Tired Hammers left looking Baggie!!

Saturday afternoonn's early cup tie  between West Brom and West Ham came (according to Sam, Allardyce) a little too soon for the Hammers.

Allardyce bemoaned the fact that his East London boys were feeling the affects of a gruelling run of fixtures and fatigue was blamed for the Iron's lacklustre performance.

Anyone who has read any of my other blogs about football will know my feelings on managers and players blaming results and poor performances on tiredness.   I can't stand it.  At the end of the day everyone is in the same boat including Saturday's opponents, who managed to win a game by 4 goals to 0.  Yes West Ham may have had injury problems but so does everyone else.

Sam Allardyce should know better as he played football in the 70's when the top flight had 24 teams battling it out, the pitches were shit and the squads consisted of less then 20 players.  Playing a full season with just about 16 players including two games a week and cup competitions with their replays that went on and on until a result was the norm and there was never a word said about it.

If your players really are tired and fatigued after a couple of hard matches in a week then maybe these privileged players aren't the complete athletes we are led to believe they are.

I personally think Big Sam is just making excuses for his teams less than convincing performance, if your players can't lift themselves for a chance of getting to a quarter finals of the FA cup then sorry but they do not deserve to be there, end of.

What's up Sam?  Bit tired?

The Baggies started this game on the front foot and other than maybe a 15 minute spell when Morgan Amalfitano was introduced for the Hammers in the second half completely dominated this game, the 4-0 scoreline didn't flatter them.

Although Amalfitano's introduction seemed to make a difference to West Ham his appearance came too late as the Hammers brought him on just after going 3-0 down.  Amalfitano only ended up playing for ten minutes as he was sent off in the 70th for a straight red for lashing out at Chris Brunt.

Morgan went from Amalfitano to Ralph Amalphitano.

Two goals from in form striker Brown Ideye and a one a piece from James Morrison and Saido Berahino was enough for the Baggies to secure a Quarter final place and a derby tie with Aston Villa at Villa Park, and enough for the travelling 5,500 Hammers fans to be leaving the Hawthorns thinking about what might have been.

It maybe the end of the road for the Irons is this years FA cup and for any other silverware this year but for the Baggies it is onwards and upwards.

The FA cup glory hunt continues to roll along and from this moment onwards I become a West Bromwich Albion fan.

This time around I feel a bit like Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap, after no sooner have I jumped into my former self and failing to change history to how I want it, then I am thrown into another underdogs life where I have to hope they are successful.  Just like Sam always does though I won't let my own feelings cloud my judgement and I will deal with the task in hand.

Will my next leap be the leap home?

So long West Ham and thanks for being part of my glory hunt albeit an all too brief part.  Good luck for the rest of the season, especially this weekend against Spurs.

Now into my next team.

Up the Baggies!!

Boing, Boing you Baggies!!  

West Ham United

A little bit of house keeping before we start for anybody who doesn't know what this blog is all about. Back in August whilst the Premier league were kicking off their first games of the season, I picked a team from low down in the Northern Leagues to go on a glory hunt with.

The idea of a glory hunt is you pick a team and follow them until they get knocked out and then you follow their conquerors and so it continues until finally I am supporting the winners at Wembley Stadium on May 30th.

So far I have supported Morpeth Town ,Dunston UTS, Spennymoor Town, AFC Telford United, Bristol City and now here I am at West Ham United.

The thing is I am not supposed to be biased but I really hope this is where my journey ends this year .  The thing is when the glory hunt started on August 15th of last year I was at the Boleyn ground with my son watching the Hammers taking on Spurs in the first game of the season, a game that West Ham undeservedly lost in injury time despite dominating from the very first whistle.

I was also there for the next home game against Southampton a fortnight later which West Ham lost 3-1.  All West Ham fans will be pleased to know that I haven't been since and funnily enough ever since that defeat the Irons home record has been pretty impressive, more good news I doubt very much if I will be going again this season so the superstitious among you needn't worry.

Of course on the last occasion that West Ham won the cup in 1980 they played West Brom in the third round, the first game at the Hawthorns finished 1-1 Stuart Pearson scored for the visitors but unfortunately I can't find who scored for the Baggies that day so we will say that Cyrille Regis did.  Big Cyrille's goal made sure there was replay at Upton Park and as we know the Irons won the replay by 2 goals to 1.  Geoff Pike and Trevor Brooking scored for the hosts and there was a consolation from Tony Brown, who was probably about 46 at the time.  Incidentally it was Tony Brown's last ever goal for the Baggies.

Tony Brown aged 12

http://youtu.be/Pzxwewj0Kqc   West Ham V WBA 1980 3rd round replay.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Saturday's game ended up as a draw and then win for the Irons back at Upton Park under the floodlights, just like that tie 35 years ago.

It doesn't seem possible that it was that long ago the last time West Ham won the cup.  I remember it was the first cup final I had ever watched.

When I was at school in Essex in the 1980's if you were into football you either supported Arsenal, West Ham, Spurs or Liverpool.  It took me a long time to choose a football team as a kid.  My Dad's side of the family were staunch West Ham fans, my Mum's Dad was an Arsenal fan and for the first time in 1980 I had to make a choice of what team to support as the two of them met in the FA cup final.

 At 7 years old this was a really hard decision to make, it wasn't made any easier by the fact that both my grandparents from both sides of the family lived next to each other so on this particular Saturday just like any other Saturday I was popping between both houses.  Both of my Grandad's asked me who I was going to support come 3 o'clock.  After seeing all the excitement gathering in one household were everyone was a Hammer, I made my mind up I would be supporting the mighty Iron's.  When I went next door to see my other Grandad just before kick off I told him my decision, for some reason as a young kid I felt like I was letting him down, next door were all the West Ham fans and here was my Grandad sitting there as the only Gunners fan around.  We left just before kick off to get home and watch the majority of the game on the telly, as we drove home with the game on the radio I saw all the banners and flags hanging out of the windows most of course were West Ham colours.

On that drive home I made up my mind that because everyone was supporting West Ham I was going to support Arsenal just like my Grandad.  By the time the final whistle had gone and Trevor Brooking had stooped to head home the only goal of the game to give the Iron's the cup I had changed my mind again and become a West Ham fan.  Some may say I was a just a glory hunter and I suppose I was really, but to be fair I thought the FA cup was just played between the same teams every year, a bit like the boat race but in football, I had no idea what it was all about.

You have got to remember this was the start of the 80'sand there weren't much football on television I was just a young kid who loved playing it.

So I suppose once a glory hunter always a glory hunter.

I thought the FA cup was like the boat race

As for the opposition on Saturday, I reckon West Brom will make themselves hard to beat but it is obvious that for Tony Pullis and his Baggies survival in the Premier league is going to be their main priority this season, although a cup run is sometimes beneficial to a team near the bottom of the league, I don't think this will be the year that Albion win their 6th FA Cup.

surely Tony Pullis has bigger fish to fry.

West Ham must think they have a great chance of winning it this season as to a certain extent the draw has been quite kind, although the games have all been away ties, they have all been winnable.

I really hope that it is West Ham's name on the cup this year as some people think it might be, it would be great to see the Hammers lift that famous old trophy for a fourth time, not to mention what a great ending it would be to my first ever glory hunt.

Lets not get carried away though, lets get this game out of the way and move onto the quarter finals.

Come on you Irons!!

Up the Hammers!!