Ready to go...

I came up with the name because it reminds me of that naff 90s song, "Yeah I'm standing on the rooftop shouting out ...!"

Am I actually ready to go? It's been 4 weeks since the World Cup finished. I'm kinda still grieving, and I'm enjoying the test cricket (even if the Indian batsmen aren't).

Pretty certain neither of them had heard of Alan Pardew until 5 minutes before this picture 

I suppose I am a little excited. I watched a bit of Sheffield United v Swansea the other day, that's surely an indication of New Season Excitement. West Ham have signed some players, it looks like we're actually attempting to strengthen our squad and the Porn Barons are putting their hands in their pockets. All good right...? Hmmmm For me the jury is still out, I've been burnt too many times to let myself believe that West Ham are actually turning themselves into a decent outfit. I mean we're probably the only team in the World who could pull off a deadline day coup of signing a young Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano, only to end up fighting a relegation battle, almost getting a points deduction and scraping safety on the last day of the season.

As for the rest of the football, Arsenal look interesting because I have no idea whether they're still going to be a joke or whether Emery is actually going to give them a some backbone. Liverpool might be decent, which doesn't scare me as much as it should; a sign of how little a threat they've posed to trophy engravers over the last few years. City will probably just run away with it again.

In the real leagues, which don't start until next week, Cristiano Ronaldo is at Juve! This is exciting, but also scary. The rest of the league is already scared of Juve and has massive inferiority complex. I suppose we can just call this 8 in a row already...

I say all the real leagues (aka the ones I'm interested in) start next week  but France actually kick off this weekend too. How will Buffon get on on Sunday evening? I think they're playing Caen, so he'll probably have time to spark up a cigarette, grab coffee & panatone and read a copy of Gazetta della Sport, James Richardson style, and still keep a clean sheet.

So we're back to me trying to sneak football matches in as we're getting the kids read for bed, and cooking with the tablet next to me. Following games on LiveScore because we've got some sort of Sunday lunch arranged which means I miss the Derby d'Italia. Football is back, AND IT'S LIVE (God I f*cking hate it when Martin Tyler does that, mate the Premier League isn't that amazing)!

The State of Football: August 2017 - ANNOUNCE!

The new season is back!

It feels like only a few weeks ago that we were laughing at Arsenal Fan TV and making jokes about Sp*rs "Putting on the pressure".

A part of me is happy to see the football back. Anyone who has read my previous posts will know that I'm not a massive advocate of the Best League in the World (or "Most Competitive" when England flop at a tournament or ANOTHER "inferior" French team knocks one of ours out of Europe). This time last year I wrote about how unenthused I was at the prospect to watching more Burnley v West Brom, with Martin Tyler telling me how great it was.

All this being said, even I get a little excited every August and find myself watching Premier League games in the first few weeks of the season that I wouldn't even check for score updates come February!

A part of me is just happy that the nonsense of the summer break is almost behind us. What has happened to the game? I don't even care about Neymar going to PSG for almost £200m. Don't get me wrong that's a bit silly but the fee was more about the release clause in his contract than the craziness of football.

In fact, as much as I think paying £20m+ for the average Premier League footballer is a bit ridiculous, that doesn't actually concern me much. I have bigger gripes with the modern game and the absurdities we are subjected to in the summer. It all starts with the kit leaks in late April/early May. Last I checked nobody won the league because of their shiny new purple Underarmour 3rd kit! I really couldn't give a toss about dimly lit pictures of tops that 90% of the time turn out to be either fake or just a kids training top.

And then there's the actual kit launch! OK you've got a new kit. Like I said before, it has little or no bearing on your success on the pitch (obviously there's the theory Re teams that wear red), so I have very little interest in elaborate marketing campaigns or abstract "Reveal" videos being posted on Instagram!

Really?

As if it couldn't get any worse, we then have the player unveiling and the manufactured drama that is Transfer Deadline Day. I'll get on to the videos, but I just need to air something first. If you are an organisation who turns over millions of pounds a year and you have a fixed window of 2 months (1 in the winter) where you can make appointments that will potentially grow the business exponentially, why would you leave it all down to the last 24 hours of that window and have some idiot in a yellow tie running around after you slowing the whole process down? Surely if the asset you were acquiring was so valuable to you (99% of the time costing you millions of pounds) you'd give yourself as much time as possible to get the deal done? This isn't qualifying in F1 where you let the track get hot and got out and do a flying lap as late as possible (I don't think that happens anymore due to the rule changes, but I don't follow F1 since it got silly and started having night races and Grand Prix with double points, I mean what next? A red shell?  A la Mario Kart?)!*

Then when the team does sign the player, we're then treated to ANOTHER elaborately abstract unveiling video via the club's official Twitter account. And until this happens you have 15 year old boys up and down the country angrily tweeting "ANNOUNCE [SUPERSTAR PLAYER X]!" at the club?!?
As if Roman Abramovic is going to get a call from his Director of Football or whoever it is that arranges transfers saying, "Sir! Calum in West Hampstead has tweeted us again! He really wants Benzema!"
Abramovic: "Get me on the phone to Florentino Perez! I'm not losing another follower...!!"
What happened to the days of literally not knowing anything until Andrea Silenzi turns up on the back pages of the newspaper, in a home shirt (with shoes and trousers on), holding a stretched out scarf above his head in front of an empty main stand?

It was for all of the above reasons that I was glad to take in my first full game last Sunday in the form of Marseille against Dijon, and then watched the majority of Arsenal v Leicester last night.

I'm sure I've said it before here, and will probably do so again, but... Football! What have they done to you?

On the subject of launch videos, this is the best you'll ever see. I was in the Co-op yesterday and they (aptly on the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Premier League) were playing Alive And Kicking. 

*Many deals are arranged outside of the window to be concluded as soon as it opens, so there really is no excuse for leaving it until that bloody day that Sky have invented!

"I've kept really quiet...!"

A wise man once uttered those words. Actually I'm not sure I'd describe him as wise. Despairing. Deflated. Exasperated. On the brink. At the end of his tether. But not necessarily wise.

If you have no idea what I'm on about. Then shame on you! I am of course referring to Kevin Keegan's famous outburst at the end of the 1995/96 season after his Newcastle side had surrendered a seemingly unassailable 12 point lead to the "mind gaming" Alex Ferguson and his Manchester United side.

It's one of the all time great moments in the Premier league's long and illustrious history. And it deserves a watch every now and then. In Keegan that day, not only do see a man who has clearly lost it and is probably going to have a cry in the car on the way home. But you see the exasperation of many a football fan. Fans who have had their dreams built up, only to see their own "12 point leads" snatched away.

In my case it wasn't Stan Colleymore and Liverpool who facilitated in the dream snatching (I think that would have somehow made it feel a little better) it was the likes of Astra Girigou, Watford and West Brom. Dimitri Payet and the hapless Darren Randolph.

Any regular readers of this blog (not sure if are many, if any, of you left after my 9 month hiatus) will remember my first post of the new season, written on the eve of the start of the Premier League. In which I stated in no uncertain terms that I was far from enthused by the prospect of what was about to come. Unfortunately I have a knack for getting these things right, and the one thing I was looking forward to this season ended up being a bit of a disappointment.

That thing was West Ham's move to the London Stadium. Which I now can't even bring myself to mockingly refer to as the, "Estadio Olimipico". A move that Karen Brady has subsequently referred to as, "The most successful stadium migration ever". For me this began with 6 months of "kettling" outside of a large shopping center and being threatened with eternal expulsion from West Ham games, for daring to stand up and create some atmosphere during some of the most tepid performances known to man. All was not how Brady and the Davids had painted it would be; and at one point I actually had a serious think regarding whether I wanted to continue with my season ticket, which I've held for 13 years now.

In the interests of providing a fair perspective on the move to the new ground. Things have been much better in the last few months. And all the talk of being miles away from the pitch in generally either sensationalism or jealousy (although I'm not sure why people are so jealous of us). But this whole episode will still have left many fans wondering whether we've made an awful mistake.

On the pitch large parts of this season were also an absolute horror show. Now,  I've had any optimism beaten out of me through years of disappointment, so don't get me wrong I did not expect us to have as good a season as we did last year. For a start there was no way we could get 4 points off of the likes of Chelsea, United, Arsenal and City again. Or 6 from Liverpool. Not all in the same season. But what I hadn't expected was things like losing at home to Watford after racing to a 2-0 lead. Or to getting thumped away at West Brom.

I also hadn't expected Dimitri Payet to be so poor and his stay at the club to end in such a manner. Now don't get me wrong. I knew he was trouble. I can't remember whether I'd mentioned or even alluded to this last season, but when Payet signed for us it wasn't the first I'd seen or heard of him. There was a clear reason why a player of his capability, signed for a club of our stature. Whether that was because he often went missing when the going got tough, something I'd pointed to last year.  Or that he had a bit of an attitude problem. He was never going to win the Ballon D'or. But I expected more! More than two great individual goals against Accrington and Middlesbrough followed by a Pierre Van Hooijdonk-esque strike. Shame on you Dimitri!

Then there was Slav. Now I'm "Slav In". Can you believe we live in an age where you have to be "in" or "out" with your manager. It's all gotten a bit much if you ask me, but that's for another blog post. Slav has definitely done some bad things in my eyes, dropping a keeper that was one of the best in the teams outside of the top 4-6 (and better than Liverpool's keepers) because of a couple of errors. Madness! This stuff always resonates with me because it's the position I always played, but everyone in the side makes mistakes. The keeper's are just the ones that get more attention. Plus there was absolutely no way Adrian was to blame for our miserable start to the season. Then there was Gokan Tore, what the hell was/is Gokan Tore?!? He was "your boy" Slav! Not good enough. Nordveit. Nordveit? Another one that I can't fathom. Was he a Slav signing? Who knows? All I'll say is, don't bring him on unless you have an unassailable lead! Don't bring him on to close out the Tottenham game...!

On the subject of Adrian there was of course his replacement Darren Randolph. Darren Randolph cost West Ham so many points this season. In fact he cost us points at the end of last season when he filled in against Swansea at home. And I'm not even talking about the obvious stuff like parrying the ball to Harry Winks, dropping the ball against Liverpool, the soft goals at the Emirates; or Sunderland. Yes Sunderland! Just Sunderland! The whole game, where it looked like they were playing me out there! People need to understand that goalkeeping is about command of your area and communication with your defence. Yes you need to be agile and you definitely need to be able to catch but the key thing is the relationship you have with the back line and how much they trust you to do the right thing when play comes anywhere near your goal.

It is for this reason that, while I think he's a decent young goalkeeper, I don't have an orgasm every time I watch David De Gea play. And the same reason why I seriously rate Theobaut Courtois and Hugo Lloris way more than the average pundit does. These are also things that Darren Randolph struggles to do. The West Ham social media accounts can show as many spectacular looking tips over the bar and round the post as they want. Anyone who has played football in goal regularly will know that while these things are far from easy to do they are not what separates those that pay to play football from those that are paid vast sums of money to play football. It's like defending. The best central defenders are the ones who snuff danger out through their positioning and ability to read the game. As opposed to those constantly flying in making,  more impressive looking, recovery tackles.

In my mind there is no coincidence that our best defensive displays have come with Adrian in goal. A defence that does not trust their keeper make silly mistakes trying to anticipate what he may,  or may not, be about to do!

Of course it wasn't all Slav. I'm not sure to what extent, but the consensus is that he and the likes of Payet were promised better signings than Gokan Tore and Nordveit. For a start we fans were! Then there's the fact that his job seems to have been under threat on numerous occasions with no consideration made for the context of previous matches or relative strength of opponents. It's all been a bit crazy and can't have produced a settling atmosphere for either Slav or the players.

So in all it was a bit of dire season. Mix that in with fact that the Premier League wasn't that entertaining this year (the best team in it was probably Tottenham) and I'm not that fussed that there's only one game to go. Thank God and good riddance!

On a positive note this season I discovered an amazing podcast called "Quickly Kevin" which reminisces about the best decade in football that I've experienced (the 90s). If you like Barry Davies, Brian Moore, World Cup theme tunes, Matt Le Tissier, and anecdotes relating to players like Efan Ekokou then give it a listen! Check me out plugging them for nothing!

Another reason to be cheerful is that the Confederations Cup begins in exactly a month today! More to follow...

Oh football! What have they done to you?!

Launch of the iPhone 529,293,456H which now comes in turquoise!

The new season starts tomorrow (well the new Premier League season, Aston Villa have already managed to embarrass themselves twice already).  I should be excited (I think) as a football fan, and more importantly a fan of a side plying its trade in the Best league the world™.

But I don’t get it. As mentioned in a post a few weeks ago, I was one of a minority who didn’t switch the TV off on the evening of the 10^th July and say, “Thank god that’s over! It was awful! I can’t wait to get back to watching games like West Brom v Middlesbrough…”

Obviously I’m exaggerating for effect, but even the prospect of watching the same big sides playing each other on a Super Sunday with Martin Tyler saying “And it’s LIVE”, who the hell does he think he is?!?; Mourinho moaning; Arsenal choking but doing just enough to STILL finish above Spurs; West Ham infuriating me with the most baffling displays, even last year (see Swansea at home); West Brom and Sunderland invariably going on runs during which many amateur Sunday sides would fancy their chances against them, yet staying up. It’s just a bit “Meh” for me.

Don’t get me wrong. I love football. And I’m intrigued by the appointments of Mourinho, Guardiola and Conte. By Klopp’s first full season in charge of Liverpool. I want to see whether I was right about Zlatan and if Pogba will step up now he’s playing in a league which isn’t a one and a half horse race. The masochistic part of me wants to see if Man United tear Bournemouth apart this week, with their shiny new side (sorry Bournemouth, I do actually really like you).

But I just can’t get THAT excited. I can see it for what it is, a really well marketed, expensive product, which still lacks some substance when compared to its rivals. It’s like an iPhone! That’s it! The Premier League is football’s equivalent of the iPhone. Yes it’s a good phone, it’s one of the best in the market. But if you weren’t being told that it was the best product out there every time you turned the TV on; If you sampled one of the genuine alternatives to it, and gave that alternative a good trial; You’d probably realise that it offers nothing that its rivals can’t already provide.

And you’d start to pick out its very obvious flaws, be them the complete lack of control of your own media that the operating system gives you by default (come on Apple, we don’t all need hand holding!); the tens of overpriced foreign imports that come in each season and make absolutely no impact because they’re just not that good; the complete tie in to the IOS operating system and lack of backwards/sideways compatibly with hardware (why change the chargers, actually why are they different from every other manufacturer’s); or the damage that the influx of mediocre foreign imports and the craving for instant, money driven, success is doing to our, already not so good, national team.

Not to mention the complete and utter disregard for match going fans. The very people that helped make this product as marketable as it is today; and silly things like not having a YouTube app (I know why, but you’re supposed to be this really intuitive easy to use product) or having to use that crap limited Safari browser.

Anyway, I massively digress. Long and short of it all, I don't buy into the hype of either. You won't find me queuing up outside the apple store overnight or losing sleep over the prospect of Leicester beginning the defence of their title tomorrow against Hull. And come early May I'll probably even be a little bit relieved when it's all over again.

Twenty isn't plenty!

I was going to write about something else. I had actually started a post a few weeks ago all about that cheeky Barcelona penalty. It was full of talk of Respect and references to the song. It was great. It was funny! But I never quite finished it. And before I knew it, it was 2/3 weeks since the incident had passed; hardly an on trend topic to talk about. So now you’re stuck with this. This might not be as funny, saying that I feel the tone of my posts has changed recently, since I made the change. I’ve not really made reference to that, maybe I will in the future… maybe I won’t.

Anyway. Aside from being cryptic about stuff you probably couldn’t give a toss about, let’s talk current soccerball! Yeah!

It’s no secret on here that I have a West Ham season ticket, I’ve had it since 2004. What is that 12 years? Yeah something like that. Over that 12 years it’s risen and risen and risen in cost and I’ve carried on paying for it regardless. I got the thing in the first place because it was the most cost effective way of seeing West Ham play on a regular basis. And I stand by that.

Recently there’s been a lot of talk about ticket prices. Ticket prices and kick off times. Comparisons with what they do in Germany, comparisons with Barcelona season tickets, the rise of FC United and other fan focused clubs, Twenty is plenty, bla bla bla…

This week we had the Twenty is plenty “successfully” managing to get Premier League clubs to agree to capping away ticket prices at £30 (so Twenty wasn’t in fact plenty then). We’ve also seen Liverpool do a u-turn on their newly introduced pricing structure after 10,000 fans walked out halfway through a game and now I’m hearing talk of all sorts of Premier League clubs freezing their ticket prices.

That’s all great, it is honestly. But that doesn’t even scratch the surface in my opinion. I appreciate we don’t go to watch our teams in crumbling stadiums that lack adequate security, and that we can pretty much bring the whole family along to experience the drama of the Best League in the World (or “Most competitive” at times when it’s obvious that the standard is average). I appreciate that I don’t HAVE to go and watch West Ham or anyone for that matter. That I don’t have to pay Sky or BT or Setanta or anyone else who wants to reach into my pocket in return for showing me footage of the latest football matches. That as long as I continue to pay all or any of these bodies to consume the football they offer, I’m adding to the problem. But they still take the p*ss!

There’s no denying that. For example, I’m going to Old Trafford on Sunday to watch West Ham’s FA Cup quarter final against Manchester United. The tickets for this game went on sale before the FA had even decided what day the game would be scheduled for. So essentially, I and every other West Ham fan that wanted to go, had to make a commitment. A commitment to put whatever they had going on in their lives on hold on whichever day the FA decided to move the match to after we’d already committed to going. I don’t live in or near Manchester, most West Ham fans won’t. It’s 215 miles (shortest route) between the two grounds. Therefore going to Manchester would eat up the best part of a day, potentially a working one, according to the FA (it could have originally been scheduled for a Friday or Monday).

This sort of thing happens time and time again. Sky and BT move games to Saturday Mornings/Evenings and Monday nights at the drop of a hat. And we (match going fans) move our lives to accommodate them. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve rushed back from work, had no dinner, got in at midnight when I had work to get up for in the mornings. And then on top of all of this the clubs need a body to form to say to them, “don’t you think charging thousands of people more than £20 to come and watch you, when you make millions (if not billions) every year, and this income is negligible, is a bit much?” For them to respond, “Hmmm, OK we won’t charge more than £30! But that’s it… …OK we’ll keep our Season Tickets at their extortionate rates, which have risen well above inflation over the past 10, 20 years and just not charge you any extra next season, because it might look bad.”

In what other walk of life would you significantly inconvenience yourself, your friends and family; and pay money at a rate well over the odds to do so? It’s crazy. But we do it. And, as I alluded earlier, nobody forces us to do so. In fact we’re the only ones who can stop it. We’re the only ones who can cancel our Sky subscriptions, not subscribe to BT or whoever the new rival that comes along might be. Stop going to these games scheduled at time which cause fans to travel at ridiculous hours of the day and take time off work (TAKE TIME OFF WORK, let that sink in, lose income to pay over the odds for something?). But we won’t.

The reason why we’re even in this situation is because we’re slaves to football. This game. This sport; past time. Which took off as a thing to do (watching or participating) in our spare time on the weekend. Which became a form of entertainment for the average working man. An opportunity to gather with the rest of the community, to get behind our local team. Has turned into something similar to those con subscriptions, from which you can never get out. Like trying to leave a gym. Or like a drug that we’re hooked to, constantly sucking money from us. It’s like heroin!

I know this is all a bit dark, and not funny at all. I know I’m moaning yet doing nothing about it. I can’t help it. I’m trapped and they know it!

In other news, this week I was invited to participate in a weekly football podcast called Shoot The Defence. They've previously had me on the show ranting about West Ham (and raving about odd things like 1950's football). It was a pleasure being able to participate again. Give it a listen  (although it's a  few days out of date). Listen to Shoot The Defence in general, it'seems decent and they have a monthly segment where former footballer Leon  Knight basically tears into Arsenal for having no bottle, it's hilarious! Anyway  here's this week's show...

http://shootthedefence.libsyn.com/shoot-the-defence-premier-league-review-6

I'm off now! Where’s that Sky subscription telephone number I need to update my direct debit details…?!?

The Saturday afternoon ritual

We’ve all got one, those of us who are enlightened enough to enjoy football that is. We do the same thing every week, the only difference being how you feel at the end of the day, which depends on the success/failure of the team you follow. I’m thinking about this because I’m currently sitting in my father in law’s living room. Watching Man United play Southampton on one of those dodgy streams on my laptop. You know the ones where you have to close a million adverts before you can even see the video player in the middle of your web browser. Where they try and trick you into downloading some software because you’ve “got a virus on your laptop”. The ones that probably give you a virus, if you do have one that is.

It’s what I do every other weekend. Not always at my father in law’s (but often there). I do it every other weekend because on the weekends in between you’ll more than likely find me at West Ham. That’s the other thing I do, my other ritual.

It’s funny because we, football fans, do these things on a regular, habitual, basis. Often in a particular manner as we think it has some sort of bearing on our team’s fortunes that weekend. For example, I watch West Ham on these dodgy streams, I potentially fill my laptop with viruses (don’t worry I run two separate virus scans regularly, and I don’t install that crap, I’ve been using the Internet long enough to know better) but I’m convinced it’s bad luck. I couldn’t tell you the last time I watched us on a stream and we won. But a) I still watch pretty much every other week (provided I’ve got nothing else on), even though I think it’s bad luck; b) I, a rational adult in his mid 30s, believe that somehow me trawling through pages and pages that offer “singles in my area” (I mean I’m not even single, where were these attractive women when I was?!?) to watch some often pixelated, and sometimes Turkish or Chinese broadcast of my team playing will have a negative effect on them.

But I do it because I can’t not see. Not if I have the opportunity to see. If I am out, fair enough. But if I’m indoors on a Saturday, with my laptop and connection to the Internet, you’ll find me screaming at the laptop screen because West Ham are inviting too much pressure from Watford or making Sunderland look good. And even when we’re not playing away at 3pm on a Saturday and I’m at home, I watch another game which can range from Bournemouth v Aston Villa  (yes I did actually watch that) to the latest  action from Serie B  (no joke).
Ahhh! The things football makes us do! I’m gonna go a run a virus scan on my computer...

PS I’m not at West Ham today because I object to Sky scheduling Saturday evening games! If it were up to me all West Ham home games would be at 3pm on a Saturday (couldn’t give a toss about the Premier League’s money)!

Those who talk rubbish, risk being struck down!

This isn’t so much a new me or a change to this blog, I don’t do “New Me’s” or New Year’s resolutions. But there are going to be changes, in the blog and in life (watch this space)! To me the New Year is the same as the old one. Except for this one is a European Championship year (no birthdays, weddings or christenings in June or July please). And I’m getting married at the end of it. I’ve decided I need to do something about my growing waistline, which has basically been moving in the same direction since we had our first child Noah (aka West Ham’s bad luck charm) last November. So it’s plenty more running and my own take on the caveman diet in 2016, but more procrastination and sarcasm when it comes to this blog. I can’t wait!!

As for the football, West Ham are doing OK. Many will say we’ve followed the same pattern as last year, a great start to the season with some notable scalps, which then tailed off post November. There is a difference though, the difference is you can see we’re trying new things and players like Payet and Lanzini have added freshness to our attacking play. In many areas we still have the same personnel as last season and as a result have shown our limitations, notably with our defensive displays against Bournemouth and Tottenham. I suppose we now just have to see who comes in in January and whether we can put in an impressive finish to our last season at The Boleyn Ground.

On the subject of transfers it’s now January, as you will have guessed from all of the faux philosophical statuses on social media, which means one thing. The transfer window is open! Barcelona can now sign players (because they desperately need to don’t they); Arsenal won’t sign anyone, despite all of their fans pleading for the capture of Draxler or Benzema or the new Draxler/Benzema; and West Ham (not just West Ham all the other mid ranking Premier League teams) will panic loan an extra 3 has been’s, or never were’s until the end of the Season, see Nikita Jelavic aka the shit version of Andy Carroll (I hope he’s on loan).

Leicester are top! Well they’re not anymore; they’re 2^nd on goal difference. But regardless, that’s quite an achievement for a club who were bottom of the Premier League this time last year. Personally I’d love Leicester to win the league. It would give me the hope that the disparity that has been created between the big and small clubs, in the last 25 years since the advent of the Premier League, Champions League and all that Sky Money, is starting to even out. Fingers crossed…!

Finally if there is anything that the first 4/5 months of the season has taught me; other than the fact that Mourinho is actually mental and LVG hasn’t been good since that Ajax team; it is that in a world were Leicester City are the best team in the country, as a wise man once said… “Chat sh*t, get banged!”

The State of Football: August 2015 – What is actually going on?!?

Prize fighter (Prize Fighters plural), Prizefighter – A Prize Fighter is a boxer who fights to win money.

I’m angry, like most other times when I’m angry, there may not be as much humour in this post. I’ve just watched West Ham’s Under 21 team, captained by the dynamo that is Kevin Nolan, spiritedly limp out of the Europa League, losing 2-1 to Astra Gobbledegook.

Yes Astra Giggedygoo! That fine side. Currently sitting 6^th in the Romanian top flight after a 2-2- draw on the weekend against… I can’t remember who, and I can’t be bothered to look it up either. They drew against a side who were obviously as good as West Ham are, seen as that result was all that we could muster a week ago when we played them at home with a side a lot stronger than our Under 21s (even if they were captained by Captain Fantastic, Stevie Gee MKII, Kevin Nolan).

I'm not even angry that Astra Gogglebox beat us. Well that’s a lie I am. But I'm not angry because I think that our Under 21s should have done better. I'm angry because of the attitude that we took towards the fixture.

By “we” I mean West Ham United as a club, well whoever has a say in picking the team; some (not all) West Ham fans; and the media over here in the UK.

Let me paint a picture for you: It’s the 16^th May 2015, a sunny Saturday afternoon in east London. West Ham United are at home to Everton in their last game at the Boleyn Ground of the 2014/15 season. Both teams, despite not having the best of seasons, are in with a shout of qualifying for the Europa League by virtue of having fairly good disciplinary records that season.

If you’re not sure the Europa League is Europe’s 2^nd most prestigious club tournament, after it’s bigger, more moneyed, brother the Champions League. It has been running for 45 seasons and has been won by many great players and teams. The winners of the Europa League are granted automatic qualification to the following season’s Champions League tournament. It’s kind of a big deal!

The prospect of playing in the Europa League is exciting to the West Ham fans in attendance on that sunny Saturday, so much so that there is considerable talk about West Ham’s chances of qualification and each Everton yellow card, there are 4 in the game compared to West Ham’s 1, is greeted with a cheer and the song, “You’re not going on a European Tour” (to the theme of the Beatles Yellow Submarine). While the singing and cheering has an element of tongue in cheek to it, make no mistake, West Ham and their fans want to play in the Europa League the following season; even if they don’t expect to get anywhere near winning the trophy.

On the 22^nd of June 2015 the draw for the 1^st round of the Europa League takes place. West Ham have qualified for the tournament based on their fair play record and are drawn against Lusitanos of Andorra. Lusitanos have been quite successful within their own domestic league and as a result have reached the qualifying rounds of the Champions League a few times; each time though, they have been comprehensively beaten by relatively weak opposition. So they’re no trouble, right?

West Ham sell out their 1^st round 1^st leg match at home and the talk is of us racking up a cricket (more likely rugby, cricket if you’re talking Australia batting in the 2015 Ashes) score, the bookies are only giving half decent odds on there being over 5.5 goals. This is going to be a glut, or a rout.

It wasn't.

West Ham win 3-0. Which, while showing that there was a considerable gap in quality between the two sides, is hardly an indication of a complete mismatch. It’s OK, we’ll get em’ in the 2^nd leg! The 2^nd leg a week later ends 1-0 to West Ham and one of our players is sent off. Now I didn't see that 2^nd leg, but in mismatches the better opponent should never have to exert themselves to the point that a player is sent off. Hmmm? Surely just a blip, who cares? West Ham are through!

 

Proved to be a difficult opponent back in Malta

Next up are Birkirkara. To this day I can’t pronounce that name. “Bir-Kaka”? “Bir-Kirk-Kaka”? God knows? What I do know is that they’re from Malta and Malta is not renowned for producing good football teams (although I recently watch Italy struggling against them in a Euro 2016 qualifier), these Maltese are gonna get it right…! The Andorrans got away, but not Bir… That team! They’ll be on the end of a hiding. Actually it was a 1-0 win secured in the last minute of the 1^st leg at home. Never mind, we’ll get them in the 2^nd leg in Malta right… Wrong! West Ham lose 1-0 and must play Extra Time and Penalties to get through. Penalties?!?

It was at this point that the grumbling began. “The Europa League is two bob anyway…”, “It’ll damage our league form…”, “Look at Sp*rs! All those Thursday/Sunday games have caused them nothing but problems…”, “I'm not sure I want us to get through the next round…”

 

Even better than Bir... Kaka!

Then came Astra Sirigu. I’d never heard of them. Me! I'm like the king of obscure football teams, I had to look these guys up (I’d never heard of the other two either by the way)! We’d beat them, but now that was a problem. Playing to win, in the 2^nd best club competition in Europe wasn't best for West Ham?!? So we play the first leg and draw 2-2, as I've already mentioned, with a relatively strong (or experienced squad). And then the floodgates opened. Not the goal scoring floodgates. They remained firmly closed. There was no danger of them being breached. The nay saying floodgates, “We've got to focus on the league, that’s our priority…”, “We've got Arsenal on Saturday!”

And as mentioned above, we went out. Astra Giurgiu (that’s their proper name, I owe them enough respect to write it at least once) beat us. Not on away goals, which was the threat going into the game. They scored more than we did on the night. Now we’re out.

We went from “We’re all going of a European Tour” on the 16^th of May to “(Sh*t! We’re not as good as we thought) I think it’s blessing in disguise that we’re out…” on the 6^th of August. The whole thing was over before it even began, partly because we weren't good enough; and partly because in English football we've developed this arrogance when looking at the Europa League and somehow people up and down the country, regardless of footballing allegiance, have written off the 2^nd biggest European club tournament.

Why? Because you get more money for being in the Premier League. So teams like West Ham should not focus on tournaments like the Europa League; for fear of exhausting their resources, losing games in the Premier League and not finishing high enough to avoid being relegated from it.

What has become of our game? This isn't football. Let me get this straight, “We shouldn't focus on the Europa League for fear of it affecting Premier League status”, “We definitely shouldn't try in the League Cup for fear of it affecting Premier League status”, “The FA cup is no longer taken seriously until you get to around the Quarter Final stage for fear of it affecting Premier League status” and “International Football gets in the way of the Premier League and tires players out”?

So basically, “If it’s not the Premier League, and therefore not gonna make you a sh*t load of money (even when you do badly), it’s not worth competing in.”

I repeat. What has become of our game? We’re trying not to win competitions just so that we can guarantee that we stay in the Premier League and continue to rake in insane amounts of money. Meanwhile, ticket prices are insanely high and replica kits cost an arm and a leg.

Are we watching a sport or competition to see who can grow the biggest company?

Mediocrity is now the name of the game as it brings the cash in! So by this logic West Ham should aim to finish in positions 1-4 (which is never going to happen) or 7-17 in the league thus avoiding qualification for the Europa League, THE 2^nd BIGGEST CLUB TOURNAMENT IN EUROPEAN FOOTBALL!

So what next for West Ham? The race Champions League places is already saturated, there are 6 teams realistically going for 4 spaces (you could argue 7 in years gone by with Everton). We aren't even good enough to properly qualify for the Europa League based on our league positioning. What do we do? The aim is to get better, which in turn will grow the club financially (the owners will be pleased to hear that), but how do you when the next step up is one you don’t want to take?

In my eyes West Ham, and other teams in a similar situation should be aiming for consistent Europa League qualification and performances, which would in turn attract a better calibre of player (not just half decent foreigners looking for an extra bit of cash, oh god I sound like Nigel Farage now!!) and mean that we could then strengthen and eventually challenge for the Champions League spots.

Instead we've become Prizefighters, not aiming to win any competitions, but happy to plod along playing Stoke and West Brom, winning some and losing some, and just doing enough to finish somewhere between 7^th and 17^th.

Amendment: Prize fighter (Prize Fighters plural), Prizefighter – A Prize Fighter is an English football club, which basically has no ambition other than, to play in and subsequently continue to play in, The Greatest League In the World ™ (AKA The Most Competitive League In The World ™ at times when it’s obvious that the standard is sub-par, AKA The Premier League) and continue to pick up cheques from Sky/BT.

In other news. The season starts tomorrow. Hashtag “Coyee” (#COYI), let’s go get that 17^th place…!

PS I already find James Corden to be a bit of a sycophantic "Try Hard" then he goes and does this… 

So pleased we're out of Europa League. pic.twitter.com/UbKw074Kld

— Jkcorden (@JKCorden) August 6, 2015

Dick!