Last night was a particularly stressful experience. I have written before about how I support West Ham. It’s not a particularly rewarding past time. In my lifetime, we have won 5 trophies:
* The FA Cup – when I was not even 1 year old. I don’t remember that one.
* the Inter-Toto Cup – which as everyone knows is the only European trophy worth winning
* the Championship Playoffs twice. I’m counting it, even if it’s not a real victory and the trophy is only 10 centimeters tall
* The Cuitat de Barcelona trophy in 2013. A two team tournament that I didn’t even know we’d won.
As you can see, it’s not as rewarding trophy wise as supporting Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal or even
Liverpool.
So when we do have great victories, they mean a lot more. And I think that makes the years of everyone telling you how they like it when you do well and that you’re their second team a bit more bearable.
Last night was torture though. Me and some colleagues had considered going to see our game against Everton. I’m glad it didn’t happen. I struggled to deal with the emotions at home. Had we been at the ground, I think I might have actually had a heart attack.
A quick summary of the game: West Ham go 1-0, Everton have a player sent off and still manage to equalise, taking the game to extra time (and past my bed time). Everton take the lead in extra time only for Carlton Cole who is worth his weight in gold to come on as a substitute and score with his first touch a minute later which prompted the game to go to a penalty shoot out.
A penalty shoot out that I had to watch through my fingers as the tension at this point was unbearable.
No-one wants to be a goalkeeper. It’s the job of the least popular kid in school to take this role. Everyone wants to be a striker, and I remember games at school where you would often have games with absolutely no defenders as everyone wanted the glory.
Even West Ham’s current goalkeeper, Adrian, wanted to be a striker. It wasn’t to be and now he makes a living as a goalkeeper. A thankless task, really. As he tweeted the day before the game, great goalkeepers never with the Ballon d’Or. They never win a golden boot, just get a golden glove that everyone forgets about. They rarely get any real recognition.