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The WHO archives take us back to 2003 as West Ham went 3-0 up at Upton Park against West Brom but ended up losing 4-3.
Alex V wrote this piece:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040630222625/http://www.westhamonline.net/feature.php?20286
Do we really want to wallow in such despair? - I question the point of actually contributing an honest match report to the fiasco we saw on the pitch this afternoon. A disgrace, yes. A total embarrassment in fact.
But I get the sense that this could either be the end of something or the beginning of something. In classic storytelling the hero has to sink to his lowest, almost as if its a natural process that you have to somehow die to be reborn stronger. It's what 'bubbles' often means to me, and is also I suppose what that great philosopher Yazz meant when she sang that the only way is up. It's hard to keep a clear head after that match - at the moment I'm sure there's just intense anger in the minds of everyone who had to endure our performance today. But in the long term I don't see where that anger can possibly take us, other than driving a further wedge between the club and the fans. We need to find some consolation from somewhere, and move on.
It would be tempting to say that we lost to a fantastic side, and West Brom do look like the firm favourites for the championship. But let's be honest - they are average, well-organised, difficult to play against, but not a team good enough to come from three goals down to win. Their fans will be deliriously happy with the result, but surely they won't fool themselves that this was anything more than a freak result - I feel that we deserved to get turned over in the match, but they didn't deserve to win it either.
It was a game of gifted goals - West Brom went first and we followed. Defoe was allowed to run right through their defence and they even helped by turning his low shot into their own net. Then they gifted possession to Hutchison who linked up well with Deane to set up the big man for a side-footed finish with his left. Then they decided to defend a free-kick with men on the goal-line, but sadly forgot to mark our biggest headed threat - Deane was found brilliantly by Defoe's chip and flicked the ball backwards into the net.
At this point there were lots of thoughts running through my mind about what a turning point this match was going to be in our season, which is ironic thinking about it now. At 3-0 we were sailing, West Brom couldn't get going, the crowd were already cheering every pass, their fans were dead silent. Bliss. Even when Defoe missed another one-on-one it hardly seemed worth worrying too much about - there were more goals on the way surely...
Then everything that could go wrong went wrong - if only I could raise a smile, it's an absolute comedy of errors. First Dailly and James got mixed up and let the striker poke his leg between them and put the ball in the net. Then Dailly misses another challenge and the striker picks out the top corner, the only genuinely good strike of the game. Then in the dying moments of the half Defoe gets sent off after what seemed a fairly innocuous challenge on the clearing defender - easy and correct to criticise the referee but all the same he didn't gift West Brom all their goals. The sinking feeling in the second half was a real choker - we really looked likely to concede at some point, the only pity is that it should be our own player (Deane) slicing the ball into his own net rather than making them work for their equaliser. And then the winner - just an extremely poor punch from James that was put into the empty net by the grateful attacker.
The slight irony is that in open play our performance was actually pretty good in the first half - you don't get three goals against the best side in the division unless you've done something right. Deane was effective throughout, Hutchison lethal at times, Mullins industrious in the midfield, Repka combative at the back. There are no excuses, but neither was this a total capitulation - we were miles in front and threw it away through horrendous errors. Had we looked absolutely awful throughout the match there would only be despair.
The reaction is everything - this West Ham team is too fragile to handle being totally condemned for a performance like this, and as fans we need to find the right tone in our criticism I feel. I cringe at the thought of some of the people who'll be phoning in on the radio and say "worst West Ham performance ever, the whole lot need to be sacked, bring back Dicksy as manager he'd sort em out etc etc" - if we want this to be a new low for the club than we can make it so. If we start thinking that the whole lot need to be cleared out and the squad rebuilt afresh, then we're condemning us to not just months but years in transition - it's neither necessary or desirable to start any witch-hunts now.
I want us to actually improve the results not sink even lower, so the only way to react is to lay down the line here and challenge these players, not some of them but all of them, to do better. It's easy to say player X isn't good enough, I should know as I do it every week. The trick is to actually believe, as I do, that in fact all of these players are good enough to do a whole lot better. Remember Hutchison at the start of the season - crocked, despondent and with no confidence, it was easy to dismiss him then as finished and now he looks like our key player this season. The fact is that we have a bunch of established players in that exact same position at the moment - we can argue about their ability in the Premiership but at this level they should and still could definitely shine.
What is needed is for the players, all of them, to accept that they can do better, apply themselves properly, get our support and not our condemnation, and do their absolute utmost in the job. Hideously overpaid they may be, but we're all human beings at the end of the day - they're just lucky enough to represent us on the pitch. If we all pull in the same direction I sincerely believe that we can still get out of this league this season - let's not let the wheels come off after one freakish afternoon.
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Other Games on this day:
2004: West Ham United 0 Aston Villa 0
2009: West Ham United 1 Everton 2
2008: West Ham United 1 Everton 3
1998: West Ham United 1 Chelsea 1
1989: West Ham United 1 Aston Villa 0 (LC)
1986: Arsenal 0 West Ham United 0
1980: West Ham United 2 Grimsby Town 1
1975: West Ham United 1 Coventry City 1
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