Effra rues the innovation that made it impossible to look away.
With West Ham not being able to lose this week, however hard they could have tried, I’ve had the most enjoyable weekend for a long while.
But even when there isn’t crap defending to watch and non-existent shooting to lament, there was still in the 24-7 media-football world plenty to wind me up. On Saturday it was stories of Anton partying for his birthday in America on Knees up Mother Brown, and of the Ice Man gratuitously stoking things up with Pardew all over the place.
By Sunday the Ice Man’s target had turned to Curbishley and supposedly in three games time we’ll be welcoming (or not) the bottom half of the duo responsible for England’s atrocious recent performances to Upton Park. Hate to say it but the only cheer that the media brought yesterday was the news that we are not the only team in the Premiership this season whose players can keep the red-tops occupied. Just when I had concluded that there was nothing that West Ham couldn’t come up with, at least, I realised, the feuding players haven’t started trying to injure each other with golf clubs.
Of course, we all love having access to all the gossip, pseudo-information, and once in a while the truth about our clubs, but I wonder if it hasn’t just made being a fan become even more stressful. Forums are great for sharing emotion with fellow fans in immediate moments of pleasure and pain, but being able to tap into football whenever we like means that we’re never rid of it, and in a season like this one of West Ham’s, what wouldn’t we sufferers all give to be able to get our minds off football for as long amount of time as possible.