In a little Irish bar in New Orleans, adorned with Arsenal flags on the interior, but open to supporters of all clubs, a pack of Spurs fans sit strewn about some tables singing chants about Gareth Bale. The scoreline reads 3-0 in the 80th minute with West Ham headed for a major loss. They’re flying high as they’re in the lead, as we slump at our tables.
This has been a brutal pummeling and as usual, the small contingent of West Ham fans who made it out are drowning in beer and the cheers of other teams as we order more rounds to make it through at a game time of 8am in the morning. It’s a London derby day at the only bar in the city that has consistent football games on so that every supporter from the whole of the city who wants to go out for a drink, or doesn’t have a specific paid streaming service, is out to support their club on one of the 12 screens in the small but beloved pub.
It’s a constant away day for the Hammers as the top six clubs all have more supporters at the tables. And as West Ham usually does poorly against the top six sides, it’s always a brutal lashing in front of others.
Even though a lot of those fans are plastic, following Man United or Arsenal from their winning days in the 90s and early 00s, they still can claim victory over us. But on this day in the 81st minute, Balbuena gets a header and we get to cheer. It stings for the Spurs fans but they’re still laughing it off as the game is dying and they’re ahead by two.
In only three minutes a cross from Yarmolenko yields a Spurs’ own goal and we’re now at 2-3; the gutsier fans amongst us run up to the Spuds cheering and give them a double dose of the middle fingers and crossed irons – they are uncomfortable. Suddenly our two picnic tables are starting to sing “Blowing Bubbles” loudly and buying a round of shots.
At 90+4 Lanzini hits a long range stunner that was heard across the Pond, and we end the game tied in the glorious uproar of a 3-3 draw. A draw that feels like a win for all of us. We celebrate and cheer on the small victory that we can on a derby day which are so few.
You see, being a West Ham fan abroad usually signals two things. Firstly, we’re real fans, and we’re passionate. We’re in the minority, we’re not usually physically or ancestrally connected so we hold on through passion and secondly, West Ham culture is our culture.
Because we’re the minority who usually loses, we take on the culture of the group that you support in order to hang on. For my British friends, this means you have fans in different parts of the world supporting a team through the misery you suffer, with nothing but a love for the club to keep them through.
It also means we inherit a ready-made hatred for Tottenham, and Milwall even though they’ve never been in the Premier League proper. I was so interested to see our “classic rival” when I visited England, that I went to a West Brom game at the Hawthorns just to boo Millwall in an EFL match.
And this delighted me in not only offering me a loss, but also getting in a rumble outside the grounds with Baggies in true Millwall fashion. This September West Ham have three London derbies against Fulham, Chelsea and Brentford.
When it comes to derbies, I know a lot of my West Ham friends in America don’t get heated for matches against Fulham, Brentford, Watford or AFC Wimbledon. There isn’t that much fanfare for these matches, maybe because you folks across the Pond don’t transmit a transatlantic deep hatred for these clubs.
Chelsea are unlikable in their own right so there is a natural dislike making the derby a higher level of tension, but it’s really only Arsenal and Crystal Palace that I have more of a desire to win at because they are Londoners after Spurs. In New Orleans and at our pub Finn’s, it’s Arsenal who has the biggest support equalled by Liverpool and then Man United.
Surprisingly Man City doesn’t have that much support but I think that’s because the majority of folks are over 21 legal drinking age so don’t attach to their recent winning ways. Chelsea and Spurs are equal after that, so that really there is some rivalry between us and Arsenal when it comes to the matches although their fans are not as obnoxious as Spurs.
Comparatively to our major sports in the States there are definite rivalries – local derbies are intense in hometown highschool American football, basketball and baseball. On the larger stage there are some states with multiple teams that are more competitive but because we’re spread so far apart at the professional level, it’s more about groups that are continually competing for the title.
In soccer, as a Philadelphia Union supporter, we hate the New York Red Bulls who are an hour away in New Jersey or NYCFC – the club owned by Man City owners that Frank Lampard Jr played for, and they’re about 2.5 hours away. But as a Hammer, I know that the American West Ham fanbase will continue to get more excited for derbies, and channel the energy, passion, and embarrassment that our British brethren do over land and sea.
We will love what you love and hate what you hate within reason, and we will also never understand why you pronounce ‘derby’ as ‘dahr-bee’ with an ‘a’ instead of ‘derr-bee’ with the ‘e’ it is spelt with.
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