A Short Video To Ease My Pain!

I have had pretty much the worst season possible. The only joy I may get is if my adopted second team can get promoted through the play offs. So, in order to ease my hurting soul I have created a video showing the goals / misses / players / matches and disasters that made me fall in love with football in the first place. Most of the pictures are of the actual moment that is lodged in my memory!  I'll be impressed if anyone can name all of them. Come On You Shrimpers!!!!!!!

My Cup Final Tears Are Drying...

Something has been missing from my football watching life for the past 20 years or so, but it is back. A genuine anticipation of the cup final. Already I can't wait to watch the match on May 19th. For those of us older than 30, who grew to love football before the 7 day a week coverage of the satellite era began, the cup final was an event, not a match. It started with the cup final songs, built up through FA Cup breakfast until, by 3.00,  the excitement was just like Christmas morning. The same teams weren't always in the final, there were stories galore about the players. Even now I can still remember that Micky Gynn was a postman! It didn't even matter that it was never my team in the final.

I can remember the last time I felt like this. It was May 18th 1991, shortly before Forest and Spurs played out the last final of a spell that gets my personal vote for the greatest period of the FA Cup (between 1986 and 1991).  Even when my team reached the final fairly recently, I just felt nerves and dread at what we might miss out on, rather than excitement.

1987, when the Cup Final was a big event.

To some extent I've fallen out of love with top level football now. I still love the lower division stuff, but usually now the cup final just means another bonus for millionaire players, and more bragging rights for glory seeking fans of the big teams. On top of that, with the exception of 2006, the game is usually awful. Whether this is purely down to the increased participation of Chelsea in the final recently is open to debate!  (It's worth considering though that between 2007-2011 there have been 7 goals in the final, and between 1987-1991 (not counting replays) there were 20.)

It has taken until 2012, but I have my Cup Final excitement back. I really don't care about Liverpool v Chelsea. I do care massively about events in Glasgow though. Heart of Midlothian v Hibernian. Everything a Cup Final should be. A local derby in the final. Two teams invading the national stadium for the biggest game in their lives. A player promising to strip off and run down Princes Street if his team win.  The supporters of the losing team will probably have to put up with merciless, painful reminders from their cross city rivals for the next 100 years. A city will be torn between total joy and tearful gut wrenching agony

Hibs v Hearts - Real Football?

Hibs fans have been waiting 116 years to right the 1896 final. They are probably the most patient fans in the history of football, having been waiting to win the cup for 110 years.  Waiting whilst Clyde, Morton, Airdrieonians, East Fife, Falkirk, St Mirren and Motherwell all had their days in the sun.

The league positions and head to head record show that Hearts have the better team and the history of more success. They can also draw on a fairly recent 4-0 smashing of their rivals at Hampden Park. Supporters will               remember 2 Cup Final successes in the last 15 years too.

As always, the Scottish Cup becomes interesting when Celtic and Rangers are watching on TV. I can't wait for this game, and I will be hoping that Hibs win. I have nothing against Hearts, but I think I may even shed a tear if I hear Sunshine on Leith being sung at full time. Football, I should never have doubted you.While I'm worth my room on this earth, I will be with you.

The Real Underachievers of 2012

I have been known to have the occasional pop at Liverpool's underachievement this season, but I have actually discovered a team that deserves my anger even more. The only difference in the underachievement is in the attitude of the fans. Liverpool supporters keep deluding themselves, they think that it is 1986 and that Liverpool automatically should be challenging at the top. That makes the failure funny to the rest of us.  This is in complete contrast to the supporters of the club I am about to talk about, supporters who seem only too willing to accept that they will be dumped on by the players and management of their own club again and again. Supporters who deserve better.

West Ham - The great underachievers of 2011/12

When Southampton get promoted in the next week (and believe me that is hard for me to write), it will make one thing crystal clear. The players and management of West Ham Utd have taken the piss out of their supporters this season. West Ham should have won the Championship at a canter. Their inability to beat a fairly poor Bristol City team last night, when their season depended on the victory, sums up what has been happening in East London. Big name players are taking home big time pay packets and putting in average performances. Why should they care anyway, they will be on the same wages next season regardless.

One thing you have to do to get out of the Championship is work hard.  From the first game of the season, when Cardiff showed the rest of the league that West Ham's players were just expecting to win games easily, they have been off the pace. When the going has got a little bit tough, the players have gone missing. 5 draws in a row against Watford, Doncaster, Leeds, Middlesborough and Burnley have killed their promotion hopes. 1 goal at home against Doncaster? To me that suggests a complete lack of hunger. Compare this to the games recently that Reading have won, against Leeds and Forest, where a complete refusal by the players and management to accept a draw has fired them on to crucial late goals.

Looking on paper at the respective squads of Reading, Southampton and West Ham you would take West Ham's all day long. Looking at effort, desire and will to win, I would prefer to have any other squad in the division.

Congratulations must go to Reading,  firstly for getting promoted back to the Premiership, but also for showing the world what the players of West Ham Utd really are. West Ham fans, you deserve better than this. You deserve Parkes, Stewart, Pike, Brooking, Devonshire and Cottee. You deserve players who will play with style, but who will put their bodies on the line for the club. What you need is players who play for the club and not their pay. What you have got is nothing short of a disgrace at the moment. I hope the play offs don't mask the truth.