Same old West Ham, always West Ham..

Supporting West Ham has never been easy as we all know we have more tough season’s than we do good seasons and when it comes to us, things are never straight forward. There’s the saying “when you’re at the bottom, everything that could go wrong, goes wrong” but even in previous season’s West Ham have managed to go a step further, not necessary due to the club, but individuals.

I remember when the “Tevez Gate “season was full of controversy for a number of reasons. At the time I was a young teenager and was a morning paper boy and use to dread seeing the back pages as every day we seemed to be hitting the papers with a new story every day and for the wrong reasons.

It doesn’t matter who the manager is or who owns the club, over the last 10 – 15 years we certainly seem to attract a lot controversy. Whether its on/off the pitch or just an awful lot of bad luck, we seem to have more of our fair share compared to other clubs it doesn’t help with the media fueling the stories. To me I now see it as typical West Ham and sometimes just laugh as I’m sure a lot you do too.

I thought I would look back on some of out standout moments, controversial moments or just unlucky:

January 1999 – Paolo Di Canio signs

Only West Ham would sign Paolo Di Canio for £1.5 million, who joined with a lot controversy as he hadn’t played since he pushed over Referee Paul Alcock, Paolo’s time in London was never quite. Paolo was award FIFA Fair Play Award for catching the ball during a match when he a chance to score, but stopped the game as the goalkeeper was on the ground injured. He Scored what is West Ham’s and probably the Premier’s League best ever goal against Wimbledon.

Tomas Repka – Red card start

Signed for a then club record fee of £5.5 million, Repka was sent off on his West Ham debut for two bookable offences, missed a match through suspension, and was sent off again in the third match he played for the club. He gained a reputation for his disciplinary record, and received ten yellow cards that first season. He played his final match for West Ham against Fulham, as he left the pitch in tears and to chants of “Super Tom” from the West Ham faithful.

13 May 2006 – FA Cup Final

One of the best ever FA Cup Finals in recent years, for a neutral it had all the entertainment you need from a game of football. After going 2v0 up early on Liverpool managed to pull it back to 2v2. Then Paul Konchesky playing at left back managed to some how trick the Liverpool goal keeper with a cross / shot from outside the box to put West Ham 3v2 up.  With minutes if not seconds left on the clock to give West Ham their first FA Cup win since 1980. Lionel Scaloni failed to clear the ball properly for West Ham, instead launching the ball to Steven Gerrard who shot from 35 yards to level the game 3v3 and take the game to extra time. Eventually Liverpool won 3v1 on penalties

31st August 2006 – World Class Players Join West Ham !?

All West Ham fans had woken up and turned on the TV to see the yellow Sky sports ticker bar going round informing us West Ham United had Signed Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano, two world class players…. We were not dreaming. It was true. What followed was the Start of Tevez gate, months of investigation into how West Ham had signed two world class players along with Carlos Tevez not being able to find the back of the net. West Ham were eventally fined a sum of £5 Million by the Premier League and Tevez was cleared to carry on playing, Tevez eventual scored 7 goals when it mattered to help West Ham stay in the league. This resulting in Sheffield United to be relegated after their only season in the Premier League, which lead to months and years of Sheffield United trying to Sue West Ham for breach of signing third party players.

2006/2007 Season – Everthing plus more went wrong

The season came around with a lot of hope with European football to look forward to and we started brightly. We quickly got dumped out of Europe by Palermo, struggled in the league which we finally picked up an important win against Arsenal on the 5^th November which lead to Alan Pardew to have a “disagreement” with Arsene Wenger on touchline. Pardew finally got the sack after failing to improve results and losing the dressing room. The New “Millionaire” owner who recently had purchased the club bringing in Alan Curbishley to take over from Pardew. The season was full of off field issues among these were Teddy Sheringham’s then girlfriend Danielle Lloyd involved in a race row whilst staying in the Big Brother house and reports of bailiffs turning up at the training ground to collect unpaid congestion fees. West Ham went to Charlton (relegation rival) and lost 4v0 in February on Curbishley returned and then lost to Spurs at home 4v3 after going 3v2 up with minutes to spare. With 9 games left of the season and being rock bottom, with games against Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea we managed to win 7 out of 9 games to stay up.

Dean Ashton – the future looked bright

On 22 January 2006 Ashton signed for West Ham and made an impressive start to his West Ham career, making his debut in the Hammers’ 3–2 victory away to Arsenal and scored some key goals in West Ham’s following fixtures, including two goals in the FA Cup quarter-final against Manchester City, which was vital in continuing the team’s inspiring FA Cup run in 2006. Ashton suffered a broken ankle while on England duty in August 2006, which meant that he was forced eventually to miss the whole of the 2006–07 season. Unfortunately, this was the start of Ashton’s injury problems and forced him to retire in 2009, aged 26.

Signing Kieron Dyer

In August 2007 Kieron Dyer joined from Newcastle to team up again with Lee Bowyer, who had joined us the previous year. When both Kieron and Lee were team mates at Newcastle they were both involved in an on pitch brawl as one refused to pass the other one the ball. Luckily there was none of that at West Ham. Kieron’s Career was blighted with injury’s over the 4 years he was at the club. In those 4 years he managed just 30 appearances in total and failing to score  .

19 May 2012 – Playoff Final Win

Following Relegation in the previous season, West Ham bounce straight back to the Premier League via the Play offs.  West Ham played Blackpool in the Final at Wembley winning 2v1 thanks to Ricardo Vaz Tê scoring the winner 3 minutes from time to avoid the game going to extra time. This was also Robert Green’s last game for West Ham before being released at the end of the season.

26th December 2017 –  Callum Wilson Magic

After managing to come back from nowhere to lead 3v2 with a few minutes left to play, West Ham looked like they had done a smash and grab. Only to be dined in the 90+3 min by an offside and handball goal from Callum Wilson, even though the linesman had flagged for either offside/handball . Robert Madley decided to overrule the linesman, even though his colleague was in a better place to view of the indecent.

Ive only listed some of the moments that spring to mind from the past, please don’t shoot me down for anything Ive missed. Please comment below with any standout moments for yourself.

Same old West Ham, just keep Smiling COYI’S