Category: football

Yo, Adrian! I love you!

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.

That’s why I was so pleased when at the end of an epic penalty shoot-out, with the scores at 8-8, Adrian – who is my new favourite player because of this – got to be the hero. 
And in such a cool way. The confidence he had to take off his gloves during his run up to take the penalty – the psychological effect it must have had on his opposite number Robles who had just missed his penalty – saying “I’m not going to need these any more, the game is over” – was awesome. He was cool as anything, and it just exuded confidence to do it during his run up. 
It was the best thing I’ve seen in a long time, and he deserved his moment sliding on his knees towards the fans. The moment of glory that goalkeepers rarely get. 
He gets my vote for Hammer of the Year. I’m calling it now.

I will not grow up

It is my birthday next week. I am going to be old. But I will not be grown up.

Earlier this year, I got my dad to dig out some old bits and pieces that I could use for my brother’s best man speech. He found this little gem that was in our local newspaper, which I have scanned and uploaded.

Essentially, it says: My name is Stewart, I am 8. I like football and Batman.

My name is Stewart, I am about to turn 33. I like football and Batman.

Sometimes it amazes me how little I have changed. Okay, so if you read the excerpt from the newspaper in full, it also says that I support Liverpool which as I have discussed on Unbelievable Jeff is no longer the case.

It also says that I like swimming which whilst true, is something that I have managed to forget how to do. It’s not like riding a bike. I have over the course of the last 3 years or so tried to learn again but I get the feeling that if I really wanted to, I would have done so. Partly my lack of progress is down to Dan Johnson trying to teach me and being mean and making me put my head under the water all the time. Anyway, I digress. I’m talking about growing up.

There are times in my life when I’ve been keen to grow up. When I was about to leave primary school and when I wanted to get a job where I had to wear a suit are two that predominantly stick in my mind. What I have found is that once I have grown up, I slowly become more and more child-like again. Which personally, I think is wonderful. I wrote last month about how I thought that this was influenced largely by Roald Dahl and his general kids vs. grown ups philosophy and how I am glad that I can still class myself on the kids side of the fight.

Dahl writes in Danny, the Champion of the World: “Grown-ups are quirky creatures, full of quirks and secrets.” And I think this is true. Grown ups often feel that there’s things they can’t tell children because they wouldn’t understand. I think that grown ups underestimate the power of children to assimilate anything into their world whether t be fact or fiction.

The thing about being a grown up is that you have lots more responsibilities, lots more stress, lots more worries and lots of social dilemmas. Children have none of this. They don’t think more than a couple of hours ahead and any arguments and problems are quickly resolved. We could probably learn a lot by being more child-like in our approach to the world.

Grown ups are often world weary, whereas children will see things with a sense of wonder all the time. One of my favourite things to do when I go on holiday is stare out of the taxi window on the way from the airport to the hotel. Not only does this make me feel like I’m in a movie but I am always interested in looking at the little things that make that place different from any others.

The places that I enjoy going on holiday are those which are quirky and unusual and different and exciting. I can’t stand going to the same place over and over or having the same beach holiday just in a different location.

I am proud that the things I like now are the things I liked when I was a kid. It makes me feel that even though I’m getting older that I’m still not one of the dreaded Grown Ups.