German equivalent of Mark Clattenburg. (It’s all about you, it’s all about you…)
All in all it was a nice precursor to my upcoming trip for the Spurs game. I’ve exchanged mobile numbers with one of the lads, so hopefully I will meet them again, either when I’m in London or should they decide to visit Hamburg again one day. You never know, it might come in handy in the future to know some members of the fuzz.
Should I end up in Plaistow nick somewhere down the road I know I’d be allowed one phone call, so why not call a Crystal Palace supporting copper living in Kent, if need be…;-)
Right, Sunderland up next. A game where we can hopefully maintain our most recent marvellous winning streak of, ahem, one game so far. Follow up the Swansea result with another win and we’re pretty much safe. It promises to be another feisty affair at the Stadium of Light though. Let’s hope we can put the lights out on their hopes of Premier League survival. We simply cannot afford to be courteous to other clubs at this stage of the season. COYI!