Counting Sheep – 12 – The Letters (V,W, X, Y, Z)

It had been a really good summer this year with hot days and warm nights. I began this series of articles by describing how, whenever I have trouble going off to sleep when the night temperatures are high, I think of teams of West Ham players. So I forget the idea of counting sheep and try to select a West Ham team that I have seen whose surnames all start with the same letter. It was harder, in fact impossible, for me to select players beginning with a single letter in many cases, so I’ve combined the letters in some cases to form a single team.

For the final article in my feature I now move on to the very end of the alphabet and have chosen a team whose surnames begin with V, W, X, Y or Z. Not surprisingly I couldn’t come up with any players beginning with X. But less surprisingly no Ys either! Can somebody help me out here? I honestly cannot remember ever seeing a West Ham player whose surname begins with Y.

So far I’ve picked eleven teams, “B”, “C”, “D”, “F”, “S”, a combined “G” and “H”, a combined “J”, “K” and “L”, a combined “M” and “N”, a combined “P” and “Q”, a combined “R” and “T”, and “Vowels”. So here is my V/W/X/Y/Z team (with no X or Y!) in a 3-3-4 attacking formation:

Walker
Walford,
Ward (E)
Winterburn
Woosnam
Ward (M)
Van der Elst
Wright (I)
Zamora
Zaza
Vaz Te

Players left out include Richard Wright, Williamson, Whitton, Whitbread, Valencia and Zarate

I’ve probably missed someone who I should have remembered. Would you have selected any of the players that I left out of my final XI?

And who would manage the V/W/X/Y/X team? It has to be Zola.

So I started at the beginning of the alphabet and worked my way through selecting twelve teams to help me drop off to sleep. I was disappointed to only manage five teams with single letters, but it was a fruitful exercise, albeit much harder than I thought it would be when I began. It helped me drop off to sleep, worked my brain, and brought back memories of the best players I’ve seen playing for West Ham. The summer is now behind us so going off to sleep is not a problem. But if I can’t drop off I can always revert to counting sheep.