CELEBRATION BLOG

English Premiership; Saturday, April 24, 2010; Upton Park, East London

West Ham Utd. 3 Wigan Athletic 2

Hurrah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This was the win that effectively sealed our survival to enjoy a new season of fear, despondency, angst, injury and lack of clarity. Watching this game intently, while keeping one eye on a screen at the other end of the bar to see how Hull City was doing, Hull being our major rivals for the last survival spot in the table. Of course, West Ham did not make it easy for themselves (it wouldn’t be West Ham if they did), going down 0-1 after four minutes thanks to an own-goal from our defender Jonathan Spector. Spector receives a lot of unfair comments. He’s American, you see, but in his defence, he plays for a Premiership team (even if it is one as bad as us) and three West Ham managers in a row have had confidence in him over the last four seasons; in fact, he is one of the team’s longest-serving players…but anyway, he did his part throughout the rest of the game, when easily his head could have dropped (football cliché for a player who performs the rest of the fixture in a manner of merely going through the motions). A great move then occurred between Araujo Ilan to Carlton Cole, Cole weaving through several players and passing back to Ilan for the first goal; this was just after Cole had a great run and shot foiled on the line by an outstretched boot, which also resulted in the Hull goalkeeper continuing to play despite 15 minutes later needing nine stitches in his chin and cheek. Tough people these footballers. That injury resulted in five minutes of extra time at the end of the first half, and just as it was about to close, Mark Noble curled a brilliant free kick off the despairing hand and then off the crossbar, kindly dropping down for Radoslav Kovac to head into an unguarded net. The second half started the same way as the first, with Wigan scoring. Everyone was going crazy, as—and this happened for Wigan’s first goal, too—the corner-kicker (does everyone know what a corner is? It’s when the ball goes out of play across the line at the end of the pitch, not the side, and with the last contact on the ball being off a defender; thus, the attacking side gets to sail in a ball from the corner spot) not placing the ball in the corner quadrant. It was clearly out, or with perhaps with the merest contact with the chalked half-circle…the ball went in, of course, and we all started getting butterflies in our stomachs. The pain was a little offset by events on the other screen that showed Sunderland were winning 0-1 and Hull missed a penalty kick, the ball hitting the post from the boot of the normally clinical Jimmy Bullard. Then with 13 minutes to go, Guillermo Franco cushioned a header down to the feet of Scott Parker, who took two steps forward and literally cannoned the ball into the back of the net. The bar was shaking. For the next 13 minutes + 4 extra time, West Ham threw every limb in front of every ball, and when they got possession, they smashed the ball as far forward as they could. These minutes feel like hours, Our goalkeeper was immense as always, saving a colossal save in the first half that would have seen Wigan take a probably unassailable 0-2 lead and again in the second half from a free-kick attempt that he had to have seen at the last moment. When the final whistle went, relief was palpable, and then a minute later we saw that the Hull result had stayed the same.



What Happens Now? Terry Ruminates.

It has been clear that West Ham have not been good enough this season, but we have survived. Well, I say that, but there still is a chance that we will go down, but only if Hull win their next two games 6-0 and 6-0 and we lose 6-0 and 6-0, which ain’t going to happen, even to West Ham. We were saved by there being three teams even worse than us. Hull will now be in financial meltdown, its captain already starting to blame the team’s past administration, although most of his thoughts were probably on the fact that he is currently on a huge weekly wage but not good enough to play for any other Premiership team, except, perhaps, West Ham. And there are two games to go, so West Ham could technically finish 14th, which would not surprise me. We did that in 2006/07, our Great Escape, with Señor Carlos Tévez, narrowly avoiding the drop but ending up 15th. West Ham’s chairman talks a little too much, his latest Words to the Wise stating how in his opinion everyone in the team, except for Scott Parker, is up for sale but then following that up with the illogical statement that he wants to add to the team, not take away from it. At least they will put some money behind the team now…being relegated to the Championship (the division below, obviously) is massively disabilitating…they say that the team who gets promoted in the Play Offs, i.e., goes the other way, wins a game that is worth £50 million…in other words, Hull stand to lose that in television and rights money. Some teams just are not big enough ever to rebound, England not having the same system as you have here for American football, with drafts, etc., and the worst team technically having the ability to select the best new player.