The Battle of Stamford Bridge is one of the more illustrious ones ever fought on English soil that’s gone down in history. It took place in 1066 between a Norwegian Viking leader called King Harald Hardrada (translating as The Hard One, no cheap laughs in the backbenches please!) and local boy, King Harold Godwinson. The latter guy’s brother, in a dramatic twist of fate, was fighting on the side of the enemy Viking which added some spice to the slaughter.
Brother against brother – I’m sure there’s a Hollywood script in there waiting to be written here…
So, Harald against Harold. You might also have called it “The Battle of the Aitches“. If this had been a Game of Thrones episode.
In this instance the local lad won, butchering loads of Norwegians with long beards in the process, and historians tell us that this victory represented the beginning of the end of the Viking Age although it definitely did not altogether mark the end of armed conflict in Britain, Scandinavia or continental Europe over the centuries to follow.
Of course, the mentioned battle took place oop north somewhere in Yorkshire not far from the city of York. Far from London. Whereas 953 years later West Ham will have only a reasonably short journey across town to Fulham to face Chelsea FC in a rather different kind of battle at a rather different Stamford Bridge on Monday Night.
I wouldn’t expect too many Norwegians present there this time and their lives are unlikely to be in any immediate danger. But similar to the 1066 encounter, we cannot be sure quite what to expect…or who is going to take victory from the battlefield. But it will get feisty for sure.
I have to say that I feel slightly uncomfortable posting my column for publication on a Sunday. This is a bit unusual both for you as readers and for me as a writer.
But Iain asked me to do this due to the unfortunate timing of the Chelsea game. Usually Dan would take over my Monday slot in such a case with his brilliant as ever match preview while my column simply would go up at a later date, match review and all, on Tuesday or Wednesday, whenever there was a gap to fill.
However, after recruiting some new/old authors to the blog at short notice, there probably won’t be any gaps available in the upcoming week (which is brilliant of course!), so I am trying to rustle up something here without having the benefit of an actual match performance to mull over.
So forgive me if this one comes across a bit impromptu and makeshift.
I will try my best. First of all, a big Thank You once again to Iron Liddy for delivering her wonderful little birthday tribute to me last week. It was such a nice gesture, so thoughtful, kind and generous that it made me shed a tear or two plus eat some humble pie (or rather humble cream puff) on Wednesday.
It was as unexpected as it was considerate and I really really appreciated it a lot, not just the end result but also the effort that must have gone into creating it in the first place.
Next I’d like to quickly welcome Daz the Hammer and Kigel Naan, sorry Nigel Kahn to our blog as contributors. Undoubtedly both will add a lot of character and flavour to the site with their articles and subsequent debate.
Every author on here brings a different angle, a different ingredient to the West Ham stew and it should taste all the more better for it. Good to have you (back) on board!
Right, over to Stamford Bridge again, the London one, where one young gentleman pictured above will tomorrow meet his former employer and instructor again, a club that (un)wisely decided when he was just 14 years old that he didn’t quite hack it and was unlikely to get far in football, not PL quality anyway and definitely not England material. Well, even a wonderful club like Chelsea can get things wrong on occasion. And boy, did they get it wrong this time!
Mind you, it’s hard to make the right judgment every single time when you have what feels like 146 youth and loan players at your club in any given season. There is always one likely to slip the net and thank God Declan did just that and swam downstream to East London quickly. The rest, as they say, is history although Rice’s history has only just begun. With him making his full England debut recently and putting in top performances for West Ham regularly as he has done this season, it’s easy to forget the lad is just 20 years old and has already achieved more at this stage than most players do in their entire careers. The amazing thought here is that he is likely to get even better as a player in the coming years.
When you look at the upcoming game, most people would confidently predict a home win. And why not ? Despite plenty of Chelsea fans moaning about their season and their current manager not being up to it, frankly, it’s really complaining on a high comfort level. They are a top 6 team, they have numerous top-class players, but other top 6 teams this season have been better, more consistent, more dominant – deal with it!
When I look at their home stats this season they have won 10, drew 5 and only lost once. Scoring 32 and conceding 10 in the process. That’s not a bad record.
But of course you could also make a case for various other layers to this game, separate story lines that may play their part here.
Surely the pressure to perform is mainly on the home side, should they fail to score early it could lead to a very edgy home crowd – advantage West Ham.
Then, of course, you have Declan Rice, desperate to rub it into Chelsea’s already sore conscience that they dropped an almighty clanger by letting him go.
If this was a film, Rice would have a MotM-level performance to help his side to a narrow and most welcome away win. Advantage West Ham.
And Chelsea are not Cardiff or Burnley. Our players seem to have a (subsconscious) tendency to play differently when facing lesser sides, resulting in less endeavour, work-rate, run-rate, concentration levels etc.
Better sides at least tend to lead to West Ham showing the right application which is not to say it always delivers the right result. But I am not scared of playing Chelsea.
It’s what I like to call a free shot game. When everybody expects you to lose, there is nothing to lose really. And after the Everton shambles our players should be out for making amends right away. It goes without saying that I would prefer us to show the same level of effort in every single game, but we are not quite there yet methinks.
When I sit down on Monday evening, I wanna see us compete. if we do that, anything is possible. If our players simply go through the motions, well, then it’ll be the Chelsea fans leaving the battlefield at Stamford Bridge victorious with the West Ham heads on their plates as trophies.
I shall go for a 2:2 prediction, a game with plenty of action, shocking defensive blunders on both sides and at least two incidents making fans crave for the premature introduction of VAR. COYI!!!
Hamburg update:
Well, my brother’s family have left for a short vacation in the relaxing atmosphere of Spiekeroog, one of the East Frisian Islands in the North Sea, with a population of 805 and no car traffic.
This is to celebrate that both his gastroscopy and his CT scan came back with negative results (for traces of cancer) which in turn of course is a very positive result.
Good for them!
Meanwhile, in German football, St.Pauli wasted a 1:0 lead and a man-advantage, losing 2:1 at Kiel. Promotion is slipping away from them now.
Hamburg SV, just like West Ham, play on Monday Night, at home against Magdeburg, a team from a town in East Germany, but one located alongside the same river that runs through Hamburg.
On Friday my Concordia lads won their home game 4:0 against Osdorf, a side filled with youth players (their regular starters had played in a more crucial cup tie just a few days earlier). The win was bloody nice to watch and vitally important as it almost guarantees that Concordia at least will not get relegated which is about the only real positive thing to take from this utterly disappointing season. Finishing in 12th or 13th place is not what Concordia are about, they always need to play at or at least near the top 5 places.
I was briefly chatting to one of the regular Cordi supporters and he nudged me and asked if I was actually able to still visit games in England after Brexit. He was talking in jest of course, but I was briefly taken aback by his blunt question. Shows you how important my few but regular visits to London have become to me that I cannot bear the thought of not going anymore.
Both the U23s and the Concordia Women’s team play later today.