1 The Majority of Transfer Speculation Stories are Most Likely Made Up
For the ever growing number of football news websites and blogs all looking for content that will attract traffic to their site there is nothing like a good transfer story. A daily dose foretelling the latest exotic recruit linked to your club keeps many fans at fever pitch for the entire window – even if the original story was a figment of an over-active imagination. Someone, somewhere will post a rumour which is copied, shared and tweeted and like all lies when repeated often enough becomes a fact. Or maybe the original source is an agent attempting to stump up some interest in his want-away client. In the spirit of the game I have invented my own statistic that 80% of all rumours are fabricated.
2 The Tricks and Traps of the Vague Story Title
Even when you have copied someone elses rumour it is no use being obvious that the story is the same as a dozen or so others already on the news feed. The title of the post needs to be vague and cryptic enough to seduce the reader to click on through. The day after West Ham had signed Arthur Masuaku from Olympiakos I saw a headline on Newsnow that read something like “Done Deal: Second Defender Deal Completed in Two Days”. Excited that it was a shiny new Right Back to complete a matching pair I was deflated to discover that the story was about an academy graduate agreeing to go out on loan. Genius and it completely fooled me.
3 The Level of Supporter Outrage That Even a Made Up Story Can Generate
Whenever a transfer story appears there is always an army of angry supporters ready and able to argue about it regardless of how unlikely the whole thing is likely to be. There will be the guy that hates the board and will repeatedly accuses them of penny-pinching/ misleading/ talking to media too much/ not giving supporters enough information; another who is adamant that we are paying well over the odds for every player linked (as if the transfer fee was coming out of his own pocket); and the bloke that doesn’t like or want us to do business with certain other clubs. While opinions on players are perfectly valid (would anyone, for example, really want us to buy Benteke?) it hardly seems worth getting worked up about spurious speculation.
4 It Has a Vocabulary All of It’s Own
From the Manager dipping in to his “war chest” to “swoop” for the “want away” player that has “issued a come and get me plea” to the club that have “slapped a 50 million valuation” on their star player while”preparing a bid” for someone else’s in order to “test their resolve” the transfer window has a jargon rarely experienced anywhere else. Sky Sports understands that this is unlikely to change anytime soon.
5 No Matter How Long the Window There Is Always a Last Minute Scramble
The transfer window is open for two months in the summer and another month in the winter. One assumes that clubs are allowed to draw up their shopping lists well in advance of the window opening and so can clearly can hit the ground running. In fact, West Ham always seem to complete some encouraging early business but then lose momentum. As the days pass there is growing tension and panic leading up to deadline day where a high proportion of the workforce stop work to follow supposed sightings of players at airports, hotels and training grounds. We are told not to go to bed else something that we have some control over happens before the morning when that window will have slammed shut. There could be a good case for having the winter window open for one day only.
Of course we beat them last season at Upton Park with a goal from Zarate and a superb winning header from Carroll. But perhaps the game is best remembered for Mourinho being sent off, and the pictures in the following morning papers as he cut a sad figure watching the game from the back of the directors’ box. We were also mightily unlucky in the return fixture at Stamford Bridge when we were robbed, as so frequently happened in the latter stages of the season, by the incompetence of the officials (in this case Mr. Madley). Chelsea’s two goals which earned them a draw were dubious to say the least. For the first the referee made our wall retreat twelve yards allowing Fabregas to score more easily from a free kick, and for the second he gave a penalty when Loftus-Cheek tripped himself up just outside our penalty area. Two scandalous decisions but it is all water under the Bridge now.
Almost 50 years ago to the day I was at Upton Park for the first game of the 1966-67 season just three weeks after England had won the World Cup. Moore, Hurst and Peters ran on to the pitch alone before the start of the game to receive the acclaim of the West Ham crowd of over 36,000. Unfortunately, despite a goal from Budgie Byrne, we lost that opening game 2-1.
And of course nobody did bag the £50 million. The odds of correctly forecasting 20 different clubs to finish in a particular order is, according to my calculations, somewhere between 2 and 3 million million millions to one. That’s 18 noughts. I’d call it trillions but that’s not strictly correct. Even if you thought that the top six were cast in stone, and the 14 other clubs had no chance of coming out on top, then perming the favoured six in any order followed by the remaining 14 in every combination would still result in around 63 million millions to one.
Firstly, the journey. As someone who has for many years travelled from Bury St Edmunds (via Epping Station on the Central Line) to watch us play then this is slightly easier for me as I now don’t need to add the District Line journey. But this makes little difference really. The walk to the stadium from Stratford station (via Westfield) is deceptively longer than it would appear, although for me it is more pleasant than the walk I used to take from either Upton Park or Plaistow stations.
I’ve read some complaints regarding the time to reach Stratford station after the game; it took me 40 minutes after each game from my seat to the platform following a leisurely stroll. Again, not an issue for me, but for some who are in a rush then perhaps it is. I’ve noted many leaving both games early (with the mock fire drill chant from our own supporters!) so perhaps they are desperate to get away. I don’t really understand that one myself. In 58 years of regularly watching the team I have only left the ground once before the final whistle was blown.
The roof at the new stadium lends itself to increased volume when the fans react accordingly, and certainly the singing of Bubbles has been spine-tingling. I reckon decibel levels are much greater here than at Upton Park, although I’m not sure any measurements have been taken. I concede that the Boleyn may have had an added intimidatory factor due to the proximity of the crowd to the pitch, but this too was significantly reduced following the 90’s development into an all seater ground. When we all stood on the North and South Banks and Chicken Run it was a different matter.
These days it doesn’t happen like that. The bottom three divisions all kick off a week before the Premier League. Sky Bet Leagues 1 and 2 have a full league programme on the Saturday with all the games kicking off at 3.00 on Saturday, but the Sky Bet Championship has one game on Friday evening, nine on Saturday afternoon, and a further two on Sunday.
Ironically if the Premier League table is printed in the Monday morning newspapers, we will not be at the bottom although we won’t have played a game (unless of course all the nine games played end in draws – most unlikely!). We will have zero points with a goal difference of 0, whereas it is likely that some teams will have lost their opening game and therefore have zero points with a negative goal difference. So without playing we will have a game in hand over all the other teams (bar Chelsea) but sit above the relegation zone. Of course once the game has been played we could move to either the very top or very bottom of the league!
Under The Hammers 