We are rapidly nearing Christmas a key part of the English footballing calendar. The Football leagues by that time are generally stating to take shape. The winners and losers starting to formulate and show them selves.
Now there is still a long way to go but life is pretty good down here in the Championship for West Ham fans at the moment. With 10 wins and only 3 losses all season we are sitting well in 2nd place at the moment. Behind a very strong Southampton team. If someone offered to end the season now i'd bite their hand off.
Big Sam has now had plenty of opportunity to show his cards and he is doing exactly what the owners paid him to do. Get us back up at the first attempt. Unfortunately being in the US i have not seen as many games as i would have liked to this year and so my judgement must be taken with a pinch of salt.
I do have some concerns with some of Sam's old game tactics creeping in. We seems to be falling back into the lumping the ball up to the big forwards again. No long ball here please, the "west ham way" is passing the ball.
Moving up a league the Premiership is turning out to be quite a blinder this season. Chelsea and The Arsenal struggling and Manchester City playing like the money they spent should allow them too. I personally hope the sky blues win all before them this year. I hold them no grudge for the money they spent and their (like West Ham's) long suffering yet very loyal fans deserve some glory. Some talk of buying the title, but thats all bollocks. every premiership title has been bought. The likes of Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal etc have purchased their entire squads with home grown local talent non existent from their next to non-existent youth academies. So maybe they did not buy the title as quickly as Man City, but buy it they did.
At the bottom of the Premiership i could not be more delighted with the situation. With 3 north west clubs struggling. With Bolton, Blackburn and Wigan all sitting in the drop zone, i would be delighted to see the back of all 3 of them. All soulless clubs with very little support and empty stadiums. Make way for some well supported clubs with a bit of history behind them. There are to many "big" clubs languishing in the lower leagues at them moment and i would love to see the like of Nottingham Forrest, Sheffield Wednesday and Leeds back where they belong!
It's not bad down 'ere in the championship
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Posted by Simon at 6:39 PM 0 comments
Where were you, when we were ...........?
Monday, July 18, 2011
There is no denying the womens World Cup has been a fantastic sporting spectacle this year, with some absolute crackers of games that well deserved the audience and press coverage it received. Being a Brit i am certainly in no position to criticize a team choking at the penalties stage of a tournament, but the US team played a great game. Well done to Japan for hanging on in there and coming back twice. A fantastic final.
It did make me wonder how many of the people now "liking" Hope Solo on facebook and the greater Atlanta share of the millions watching on sunday afternoon went out to support and see them play in Atlanta last season? How many realized that Hope played for the Beat along with Carli Lloyd, Tobin Heath, not to mention Mami Ymaguchi and Aya Miyama from the Japan national team.
My kids with Hope Solo last season.
Atlanta has 3 great football teams, The Silverback Men's and Women's team and the Atlanta Beat WPS team and i'm sure all will see a boost in support after this weekend heroics. I just hope the support continues which will allow the clubs to grow and continue to deliver a better and better match day experience.
Posted by Simon at 12:48 PM 0 comments
Labels: Atlanta Beat, Atlanta Silverbacks, FIFA, womens world cup
Premier League drops "Weakened" Team Rule
Friday, July 15, 2011
About bloody time too! The Premier League has finally dropped the ridiculous "weakened" team rule starting from next season. Last season the PL implemented a rule that required you to name a 25 man squad prior to the season in which you would be able to select your team from.
In theory then it would have made sense that you could have selected any player from your squad for any given match. Last season Ian Holloway made 10 changes to his team for the game against Aston Villa still from the 25 man squad. The PL saw this as fielding a "weakened" team and fined Blackpool 25 grand.
This was a strange decision from the PL as at it seemed to have no problem with the players being in the 25 man squad, yet decided to fine Blackpool when Holloway wanted to play them.
Common sense seems to have won through and now managers quite rightly can pick anyone out of their 25 man squad with out fear of retribution.
The rule has not completely vanished however as the PL can still implement a fine for fielding a "youth" team as youth players fall outside of the 25 man squad limit.
Posted by Simon at 9:00 AM 0 comments
Labels: EPL, PL, Premier League, West Ham Ham United
Football Passion, It's great rivalries
Thursday, July 14, 2011
On May 15th 2011 my beloved West Ham were relegated from the Premier League for the 5th time in my lifetime. The one silver lining in the whole torrid affair however was that with the drop to the N-Power Championship meant we would get to play Millwall FC TWICE! next season. In fact the first time we would get to play them in a league game in 6 years.
The West Ham v Milwall rivalry is arguably one of the most famous rivalry's in world football having been portrayed in many footballing movies like The Firm, Green St Hooligans and Rise of the Footsoldier. It's a rivalry thats over 100 years old and stems from our first ever meeting in 1897. West Ham (then Thames Ironworks FC) a team from the shipbuilding company on the north bank of the river Thames and rival dockers south of the river on the Isle of Dogs J.T. Morton company (Millwall). With the companies bidding on the same contracts the rivalry soon spilled onto the football pitch an into the stands.
This carried trough until the present day, with our most recent and well documented meeting in 2009.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1209028/Man-stabbed-West-Ham-Millwall-fans-brawl-outside-stadium.html
Where i don't condone the violence that occurred, the passion and atmosphere at the game was the sort rarely seen at sporting events, and the sort that makes football and it's rivalry's a unique experience in world sports.
The rivalry has it's lighter moments as well. The Millwall faithful clubbed together and purchased a banner to be towed behind a plane and flown over Wigan's ground during the game we were relegated.
Football is blessed with a vast number of local derby's and fierce rivalry's almost always delivering a highly charged sporting experience. Some sadly have seen their hay day, yet others read like a must see before you die list.
West Ham v Millwall
Everton v Liverpool the merseyside derby
AC Milan v Inter Milan
Roma v Lazio
Partizan v Red Star Belgrade
Fenerbahce v Galatasaray
Barcelona v Real Madrid
and of course two that stand out above all:
Celtic v Rangers
Boca Jnr's v River Plate
With the exception of Real and Barca you may have noticed a common trend between them. Almost all of the worlds great sporting rivalries and certainly the most passionate ones are between clubs in the same city. Proximity and social resentment are the catalyst's in generating these intense sporting spectacles. It's something that sport in the US sadly lacks with it's sporting culture. With the exception of NY you are lucky to get a team in the same state, let alone city to help develop those rivalries. Sure college sports create highly fanatical die hard fans and there are some good rivalries, but they don't develop into the deep loathing and hatred of the opposing team that takes the level of intensity to that next level.
From a local Atlanta standpoint it saddens me and i feel it's a huge missed opportunity as we have two professional women's teams in the city. A 2 game local derby between the Silverbacks and the Beat would make for a fantastic series of games. With the east and westside location of the clubs giving plenty for the fans to get behind. I would guarantee the two games would have the highest attendance in their respective seasons.
For me i'll be waiting for September the 17th and our away game at the Den, where i predict a West Ham win and a whole slew of headlines!!
Posted by Simon at 11:18 AM 0 comments
Labels: Atlanta Beat, Atlanta Silverbacks, Derby, Football, Rivalry, Soccer, West Ham United