Past Players Who Played for Your Favourite Team?

Terence Baker Fearlessly Finds Out.

No. 3—Bryan “Pop” Robson

I received a request from New York Flyer Brian Mayor asking for information about Bryan Stanley Robson, who played for West Ham in two stints, the first between 1971 and 1974, the second between 1976 and 1979, which means, despite him being one of our greatest goalscorers, he missed out on playing in our winning FA Cup teams of 1975 and 1980. Brought up in Sunderland, in Northeast England, where he played in those intermittent years, he scored 47 goals during both those West Ham periods, the first in 120 games, the second in 107. He also played for Newcastle, which is Sunderland’s bitterest rivals (fans do not like players who do this, where he helped win Newcastle’s last trophy, a major lack of form for such a huge club. This was the 1969 Fairs Cup, which no longer exists, against a Hungarian team called Ujpest Dozsa, which is just now seeing better days after three decades of slump during the last Communist days and the new days of stumbling democracy. Meanwhile, Brian’s team Grimsby, after valiantly holding on to professional-league status last year, are doomed to be paying in the non-league Conference division next season. Dark days for a number of us.

Why did Terry not post a VIWHUI newsletter last week?

I apologise for my absence, but after four months of landlocked-ness (a new word I just invented), I swanned off to the Caribbean (Sint-Maarten, Saint-Martin, St. Lucia, Barbados, Martinique, U.S. Virgin Islands and Bahamas), which was amazing, although it was on a cruise ship, a form of travel I do not totally understand. The average age aboard hovered around 70, although a decided lack of mobility did not stop the blue-rinse crowd getting to the Dessert Extravaganza on the Lido Desk with startling speed. I saw one woman there whose wig had slipped as she lowered her bottom lip in line with the table and scooped in ice cream and gateaux in the same action.

As for the islands themselves, I ditched the organized shore excursions and went forthright into the field on my own. St. Lucia is amazing, the local bus drive from capital Castries to the smaller town of Soufrière being amazing and potentially fatal, listening to a lour and animated discussion on the radio—Dennis Samuels’ The Agenda—concerning duty-free cars for minicab drivers (the issue of the moment! Perhaps they have not heard of West Ham’s predicament!!). I walked up the steep hill to the base of Petit Piton, which is so beautiful and floated on my back in the warm sea watching fluffy clouds waft over its peak, before a closed-hotel’s janitor, Peter, who I bought a beer, caught a moray eel that we cooked for lunch. Martinique is also exceptionally beautiful, although the ship crowd were moaning very audibly that they thought it despicable that the Fort-de-France locals had not opened the duty-free shops on Sunday. I did not have such concerns and went to St. Pierre and Mount Pelée, which erupted in 1902 and killed 40,000 St. Pierrians.

I ran every day on the treadmill, which more than doubled my experiences on these horrible things. In order to get through an hour, I i-Poded my way to sanity: Friday: Tindersticks; Saturday: Dexy’s Midnight Runners; Sunday: The Fall; Monday: The Human League; Tuesday: The Clash; Thursday: The Dandy Warhols.

English Premiership; Sat., March 13, 2010

Stamford Bridge, West London

Chelsea     4     West Ham Utd.     1

Another game, another loss, although it is no shame to lose to Chelsea on their pitch, especially as they have a very clear chance to win the Premiership title this year. Whenever West Ham play one of the Big Four—Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal or Liverpool—we seem to raise our game and play well under severe pressure for an hour, and this is what happened in this match. Ilan missed a sitter for the Hammers, from all of five yards, and that will not endear him to manager Gianfranco Zola, who gave starts to him and Mido (we have these two players who have no first name (well, they probably do for their mothers), just like Beyonce or Kylie, or someone like that) in place of Alesssandro Diamanti and Carlton Cole, who has a slightly sore knee. Anyway, Chelsea punished us a minute later. We did equalise from a fantastic, unstoppable shot from Scott Parker, who does not score often, but when he does they are often spectacular, this time a shot from 30 yards that the goalkeeper did not even move towards. Then, on 51 minutes, we were guilty of another horrendous lapse in our defense when Didier Drogba scored with the simplest of headers. After that, it was all downhill. Next up, Arsenal…more onslaught. Currently, West Ham is three points (that is, one win) away from danger and relegation.

Great West Ham Games of the Past—an occasional series, No.2

We Ask, Can Terry Remember That Far Back?

Arsenal     0     West Ham Utd.     1

Wembley (May 1980)

This is memorable as it is the last time we won a trophy, the 1980 F.A. Cup final, one of the biggest day’s in world sport. Since then it has been 30 years of nothingness, although currently high-flying Manchester City has not won anything for 34 years. Kindly, Manchester United, its cross-city rivals, reminds them of this every time they play against one another, with a huge sign stating just this that they drape across the stands. In this game, West Ham was in the old 2nd Division, while Arsenal was—as always, annoyingly—riding high in the 1st. To say that we were the underdogs would be to say that in a military skirmish, Burkina Faso probably would not do too well against the United States. The claret n’ blue was flying proudly in the cool breeze as West Ham attacked after 10 minutes and the ball skidded into the back of the net off the head of legend Trevor Brooking, who my Mum liked, as he has 9 “O” levels (indicative of a good education, something rare among football players, who, after all, are not paid to explain Fermat’s Last Theorem), and who she met once opening a branch of Lipton’s supermarket in Erith, the town in which I grew up. I think that might have been only one of two headers Brooking ever scored. I met him down Nevada Smith’s (3rd Ave. and 11th St.) when West Ham were promoted to the current Premiership four years ago, and he’s a great chap. Back to this game, it was also notable for a blatant foul of the then youngest player ever to play in an F.A. Cup final, Paul Allen, who was on his way to score with just the goalkeeper to beat, when Willie Young callously stuck his foot out and tripped the young lad up. Today, that would have been a straight red dismissal card, but then, no. It was also notable as Arsenal is my brother’s team (how? why?) and he didn’t talk to me for two months. Two glorious months in which I never for a minute let him forget the final score.

The Current Squad, No. 2

Who Plays for Your Favourite Team? Terence Baker Fearlessly Finds Out.

No. 2—Bondzanga N’Gala (shirt no. 44)

I just like name. One of the club’s legends was a Billy Bonds, who still holds the record for the most games played for the club, more than 700, and his nickname was Bonzo, so that’s gone. We’ll see of Bondz, as he is known, if he will be of that quality, and deserving of a nickname, but his league debut was in this weekend’s game against Chelsea, what is the equivalent of a Baptism by Fire. He is English, and he is another product of the club’s famed Academy, from which we regularly find, improve and round off some of the world’s greatest talent, only to sell them off during our occasional drops to the lower divisions or more-than-occasional financial crises. This young defender has recently had loan spells at Plymouth Argyle (one of the great names of football teams in the UK) and Scunthorpe Town.

Forever Blogging Hammers

Dear loyal Flyer-Hammers supporters,
We've kicked the ball high into the air of a new era of VIWHUI blog. "We're forever blogging Hammers" to paraphrase the West Ham United anthem, but this new epoch starts with bad news...
English Premiership; Saturday, March 6, 2010; Upton Park, East London

West Ham Utd. 1 Bolton Wanderers 2

After a not-unexpected loss away at league leaders Manchester Utd., the Hammers were expected to continue their home run of two wins in a row with another win against lowly Bolton, whose away form is awful...well, of course they'd turn that around against us, wouldn't they. In the first half we were simply awful, especially our defense, which could not do anything well. Normally solid James Tompkins tried to shield the ball over the touchline, only to see a Bolton player scoop it off him and to an unmarked attacker; the first goal showed the lack of marking that a better team like Manchester was able to simply manipulate, but so was rubbish like Bolton. Julian Faubert, who has shown great strides in performance in the last week, also looked paltry, and while we improved in the second half, our one goal came far too late (the 89th minute). We almost got a point when a shot from Junior Stanislas rocked the crossbar, but Bolton were worthy winners and leapfrog us in the standings. As out next two games are against Chelsea and Arsenal, we could soon be in trouble and look to the clubs below us—Wolves, Burnley, Hull, etc.—to remain even worse than we are. Our goal, from Alessandro Diamanti, was excellent, and if it had been the winner, we'd be talking about it from now until humans stopped talking, but it wasn't, so....

Great West Ham Games of the Past—an occasional series.

We Ask, Can Terry Remember That Far Back?


West Ham Utd. 5 Coventry City 0

Upton Park (April 2000)

I'll start off with this game, as I was there, West Ham have not scored five "unanswered" goals since and, according to one newspaper report, these unlikely words were linked with the club—"sensational, irresistible and unstoppable." I have to slap myself to think of a West Ham team that has had such honey-coated words connected with it, although two seasons later and the team, with pretty much the same players, was relegated. At least I can tell future generations that I was at Upton Park and saw the world's greatest player, Paolo di Canio, run an opposition to shreds and score two goals.

The team was curious in the sense that I have no memory whatsoever of the goalkeeper, Feuer. Apparently, he played for West Ham for two seasons (non consecutive ones) but only started on four occasions, this obviously being once of them, but as this game was so deliciously one-sided, it is not a surprise that he played little part and that I never had got wind of him, soon after which he disappeared quickly. Apparently, he was an American. Okay, still never heard of him, but I am sure he remembers this game just as well as I do. Our other three goals were scored by Michael Carrick (now at Manchester Utd.), Javier Margas (a Chilean who now has retired and was last in the news for having bought dictator Augusto Pinochet's armoured car) and Frédéric Kanoute (a France-born Malian who has enjoyed a high level of success since with Spanish team Sevilla). The rest of the team comprised Ian Feuer; Igor Stimac; Rio Ferdinand; Scott Minto; Trevor Sinclair; Frank Lampard, and Paolo Wanchope. Frank Lampard, who plays for Chelsea, probably has been the most successful and is currently always an obvious choice for the England national team. West Ham players call him Fat Frank, which really annoys Chelsea fans, as when he was at West Ham, he did need to lose a few pounds, but since he arrived on the other side of London, that's hardly been the case, and he has turned into an international star...still, "Who ate all the pies?; who ate all the pies?; Frankie did; Frankie did; Frankie ate all the pies."

This game also was notable in the sense that I got my tickets through the Flyers. Former Flyer Craig Allen, a Scot, had a colleague in his London office who had an apartment next door to the apartment former manager Harry Redknapp used when he was in London. This colleague knocked on the door, to which our Harry shuffled towards. "Yeah?" "Er, good evening, Mr. Redknapp, it's your neighbour. I wondered if you had any tickets for the Coventry game?" "Sure, cost yer a bottle of port." "Okay." So, all I needed to do was replace this bottle, and there I'd be, East London-style, shouting down from the terraces. Mr. Redknapp currently is in trouble with London's Finest over alleged tax fraud, but far from me to doubt his business methods.

The Current Squad

Who Plays for Your Favourite Team? Terence Baker Fearlessly Finds Out.

No. 1—Valon Behrami (shirt no. 21)

West Ham supporters traditionally love attacking midfielders, those dauntless players able to collect the ball at the halfway line, dance towards the opposition, skip around at least four of them and either lay off the perfect pass to a goalscorer or dispense with said goalscoring prowess altogether and just to do the job themselves. Notable examples of this type of player have included Paolo di Canio, Trevor Brooking, Ian Bishop and my favourite player of all time, Alan Devonshire, a man who used to catch the District Line underground to home matches he was playing in. So, it was just a shame that Valon Bahrami fitted none of these characteristics when we first saw him put on the famous claret n' blue. He is Albanian, albeit a Swiss national now, and he did come all over as rather shellshocked. It's understandable. He comes from a country that one was ruled by a King Zog, which means King Bird in Albanian. However, since his inauspicious beginnings, Behrami has stretched his wings phoenix-like to becoming a firm crowd favourite and evern scoring the opening goal against Hull City in a recent match. His work effort is magnificent, and as that often results in clever play, the crowd in recent weeks has got even more behind him. Fans of Italian club Lazio love him, too, for he once scored the winner against Rome rivals Roma, and there is little more important in the Eternal City than that game, and in this, he adds his name to that other West Ham and Lazio champion, Paolo di Canio, who loves West Ham but has Lazio light blue in his veins. I once was in a bar frequented by socialists and communists just behind the Termini rail station in Rome. It is called Treinta e Due, that is, 32, and it's in the San Lorenzo district, which is wonderfully shady, in every meaning of that word. I walked up to the bar, and the bar man asked me, on hearing my accent, what was my team. Not, what do you want to drink, but what was my team. "West Ham," I replied. A change came over him, he jumped over the bar, raised both hands, smiled and hugged me. "Paolo di Canio," he said (even though Di Canio has often being accused of supporting facism), "I'm Lazio! You pay for nothing. Your money is no good here." So that was a wonderful, perfect evening in Rome, the sun still warm and the faces happy, sipping beer for free, talking football and politics and hoping the fascist bar across the road did not fire-bomb us.