West Ham – I’m Feeling Old and Fingers Crossed for Paulo’s Swindon

The West Ham starting line-up last night featured in the backs a guy called Potts. Coming on as substitute was a guy called Moncur. Instantly I think of Steve Potts (Pottsy), the very short West Ham stalwart of 17 seasons and John Moncur (a midfielder who never really fulfilled his potential from the same era – early mid nineties). But it is Daniel Potts (son of Steve) and George Moncur (son of John) who wore the claret and blue last night. Am I really that old?

The match was in the Capital One Cup second round. It took me a while but that is the League Cup to you and me. The opponents were Crew Alexandra from the first division (3rd division in real money). The Capital One Cup has been incredibly devalued as a trophy in recent years. The biggest clubs play scratch teams against weaker sides because this trophy does not really matter and occasionally they do come a cropper. West Ham played a team with lots of youngsters from “The Academy” last night to rest players for the League match against Fulham on Saturday. Given how woeful the “stars” were at the weekend the youngsters could not have been worse and the Irons sailed through 2-0.

Do I really care what the 3rd round draw brings on Thursday? With one caveat, no. The League Cup is the best, okay only, chance of a trophy coming back to The Boleyn this year but it is so devalued that I would far rather the Hammers won their next 5 games ( all winnable) and so built a platform for avoiding relegation than that they won this trophy.

My caveat is that Swindon (from league one) defeated Stoke (from the Premiership) 4-3, playing away last night. I suspect Stoke fielded a weaker side but this is still a momentous achievement for a team managed by Hammers legend and one of my blog roll idols Paulo di Canio. I would have appointed di Canio not Fat Sam Alladyce as our manager – he wanted the job not for the money but because he feels for West Ham as we do. And so a home tie against Swindon would be a dream result from the draw. Whatever the result come 90 minutes the whole crowd would be singing Paulo’s name. For the first time in ages I would care about – and would desperately want to attend a League Cup tie. Fingers crossed for Thursday.