It is well known that my attendance at West Ham games brings almost certain defeat and thus I trust that Hammers across the world will thank me for not heading along to Loftus Road tonight. A 2-1 win sees the Irons on 11 points after just 6 games. Last time we were in the top flight it was sometime like December before we reached that number of points.
Put it another way, with 16% of the games played we are 26% of the way to 42 points (the highest ever points total to be relegated – er, West Ham) and 27.5% of the way to 40 points (almost certain safety). QPR, Norwich and Reading look pretty good bets for the drop. Surely Wigan who bring nothing to the top flight will slump at some stage. If you are a West Ham fan you will understand how we view the season as a battle against relegation. If we are on 39 points on December 29th ( Reading, away) I shall be working out where the next 3 points to ensure safety are irrespective of the fact that we might ( at that stage) be in contention for European football next season.
From what I hear it was a hardly convincing win. Vaz Te had a blinder which makes up for 5 dismal efforts so far. Having been an avid supporter of the man, then a harsh critic, I suppose I have to eat my words yet again. Who cares? A patchy showing against a crap side but 3 points is all that matters. Heaven (and Saint Paulo of the di Canio) forgive me; I am starting to sound like Fat Sam.
Anyhow, instead of a night in the cold in West London it was chocolate pizza in East London at The Real Man Pizza Company with the City Goddess – the sharpest brain in the Square Mile (naturally I was accompanied by my new finance director, to keep me in order). This is the woman who on July 14th noted that I was “looking good” and who is a total goddess. A razor sharp brain, by a country mile the most fanciable woman in UK corporate broking and she thinks my new pizza recipes are really superb: what could not be perfect?
Er…. Of course she is perfect except that she needs to drastically improve her knowledge of Blur. Fancy admitting that you know nothing about Damon, Graham, Alex and Dave? Jeepers.. Worse still would you ever confess that you have never heard of SLF and the Undertones? Cripes, 50% of the pleasure of owning a restaurant is in designing the music play lists. As a music nerd ( 1977 -1995, nothing after that counts), I can get quite chippy.
But it gets worse. Some folks seem to think that the world is flat and drops off an edge after Canary Wharf. We all know that Greenwich is where we mark GMT from, there is some rubbish about 0 degrees Antarctic whatever, but – wherever I travel – the centre of the universe is London E13. I think I have a T-shirt somewhere as a reminder of that…
Even a goddess might need a night out in Mile End to move up the learning curve.
(Adopted) East End boys and West End Girls and all that…If you enjoyed reading this article from Tom Winnifrith, why not help us cover our running costs with a donation?
Filed under: