Same old England (Scrap that)!!

I haven't been on here in a while not since I was re-living my footballing youth. Quite a bit has happened since I last put finger to button in anger.  Or has it? England are still as useless as they were back in July when I blogged about their performances in the European World Cup. I didn't see last night's game and understand that they may not have had the "rub of the green" when it came to officiating decisions and fortune, however Ukraine (no 'The') are not very good. Everyone got excited because we beat Moldova on Friday; can I just say Moldova and The Maldives are not the same thing, I was asked whether this was the case by 'a friend' recently... Back to England, so we beat The Maldives 5-0 and I already start hearing all sorts of rubbish about our 'New Generation' of players; who by the way are taking over from the 'Golden Generation', the Golden Generation that have won no trophies. I mean. Come on! I've got trophies on my PS3 for playing FIFA online and some Call of Duty ones, and I'd hardly describe myself as part of the 'Golden Generation' of online gamers! We beat The Maldives (this is going to a bit like the European World Cup joke) and all of a sudden our 'New Generation' are off to challenge for the World World Cup. Low and behold we were brought back down to earth with a bump, now that's not to say that come June 2014 the likes of Ian Wright and Alan Shearer won't be tipping England as dark horses. When will they learn?

Wales have been absolutely hammered, despite climbing the FIFA rankings under the late Gary Speed due to some 'encouraging' performances we discovered that they also haven't changed much.

So I started off writing the above last week then decided it wasn't up to my exceptionally high standard of funny (still kept it for you all to read though, it's not that bad). Instead I've decided to look at domestic football, what with it returning on the weekend. Good start for West Ham so far, although I'd have liked more at Norwich especially in terms of a more convincing performance, I don't care what anyone says, Norwich haven't been good since they had Brian Gunn, Dale Gordon and Jeremy Goss! My attention on this post is focused again on my experiences in the 8 years I've had my season ticket at West Ham. And I'm gonna do a 10 things.

There are a number of characters I've had the pleasure (and sometimes displeasure) of meeting while at West Ham; there have been times when I wished some of my friends and family who don't support West Ham have been there to witness some of the weird and wonderful characters that you find at the Boleyn Ground on a Saturday afternoon (and on a Tuesday, Wednesday or any other time of the week that the stupid footballing authorities decide to schedule games). Here's 10 types of fan that have caught my eye.

The Moaner
If I had to put myself into one of these categories it'd definitely be The Moaner. I'm a pretty pessimistic fan, the manager hasn't got a clue, the tactics are wrong, Cole shouldn't have started, on paper this lot are better... bla bla bla and then every so often we score, or even win and I and all the other Moaners have to do one of two things; Shut the hell up or do a complete u-turn and contradict what we've just been saying for the past 2 hours. "Yeah, we were always gonna win this one. Wait til next week though, Man U won't give us a chance like this lot did..."

The Family
Literally the whole family has come to Upton Park, the mother always has a shirt on (with a name on the back) and there's a couple of kids at least. How the hell can they afford it, especially if they go on a regular basis. There was a notable family in front of me at West Ham, notable for two reasons. The first being I once saw them get into an actual fist fight with a couple of blokes (one of them the wrong side of 65) over how useless Luis Boa Morte was; and secondly because I 'Watched one of their daughters grow into a young lady...' Yep! She was nice. Not sure what happened to them though, they haven't been around since the start of last season.

The Home and Awayers
These guys go to EVERY game! And I mean EVERY (it's bold and capitalised) game, they'll tell you about how dire it was up at Middlesbrough last Tuesday night, the youngster in the academy that got a hat-trick against Arsenal (that might not have happened, but if it did they'd be there) and the injured player coming back in the reserves. C'mon guys, I love football and I invest a lot of time in watching my team, but you need to get a life. How do you even get the time off work to go to Middlesbrough on a Tuesday evening (on top of your normal holidays)?

The Pro
"Useless! He has more time than that, he should have opened up his body and placed it in the far corner... Even I could have dealt with that... I've come up against fast playing for my team..." If you're such a great footballer why did you never make it? You go on about them not being fit to wear the shirt but I doubt you could even fit in a shirt, there's not many playing at a decent level who wear any sizes above a 'L'. I suppose you had 'trials' at one of the London clubs when you were a teen... Shut it!

The Nutjob
The Nutjob is my favourite fan (after the girl turned woman in the family of course), we have a Nutjob that sits in the row behind us who we call 'Tourettes'. We call him that because sometimes it doesn't seem to be any particular incident that has set him off on a foul mouthed rant. I've heard him call Lucas Neil a 'Millwall sh*t c**t!' Steve Bennett (the referee) a 'Sex Case' and there was one incoherent rant about Uriah Renne living in a 'cottage in the country' once?!? The thing is, for midweek games he turns up all suited as he's just come straight from work. I have images of him being a mild mannered office worker, maybe even someone's boss. Little do they know that come 3pm on a Saturday he turns into a snarling animal. A part of me actually looks forward to teams pulling one back when we're 3 or 4 up (pfft, like we're ever 3 or 4 up) just for his reaction.

The Show Off
There's a lot of money on show at West Ham, guys decked out in the latest designer gear, covered in jewellery, parking their Range Rovers with personalised 'WHU1' licence plates. I'm genuinely not impressed in the slightest. Stop showing off, I don't care if you've got 6 season tickets (and only ever really use 2 of them) or that the clothes that you have one cost you more than my season ticket cost me, I just wanna watch some football!

The Friend of the Stars
"I was out with Mark Noble the other day... ...my mate's brother's, girlfriend's dad cuts Ricardo Vaz Te's mowhawk..." see my thoughts on the Show Off, I couldn't care less! You're sitting in the stands like me trying to watch a game of football and and hoping we'll beat West Brom today. If you're really mates with Jack Collison, why doesn't he put you up in one of the boxes then eh?

The Group of Lads
There's normally a lot of designer gear among the Lads and they've got a mate who sits in a different part of the ground that they have to chant at when they catch a glimpse of him. These guys will normally have had a few before the game and will probably head to a nearby 'boozer' for a few more after. David can you please give your boozed up mates 'a wave' so that they can shut up and I can concentrate on moaning about how dour the 1st half was.

The Scumbag Away Fan
Sometimes I look at the away fans and genuinely think to myself, "If I ever find myself in a social situation with that lot, I've seriously messed up in life!" Not all away fans are Scumbags, most of the time it's just a very small minority (except for when you're playing Stoke or Millwall). If you're not sure who the Scumbag Away Fans are just spend 30 seconds looking over at the away fans, that will give one of them enough time to make eye contact, point you out and do the w*nker hand sign at you. If they're really scummy they might even make a slit throat gesture. Nice!

The Smug Away Fan
You only really witness these fans when you play a 'Top Four' team. Maybe it's just my jealousy that their team has come to our ground and is currently running rings around mine, much to their amusement. These guys rub me up the wrong way big time, they do things like twirling their scarves in unison when they go 1-0 up (Arsenal & Palermo) or sing clever songs about their star player who's just skinned our back line (Liverpool, Man U and Chelsea). Argh! I can't take it!

That's me done, I'll hopefully post soon. Hope you've enjoyed this, I'm sure these characters appear at football grounds up and down the country ever weekend.