The famous line that begins Charles Dickens novel ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, is now often used to describe how positive and negative elements can exist at the same time. This came to mind whilst thinking about both my favourite and not so favourite West Ham moments from the stands.
Dickens’ novel explores the vastly different experiences of two societal classes in Paris and London during the French Revolution and I use it here to match some of my best and worst moments as a Hammers’ fan. I’ve been a season ticket holder for almost 20 years, so I have experienced some of the highs and lows of both Upton Park and the London Stadium.
Supporting the Hammers is a bit like having a glass half full and always thinking it is half empty as we seem to take one step forward and two steps back, where often an excellent performance is followed by a crushing defeat. As we all know, there are as many best moments as there are not, and although we often focus on the negatives, I’ve managed to find a few of each to share.
‘It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness’ – Leaving Upton Park
Those of us fans who have experienced the Hammers playing at Upton Park will have many fond memories of going to the games there watching some incredible performances, such as Jonathon Spector’s two goals against Man Utd in League Cup Quarter Final in November 2010, and moments of despair like Manchester City knocking us out of the EFL Cup 0-9 on aggregate in January 2014, although I do remember a funny moment during the final 10 minutes of that match when a fan called out from behind me ‘Come on West Ham, we can still do this!’
But I wanted to highlight the long goodbye from our spiritual home, that for some of us felt like ‘it was the age of wisdom’ to stay compared to others who believed ‘it was the age of foolishness’ to leave and move to The London Stadium. You could actually swap that metaphor around depending on which camp you sit in regarding our move to the dome.
The 2015/16 season was the first time I had decided to bring a camera to some of the matches and record what was to be a difficult season emotionally. There were some highs, such as the final performance and stunning win against Manchester Utd where Winston Reid scored the winner, with a rousing farewell ceremony that pulled on our heart strings as the Cockney Rejects provided musical icing on a cake filled with so many memories of past and present players. Personally I came away from that evening on a high, but also struggling to leave a stadium that had been our home for 112 years.
‘it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity’ – Winning the European Conference League
Experiencing European football under the lights at London Stadium has to be up there with some of the best match day memories for me and surely many of you readers too. Whatever your thoughts on Moyes’ time as West Ham Utd manager, we cannot disagree that under his stewardship we not only watched some incredible football as part of our European journey, we also won our first trophy in 43 years with Jarrod Bowen’s last minute winner against Fiorentina in the European Conference Final in June 2023 as the match seemed to be heading towards extra time.
I was unable to attend that incredible evening in Prague and watched it on the TV at home, so the least I could do was to attend the champions parade from Green Street to Stratford Town Hall, capturing many moments of pure joy and celebration with my camera as the players and staff welcomed the thousands of fans, who lined the streets chanting and singing, from their open top bus revelling in the party atmosphere.
I skipped off to Stratford Town Hall once the bus turned right from Green Street into Barking Road to try and find somewhere to watch the team arrive before continuing the celebration from the Town Hall balcony that overlooked the High Street, totally rammed with thousands of fans. There was no room to move, so fortunately I brought my zoom lens to help me capture the team and players and shots of the crowd, some of whom had managed to find anywhere they could to get a decent view. A day that will live long in the memories of those of us who were there.
‘It was the season of light, it was the season of darkness’ – West Ham Utd 0 Arsenal 6 (11th February 2024)
They don’t come any worse than this crushing defeat at home to our London rivals Arsenal. I sat through this with both of my youngest boys as my brother was unable to make this match. The eldest boy exclaimed near the end of the game: ‘Why on earth did I put myself through this?’ We all sat through to the bitter end. I continued to record the match with my camera as best I could, despite it turning into some kind of FIFA24 game where your opponent has changed the game settings to ensure they win easily.
My youngest boy, who had been harassing me to let him bring his football along to a match kept asking me: ‘Are we going home yet?’ He loves his football and West Ham and really enjoys coming to the matches. But there is a limit to what even he could sit through. He hadn’t even brought his Rubik’s cube to keep him occupied whilst the rest of us suffered.
But then, out of this emphatic defeat a rare moment of joy emerged into the grey light of a heavily clouded day. As we walked solemnly out of the ground, my youngest boy threw down his football and we just started to kick it about, weaving in and out of the fans mingling around the stadium. I had my camera in hand and kept clicking away to capture what was the perfect way to blow away the misery of what we just sat through. Slowly, but surely, other fans started to join in and before we knew it we were making tricky passes, watching fancy ball skills as the mood lifted whilst the sun tried to shine through the heavy, grey clouds. It was indeed a season of light out from the season of darkness.
‘it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.’
Our owners have consistently held us back as a club with their short sightedness, especially after the hope we had for the season following our victory in the Europa Conference League. We should have moved forward as a club, seen the early signs of why we had to thank Moyes for his hard work and achievements and replace him with a manager who would oversee our next stage of European football development with the money we received from the sale of Declan Rice to Arsenal.
I cannot condone how Moyes was treated for long periods during his final season, the uncertainty it created spread like a virus and I look back on the 2023/24 season with despair. The owners seemingly unable to devote funds to bring in a quality manager, probably the most important role at the club, and with the now departed Tim Steidten wasting time and money building an unbalanced squad that will need quite some time to rebuild.
The Spring of Hope should have been the season we kicked on as a club, forging ahead on the crest of our incredible victory, with a new manager and money to invest, but instead it ended up being a Winter of despair as all hope and joy were sapped out of us as fans, along with the club owners decision to withdraw concessionary rates for younger and older fans alike for next season.
There were some great moments that season, the battling performance against Bayer Leverkusen in the second leg of the quarter final of the Europa League where a 1-1 draw wasn’t enough to overturn the first leg deficit. There was the 5-0 victory over SC Freiburg with Kudus scoring a brace, and beating Arsenal 3-1 in the fourth round of the EFL Cup.
But being thrashed by Aston Villa, Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham and Crystal Palace were difficult moments for sure and left us in 9th place, below qualification for European football and a bad taste over the handling of Moyes exit by a board who had allowed the hope and expectations of the season to fade a die, just like the bubbles we sing about every home game.
My brief for this article was to talk about 3 of my best and worst moments as a West Ham Utd fan, I may have stretched that a little, but hopefully you have managed to enjoy my journey from some of the best and some of the worst of times as a Hammer.
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