West Ham Till I Die
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The HamburgHammer Column

Thrown to the wolves - it's football, but not as we know it!

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Welcome back my fellow sufferers of chronic WestHamitis!

Long time no write. It’s been a while since my column was available on here as your Monday morning breakfast read, the way it used to be before that barsteward of a virus took centre stage basically in every single country which has Hammers supporters living in it.

Not surprising then, unfortunately, that I developed a serious case of writer’s block in the process of dealing with the sample platter of crap we have all been served the past three months or so courtesy of the pandemic.

It didn’t help that on top of public life ALL football came to a grinding halt too, unless you were prepared to develop an outside-the-box passion for exotic foreign football and begin following the top league in Belarus all of a sudden as a last resort…which I really didn’t.

I’d rather feast my eyes on a decent amateur stare-out contest at a bus stop in Bavaria than watch competitive football from Belarus, but maybe that’s just my cynical self being a bit of a self-righteous snob.

Truth be told, being in lockdown hasn’t been easy at all, not for me, not for my readers I would assume, wherever you are. When the highlight of the week is the 500 yard trot to your nearest supermarket (which happens to be an Aldi in my case) once every seven days or so it is a clear sign that something in the world has been knocked upside down and inside out.

Which at this point is pretty much still the case of course for most of us.
I know it can be hard for families being crammed together in a flat for weeks on end, but as a bloke living on his own, let me tell you, it’s not easy being on your own almost 24/7 for a few months – thank God lockdown is slowly being lifted now in my neck of the woods – I’ve been out to have my barnet done, I’ve had cake with my brother on his 53rd birthday and I’ve been out swimming for the first time this year as well. All of which felt strangely luxurious, despite just being little things that used to be normal once.

The Wolves game has given me a great opportunity to ease myself back in with regard to writing again as the contest wasn’t really that exciting anyway, literally not much to write home about, so I can justify only writing a short(ish) match analysis for a change. Coupled with the fact that my beloved Concordia Hamburg still aren’t playing at the moment (and I have lost virtually all interest in Bundesliga 2) it means there’s not much point for my usual Hamburg football update either.

I tried to resurrect my matchday routine on Saturday as much as I could in order to create some make-believe version of normality, you know, screwdriver positioned on a stack of books in comfy chair range, wearing my claret vintage shirt with Bobby’s #6 on the back, West Ham mug in front of me with some nice steaming Rosie Lea in it, milk, one sugar – ready to go!
But somehow I just didn’t feel it. The game never gripped me and I wasn’t really in the mood that evening for repeatedly reaching out to cling to it either.

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Once the game started it was all weirdly wrong…or should that read wrongly weird ? Sure, it was nice to SEE Bubbles being blown into the Stratford sky by them pitch-side machines and it was nice to also HEAR Bubbles before and during the game, even if it was just the canned “Post-Corona-playing-behind-closed-doors-but-still-staying-up-Remix“ coming through my telly. But as soon as the ball was in play I was prepared to get excited. For a while at least.

Come on West Ham, show me why we have missed this game so much! Try to lift our spirits again if you can, if only for 90 minutes!

Initially I really tried to get in the zone. Which lasted for 15 minutes or so. West Ham by the looks of it very much stuck to the distancing advice provided by the medical experts, staying away from both ball and opposition players as much as possible. Flattening the curve in this respect was leaving my excitement levels as flat as a pancake. Or a blown out tire.

The game was lacking pace, endeavour, I would even say it was bereft of effort on the part of our players. Which seemed strange after such a long break. As the first game back I probably didn’t expect a fireworks display of sheer passing perfection on the pitch, but I also didn’t see this snorefest coming either. Wolves too did hardly break any sweat in 90 minutes, but still scored twice to settle the contest. We made it very easy for them.

Wolves are not the kind of side you’d expect to beat as a matter of course. Especially not a team like ours after a limp and lame performance at “home“.
Wolves are simply a better and more rounded outfit than us at this point.
Without at least matching their desire on the pitch we never really stood a chance. It was like a pack of wolves chasing a herd of dazed rabbits.

We will need to collect our points for survival elsewhere. Like in upcoming games against for example, ahem, Spurs, you know…YAY!!!

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No West Ham player covered himself in glory on Saturday really, although Rice looked much better than the rest (which isn’t saying much), other than that forgive me for briefly picking out Ngakia who didn’t exactly put on much of an advert for a club to break the bank to sign him up after that kind of display.

Granted, he’s very young, far from being the finished article and the Wolves attacking players running at him all game after probably identifying him as a weak spot early on were more than a handful, but Ngakia also wasted plenty of opportunities on the break to deliver any useful crosses from that right side. After this game I feel more relaxed about the answer to the question whether we will be able to keep him or not. I know some on here thought he had a decent game, I wasn’t convinced personally.

On the one hand it’s quite nice to have PL football back, on the other hand it is all so different now, so surreal even that my disappointment over losing 2:0 to Wolves had pretty much evaporated after just half an hour on Saturday evening. There, I’ve said it!

My priorities simply have shifted, especially to more personal matters.
(Feel free to throw the first stone now if you think that’s deserving of a good stoning!)

Today, as you’re reading this, I’m looking forward to driving my brother to another therapy session of his later this afternoon, something I haven’t done for three months now – for obvious reasons we didn’t meet during lockdown (the local rules issued by the authorities simply didn’t allow it) but his cancer treatment to my eternal gratitude has continued throughout without ever missing a heartbeat or appointment – and the first scan just recently showed that the treatment is working as well as the doctors could have wished for in their wildest, yet still realistic dreams.

He will still have to go under the knife one more time in a few weeks to get the remaining tiny shreds of tumour lasered into oblivion, but chances are he will eventually come out of it all healed. Cancer-free at last (or rather being in remission of oesophageal cancer to use the more accurate phrase).

After going through three years of hell, pain and being worried sick.

Fingers crossed and all that!

Of course I shall gladly take West Ham staying up as a very welcome bonus on top of that. But let’s not kid ourselves, we are still surrounded by massive trees on all sides, the relegation forest we’re in does have at least one exit somewhere, but we are definitely not out of the woods yet.

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The games will be coming thick and fast now, we will win some, we will lose some, but at the end of the season I am fairly certain we will stay up. Just. With maybe goal difference saving us. Not necessarily because we are such a great side, but because three other teams may end up having shown even less skill on the pitch and suffering even more rotten luck than us. The next few weeks won’t be pretty. It won’t be my idea of fun.

You certainly won’t want to buy the DVD with our season highlights after the last game has finished. But I am optimistic that West Ham will survive.
And then the rollercoaster will start again. This time in autumn probably.

To be fair, I wouldn’t mind a Ferris wheel style season at West Ham for a change, you know, moderate excitement, no big drama, no sudden turns or loopings, but just nice steady progress combined with an occasional nice view to enjoy.

Less upsetting for my sensitive tummy too…

Stay safe, everyone!
Forgive me, if I go over the top occasionally in my comments. The politics, the virus and all that other non-football stuff that occasionally can get people so riled up that they start swearing or dishing out insults on here (or even write an email to Iain to complain).

I’m sure all of that is going to mellow out once things begin to return to something resembling normality and everyday life. Whenever that may be…

COYI!!!

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