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The HamburgHammer Column

Hammers losing out on gooseberry cup in the German countryside

Why does time always have to flash by when you’re enjoying yourself ? It seems like it was just a few hours ago that I got into my car to drive out to Schneverdingen to welcome my star guests BSB and The Original Russ to my country. Well, I say my country, but of course it was pretty much rural countryside, the backwaters of civilisation almost, like having a Londoner taking you to Norfolk for a game.

Mind you, the Lüneburg Heath is beautiful enough in its own kind of way and BSB was happy enough with the beautiful houses there and the compact and cosy town center.
Still I managed to take us down the wrong road on our way to the stadium (which seems to be a recurring theme now), but then again I am pretty much a stranger in that part of the country myself and we did alright in the end anyway.

To start off with the positives, it is always good to see the youngsters, the future of our club so to speak, playing in the flesh. We had to play a game of “Who is that youngster over there?” initially, but we managed to identify them all and I have to say while some of them impressed more than others, not a single one of them disappointed. Personally I was very happy indeed with Cullen, Rice, Holland and Martinez.

Another positive was the general atmosphere at both games. Not a sniff of trouble, it was basically a paid holiday for the police staff present at the game as they had so little to do. Certain sections of the travelling Hammers have been praising the stunning beauty of the female police officers to the hilt, comparing them to glamour models or girl groups like the Spice Girls. Not sure about that one, but maybe the stunners in uniform helped putting the Hammers fanbase in a relaxed and happy mood for the games which ain’t a bad thing in my book.

There was friendly banter with the Bremen fans too and while I can never truly support Werder being a proud Hamburger I can respect them and if West Ham were to play Bremen on a more regular basis in future preseason friendlies I wouldn’t mind that at all. One of the stewards in Lohne who was manning the entrance to the away seating section (when I say away seating section I mean the bit that had been cordoned off with simple barrier tape, so you basically had both sets of fans sitting right next to each other) was a former Lohne player and he was proudly showing us a picture on his mobile of a newspaper clipping covering a preseason friendly he had played against West Ham in 1983. They lost that game 1:4 on the day and apparently his direct opponent on the pitch got the better of him all afternoon, it was a certain Alvin Martin…

Another positive for me was seeing some glimpses of what Arnautovic could do for us. There obviously is a great footballer in there, when he is in the mood for applying himself for the full 90 minutes (which apparently was an issue at previous clubs), he can be an arrogant so and so, but he now is OUR arrogant so and so which means I shall gladly root for him despite his Austrian accent…:-))

He seems to love taking on three or four players at the same time which can be frustrating to watch if it doesn’t work, but when it does come off, boy, is it a beauty to behold!
Arnautovic is the kind of player that gets fans out of their seats, hopefully there will be plenty of that at London Stadium this season.

My favourite youngster now probably is Josh Cullen, not just because of his composed play but also because me and Ebi (a fellow German Hammer from near Bonn) bumped into Cullen and Reece Burke on Thursday afternoon in Rotenburg when the players had some time off and JC and RB were desperately looking for a pool table. We found out for them where they might find one nearby but I doubt they were successful as pubs and arcades in a small town like Rotenburg tend to open in the evenings only. So I will probably never know now if Cullen and Burke did get to play their game of pool in the end…but they were lovely to chat to and wonderful ambassadors for our club.

Pre-season games and friendlies in general don’t do a lot for me (I made an exception in West Ham’s case because it was close to home and because BSB and Russ were over), but you tend to come away from those games none the wiser really. The manager tends to mix and match lineups, players are busy trying not to get injured instead of getting stuck in (and rightfully so) and those friendlies therefore rarely deliver a proper indication as to how the actual season might turn out for your team.

It would have been great to see Andy Carroll play of course, although the tooth fairy will probably play more games for West Ham next season than AC, but I won’t go further into that topic as I don’t intend to burst a blood vessel. I think it’s time to finally cut our losses, pay the guy off, save a bit of money that way and prepare for life without him. There are enough strikers still available out there who may not be world beaters but who at least will be able to play week in week out and convert some goalscoring opportunities when you create those chances for them.

So we didn’t win the Gooseberry Cup, excuse me, Betway Cup! (I’m using gooseberry here because there was some lovely gooseberry cream cake available before the game in Lohne and because the gooseberry pretty much describes the kind of area where those preseason games had been arranged to take place. I thought it was an odd choice, but ultimately it turned out not too bad a decision after all).

In order to see a proper top level football stadium I took BSB and Russ to the famous Weserstadion in Bremen, but not before we had enjoyed a Mexican style dinner at El Mariachi in the vicinity of the stadium (to celebrate Chicharito’s arrival at West Ham, BSB and Russ had steak). It was one of the rare times when I actually ordered too much food for us (I had never been to that place before and we had no idea how big the servings would be). At some point even I was full up, so I took a doggybag with the leftovers home for the next day as I learned from my war and hunger scarred parents all those years ago never to allow good food going to waste.

It was dark already when we arrived at the stadium and we obviously couldn’t get into the ground, so we took a wander around and caught glimpses of the inside through gaps and fences. My guests were suitably impressed and judged it to be a stadium fit for a big club which Bremen are, not necessarily in terms of trophies and star players as Bremen’s glory years mainly are in the past rather than the present, but the support is top notch and the stadium (which holds almost 40.000) is nearly always sold out.
It is also to my knowledge the only stadium in the Bundesliga where fans can travel in by boat shuttle as the stadium is located right alongside the river Weser where the stadium derives its name from.

Tomorrow I shall be welcoming another fellow Hammer to town who is coming over for the Altona game, so we will have a little Guided Walk around town, with an emphasis on the locations where the Beatles used to perform, drink, sleep (or spend time in a prison cell overnight once) to be followed by the game itself on Tuesday evening.

In contrast to the games in Schneverdingen and Lohne there will be strict segregation in effect between sets of fans for the Altona game and as the ground is right smack in the middle of a busy inner city working-class/alternative/left-wing community there could indeed be some trouble, especially later, on and around the notorious Reeperbahn what with St.Pauli playing a friendly against Stoke of all teams at the very same time in pretty much the same borough.
St.Pauli and Altona are favourite areas for eating out and drinking and there will be four sets of fans doing just that tomorrow evening all likely to bump into each other somewhere along the way: Altona, St.Pauli, West Ham and Stoke.

That’s two Hamburg teams which hate each other’s guts and two English teams that are not exactly friends for life either.

I really hope it will be just the same jolly and relaxed atmosphere on the night than it was out in the country, I wouldn’t bet on it though. What I would bet on is West Ham beating Altona fairly comfortably. Altona deserve a good thrashing too. They are the barstewards after all who got promotion instead of my beloved Concordia.
So, make it double digits please West Ham: Hattrick each for Snodgrass, Arnautovic and Ginger Pele please plus an own goal from Altona. Mission accomplished!

COYI!!!

PS: I didn’t expect my column to go up on Sunday. So quick update on Concordia’s season opener which was won 3:1 this afternoon and was attended by 163 fans, 5% of which were travelling Palace fans, with one Man City and one Wolves supporter thrown in for good measure. Some of these guys have been going to Cordi games for 12 years now and I was glad to finally meet them. We all had a jolly good time, one of the guys is taking the plunge in a few weeks as well (Good luck with that Rob!) and I was impressed with their commitment to football. They must have watched three or four games of football at the lower league levels in Hamburg and Luebeck during this trip and all that because they do love their football so much. So next time you’re watching Match of the Day, look out for the Crystal Palace flag with the Concordia crest in the top left corner. Good lads! They invited me over for a Palace game actually (I know, wrong side of the river and all that), but maybe there is a weekend when it’ll be West Ham for me on Saturday and Palace on Sunday.

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