Soft Hammers
Michael Henderson
IT IS one of the game's oldest jokes but it still produces a laugh or two. In the football version of 'Deck of Cards', that hoary old chestnut from the Fifties pop charts, the narrator reminds listeners that 'when I see the Four Queens, I think of the West Ham defence'. Those queens were certainly present on duty at Old Trafford last weekend (`Ooh, ducky!') when Manchester United put the ball in the Hammers goal six times without reply, booting the hapless Londoners out of this year's FA Cup.
Nobody expected West Ham to beat United, although they did win a cup tie there three years ago, when the Mancunians were no less formidable. But the nature of their performance last week was so abject that the match reporters, to a man, rounded on the players for their ineptitude and — far worse — their lack of heart. Bottom of the FA Premiership, and now dumped out of the Cup in a manner that brought embarrassment to everybody connected with the club, they appear to be heading for oblivion, or the Nationwide League, which, for a team of their ambition, is much the same thing.
Last season West Ham finished seventh in the Premiership. They have developed some good young players, and they have brought others to the club. So what has gone wrong? It has something to do with human chem istry; all team affairs have. It has something to do with bad luck; but not that much. Other clubs have been hit harder by injuries and the like. More than anything, it has got something to do with the club's tradition.
All clubs, as Danny Blanchflower used to remind people, are shaped by traditions, and West Ham, to put it simply, are a soft bunch. Even in the Sixties, when they supplied three players to the England side that won the World Cup — one of them the captain and the other two the goalscorcrs in the final against West Germany — West Ham never had a sniff of the League title. Any team that included Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters should have had a decent crack at the championship one year in three, and yet the Hammers never came close. Soft. Mardy. Wet.
In an attempt to bolster the current side, the manager, Glenn Roeder, has signed Lee Bowyer, a combative midfield player, from Leeds United. Some might put it a bit stronger than combative, for the player's character and history are well known to readers of the popular prints. Even West Ham supporters are concerned by Bowyer's appearance in their ranks. For outsiders it is a crass acquisition. For all the short-term good it may do them (and so far they haven't won a game with him), Bowyer's presence will sully their name. He is not a West Ham player. He is not, if truth be told, a particularly good player in any case.
Since he joined the club he followed as a youth, Bowyer has been jeered by crowds at Arsenal and Manchester United, prompting Henry Winter to write in the Daily Telegraph that 'the Kick Racism Out of Football campaign has been well served'. Whoa, Henry, hold your horses! You're on perilous ground when you offer up football supporters for our admiration as moral crusaders. Bowyer is booed because many football supporters enjoy nothing more than conflict, be it physical or verbal. Many of them (and I'm talking about thousands, not a few dozen miscreants here and there) are yobs every bit as rancid as those they affect to despise.
If West Ham are relegated. Bowyer will not stay there. He will push off to another team who need somebody to kick opponents. And West Ham will be relegated. They're a soft lot. They always were.
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