I thought it was just me. Then I discover a fella called Heedsy is standing on one leg in front of the telly while a bloke who answers to the name of Banjo is stretching his bladder to its outer limits and, over in Germany, Herr Hamburg Hammer is fondling his Teutonic toolkit.
Before you dismiss us all as a bunch of fruitcakes, remember – we are doing this for West Ham. Without Heedsy’s balancing act we would undoubtedly be staring relegation in the face. If Banjo answered the call of nature before the final whistle we’d concede in the last minute of every game. Hamburg’s contribution, while unusual, is undoubtedly vital too (and if the next time he’s over he could put up a couple of shelves for me I’d be eternally grateful).
Superstition is a dark and powerful force. Trifle with it at your peril.
The brilliant Charles Schulz tried to make light of the whole business in a Peanuts cartoon strip many years ago. Charlie Brown is depicted sitting on his bedroom floor explaining to his little sister that, on the day of a baseball game, he always puts on his left shoe before the right one, otherwise they would most certainly lose. ‘Have you ever won?’ she asks him. The final frame shows Charlie, long after the game has started, sitting in precisely the same position looking hopelessly at both of his shoes, unable to decide which one to put on first.
It is true my lucky claret socks don’t always work either, but I do know without them the club I love with all my heart would never win another game.
I’ve flirted with various items of clothing over the years in an attempt to pair off West Ham United with Lady Luck. Lucky scarves; lucky shirts; lucky jeans; even lucky U-Ps: I’ve tried them all with varying degrees of success.
The most spectacularly unsuccessful of those has to be the white BAC away shirt which I bought specially for the FA Cup semi-final at Villa Park in 1991. What a day that promised to be. A bright and sunny morning when we left home – scarves flying proudly out of the car window, sausage sandwiches on the motorway, Peter Frampton on the tape-deck, Forest ready for the taking and the mighty Billy Bonds one step away from leading us out at Wembley. What could spoil that?
Keith Hackett could spoil that; and did by sending off Tony Gale for a totally innocuous challenge after just 22 minutes. Despite the finest display of support by any set of fans before or since we went down 4-0 and I never wore that shirt again. I never forgave Mr Hackett, either.
My main pre-match ritual these days is to buy a Mad Dog from the fantastic brick-built burger stall in Priory Road, but that’s generally down to hunger rather than superstition. Before the Hull game, however, I fancied a change and persuaded my son Geoff to join me in a visit to the Rib Man, who operates out of the Boleyn’s Green Street gates. Very tasty it was too. Messy, but definitely tasty. The trouble, as Geoff pointed out at the time, was that if we were then to go on and win convincingly we’d have to eat there for the rest of the season. Having demolished the toothless Tigers three-zip we’re now having to give this particular dilemma some serious thought.
However, I think the superstition bit really takes over when you can’t get to a game. When you’re there you can make a difference – or think you can. A quick burst of Bubbles or an ear-splitting “Come On Yooooou Irons” might be all that’s needed to turn defeat into victory. Watching on TV is a beast of a very different stripe.
I won’t eat, or drink, when watching West Ham on the box. Curiously, Geoff has the same superstition. You, too, might like to try the non-drinking part Banjo – I find it preferable to the Tena Level Four option. Incidentally, if there is a group of you watching a game together and one of your number is a part-timer who feels it is perfectly okay to nip off to the toilet while the match is in progress, wait until he (or she) is in there and then start cheering furiously as if a goal has just been scored. Trust me, this one never fails to please!
To see if the players are as superstitious as supporters I contacted a number of the first team squad via Twitter and asked them if they have any pre-match rituals they feel they must observe. It turns out they do and – coincidently – it’s precisely the same ritual. Those young gentlemen who represent our hopes and dreams every week clearly believe it would bring down untold misfortune on all their heads if a single one of them were to take a few seconds out of his idle day to reply to a perfectly reasonable question from someone who contributes a significant amount towards their greatly inflated salaries. So, to a man, they ritually ignored me.
Sorry, where was I?
Ah yes. Superstition.
It does work you know. And I can prove my case.
Step back in time with me to April 2007. West Ham, looking certainties for relegation, are at the Emirates. The Williams clan is in the Lake District visiting family.
It is Saturday afternoon, but rather than listen to the Hammers getting stuffed on the radio we have gone for a long walk through the Cumbrian hills. That’s where we came across an old Roman fortress, built at a time when marauding Scotsmen felt fully entitled to paint their faces blue and come south with the sole intention of annoying more civilised folk (did I hear someone say nothing’s changed? Shame on you).
A couple of the look-out posts were still intact, so Geoff and I climbed one for no other reason than when a male sees a tower in the middle of nowhere he generally has to scale it. While up there Geoff noticed it was half time. Nervously he asked if we should check the score. We feared the worst, but decided to look anyway.
Astonishingly, the magic of the worldwide web allowed us to tap into the news from north London. And, even more astonishingly, it turned out we were winning! The solitary goal of the first half had been scored by Bobby Zamora. We didn’t find out until later that it was a fluke. Neither did we have any idea that, in our goal, Rob Green was playing a blinder. What we did know was that, having discovered we were winning while up the tower, we couldn’t possibly come down until the game had finished.
Furthermore, those family members on the ground had to stay there if the spell was not to be broken. Luckily, both my wife and her sister had inherited enough of their father’s DNA to understand that this wasn’t just an old wive’s tale we were dealing with; this was the universal law of the cosmos – and that is not to be messed with when West Ham is involved. So they continued the walk with my brother-in-law and daughter, while we sat it out on the tower.
As any football supporter will know, we couldn’t look at the score again – that would have surely invited disaster. So we waited until several minutes after we were certain the final whistle had sounded, took our courage in our hands and checked the score. To the Cockney Boys 1–0! We had become the first away team to win at the Emirates (having been the last away side to win at Highbury the library). It was our third victory on the bounce and we did, of course, eventually avoid relegation by the skin of our teeth. It truly was the Great Escape. But it never would have happened if we’d abandoned Zamora’s Tower, as it will be for ever known in our house.
Carlos Tevez, who played his own small part in keeping us in the top flight that year, famously returned to Upton Park in the colours of Manchester United and gave us the crossed irons salute. I wonder, on reflection, if it would have been more fitting if he had greeted the massed ranks of West Ham supporters with crossed fingers?
IAIN WRITES: Brian’s book NEARLY REACH THE SKY – A FAREWELL TO UPTON PARK will be published in February, and he will be doing a signing at the Newham Bookshop prior to the Crystal Palace match. To find out more about the book like the Facebook Page You can preorder it HERE