West Ham Till I Die
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The HamburgHammer Column

A graveyard for defenders and a Danish funeral

This column will be a bit different and rather than writing in chronological order I will mix things up a bit to make it easier for those of you who only care about the West Ham related business (and not much else) and who will appreciate the opportunity to skip all the more personal stuff. So here it goes, West Ham first.

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It is rare for me to miss both the West Ham game (watching live on a stream or even in person) AND the Concordia first team game over the same weekend.

Only a very special reason will suffice to keep me away from my two clubs and indeed it was a sad cause that made this a very different, strange and highly emotional weekend for me. I had to, no, I felt the desire and responsibility to attend the church service for my recently deceased Danish godmother Else who passed away last week at the proud old age of 94 years.

I returned home late Saturday evening (more of the personal stuff later) just in time to catch a rerun of our game, albeit only the second half. I suppose most of the game has been discussed at length on the previous threads, but I was shocked to see the naivety of our defending (the lack of which, to be fair, already started further upfield with some lackluster tracking back).

I don’t care which PL team you are playing – if ONE opposition player is running towards your goal, ball at feet, with FIVE of your own players around him, you simply are not allowed as a professional football team to concede a goal from that situation. Period. Ballwatching doesn’t get you clean sheets!

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Just boot the ball into touch unceremoniously towards Hackney Marshes. Kick the opposition player’s ankle if need be, give away a freekick by way of committing a tactical foul, crowd out the player, block his path, whatever.
But don’t just watch said opposition player and let him run half the length of the pitch to nutmeg your keeper.

I know our club is a project (again). MP is the new gaffer, we have a lot of new players, team needs to gel and so forth…but we are talking about footballing basics here.

We have conceded more goals in the past two seasons than any other team in the league and our goal difference in that period has been utterly pathetic.
So far we still have to find a manager to sort out the mess at our back and I am confident MP can be that guy. I am also certain that once our offensive play improves the pressure on our defenders will ease up a bit, but we need to address our defensive frailty sharpish.

Two defeats from two games is a season start from hell and with the upcoming games not getting any easier we could soon find ourselves in back to the walls territory again, facing another uphill struggle straight away.

I don’t know an easy answer here, but then again MP and his coaching staff are paid very handsomely to find the right answers…and find them quickly.

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I will remain patient and yes, even confident for the time being. But we need a win of some kind soon if we don’t want the season being virtually over before it’s even properly begun.

A lot of work ahead for our boys and MP at Rush Green in the coming days, that’s for sure!

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The death of my Danish godmother didn’t come as a surprise. She was 94 years old and her health had been deteriorating for a few years already, sight and hearing fading, advancing stages of dementia, well, what do you expect at that age ? My Danish godmother Else had been around forever in my life.
She and her husband met my parents when they were visiting Denmark on holiday on their motorbike many years before I was even born.
My folks were still a young couple madly in love and they had married only a few years earlier.

In addition my parents had also fallen in love with our neighbouring country of Denmark and the wonderful people who lived there which meant that instead of spending our holidays in Italy or Spain like the other kids I went to Denmark every summer (and our Danish friends returned the visits and came to Hamburg regular like clockwork), we didn’t care much about politics and the European Union, my family in a very direct and personal way put the spirit of understanding among nations into practice time and time again.

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Those summers in Denmark were a massive part of my life, my youth, my childhood. My first visit to our home from home in that part of Denmark (Naesby Strand near Slagelse on the southwesterly coastline of Sjaelland) took place when I was just three months old.

A bit further down the road I took my first proper steps on the same Danish soil, trying to wobble my way to the nearby beach straight away (a small step for mankind, but a bloody tough ask for a toddler with short legs, small feet and a non-existent sense of direction).
My brother and I even were given Danish first names thanks to the Viking bug my parents had caught.

Summer in Denmark, that was bottles of ridiculously coloured lemonade (bright yellow, green or red), that one particular layer cream cake with apricot jam that only my godmother could do the right way, the famous Danish hotdogs containing them sausages with the bright red casing, Danish home cooking in general with the food tasting even better because you had just returned from swimming and fooling around in the Baltic Sea, breathing the salty sea air for hours, looking forward to another jolly round at the table with our adopted Scandinavian family because that’s the thing.

Our Danish and German families grew up and grew older together, with children and grandchildren arriving and joining our circle of friends and this band of friendship is one we continue to cherish and will continue to maintain.

One day when I kick the bucket I have no idea how many people will be present at my funeral, but I know for sure there will be at least one or two visitors from Denmark…

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So there was no question that my brother and I would pay our respects to the old Danish lady, even though we unfortunately couldn’t stay long as my sister in law couldn’t get more time off at short notice.

So we left Hamburg on Friday afternoon, driving for about four hours which meant I couldn’t watch the Concordia game (a wild 2:3 home defeat, remarkable for two Concordia players getting red-carded, plus the Cordi manager being ordered to go to the stands (for complaining to the ref) and Concordia also had to make all three substitutions in the first half due to injuries, inflicted by clashes of heads, with two players having to go straight to hospital in order to get their gaping cuts stitched).

We arrived at our Danish home from home early in the evening.
It’s remarkable how sights, sounds, smells and food can bring back your entire childhood within seconds. There it was again, the salty air.
The same old walk to the beach, some houses had been freshly painted and done up, but the walk still was the same.

That layer cake (done incredibly well by my godmother’s daughter in law) was Denmark on a plate, just as it always was and always will be.
Then there was the lovely and oh so familiar sound of the Danish language I had been hearing all me life.
The beach with the small fishing boats in various states of decay, in glorious view of the impressive Storebaelt bridge, the one we had been on half an hour earlier – it was all there just as in previous years, only my dear beloved godmother wasn’t there anymore to greet us.

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I cried buckets at the church service the next day because indeed an important part of my life was no more. I doubt my godmother in her advanced stage of dementia would have even recognized my face if we had met a few weeks before her death due to a fall in her shower cabin in a home for the elderly, but that’s not even the point.

It is just that my godmother always used to be the focal point of our time in Denmark, her meeting my parents all those years ago (more than 50 years ago actually), inviting them round for coffee in her garden, created this very special bond and if anything this bond has only become stronger with every new generation arriving, carrying on the torch, my nephew playing with my godmother’s great-grandson just a few months ago despite not sharing the same language.

You may think “Why does the Kraut keep on blabbering about this old Danish bat?”, but it was really one hell of an emotional weekend for me and it firmly put the West Ham game at the back of my mind which doesn’t happen that often as you can imagine. We were on our way back to Hamburg already when the game started.

Seeing us lose the first home game of the new season wasn’t nice of course, but the hours I had spent earlier put all of that very much into perspective.

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At least on Sunday I had reason to produce something resembling a smile again as Concordia U23s won their away game 3:1, despite playing about 55 minutes with only ten men. The game on the pitch was less entertaining though than the witty banter among the small but dedicated group of loyal Cordi fans present and it felt really good not having to watch the game on my own. I was wearing my #6 Bobby Moore West Ham shirt, in memory of my Danish godmother Else, God rest her soul!

She was not only my surrogate grandmother (as all my real grandparents were already gone when I was born), she was my personal Bobby Moore if you’re getting my drift. It was incredibly sad having to say a final “farvel” to her just now, but I am glad our small travelling contingent from Hamburg could be there in person to lay our wreath, cry our tears and pay our respects.

Tak for det hele Auntie Else! (Thanks for everything.)
RIP.

COYI!!!

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