English Premiership; Sunday, May 9, 2010

Upton Park, East London

West Ham Utd. 1 Manchester City 1

This was the last game of the season, a tepid affair between two teams who had little to play for. Former West Ham goal scorer, Carlos Tévez, who now plays for City, was on record recently stating that he had no desire to score the goal that saw West Ham be relegated, but thankfully for him—and certainly for all us Hammers fans—the events of recent weeks made that a moot fear, but it still came as a surprise when the game started with Tévez sitting on the substitute’s bench. He did not play until something like the 65th minute and then did little. West Ham got to a great start when it went ahead in the 17th minute thanks to a clever heel-kick by Alessandro Diamanti that allowed Luis Boa Morte to chip over the ongoing goalkeeper. It was very exciting, well, at least for four minutes until our generally useless defense allowed the smallest player on the pitch to leap up and head into the far corner of the net. The next hour was largely pointless. Thank goodness the season is over. We survived by one spot, albeit having five points more than the 18th-placed team, that is, the last team to be relegated.

So, now all leads to the World Cup finals. Do you need to be told that this happens only once every four years and is the largest sporting event on earth? 32 teams qualify over two years out of something like 168. This is the time when we fans suddenly care about players we care not for over the last 48 months, when, for instance, suddenly Manchester Utd.’s Wayne Rooney must be moved around in bubble-wrap and have his every desire catered to immediately.

Tragedy Corner

New York Flyers’ own Brian Mayor is suffering today, so if you see him, gentle words only please. For his believed Grimsby Town ended, despite a valiant last push, second from bottom of the bottom-most league, League Two, and thus must spend at least one year in the Conference division, what some people call—mistakenly, probably, as these teams are relatively well financed—the nonprofessional league. They lost their last match 3-0 to Burton Albion, so it matter little what fellow strugglers Barnet (Cockney rhyming slang for “hair,” by the way, as in Barnet Fair (I assume once a huge day out but now no longer)) did. The Mariners have gone the way of Davy Jones’ Locker, a joke I am sure Brian is chuckling away at, but I think they have enough money to say at their stadium, Blunder Park, or should that read Blundell?