Monday, May 21

Always believe in Carlton Cole!

Thought Carlton Cole, who's had a lot of stick this season, had one of his best ever games for West Ham on Saturday. He scored a great goal, set up a clear opportunity for Vaz Te to shoot wide, forced a great save from Gilks, set up the winner and led the line with a performance of real character. He gave away the ball on the half-way line for their goal, admittedly, but can't really be blamed for our sleeping defence.

Maybe it was the two-week break, but CC finally looked fit too. He's played through injury a lot of the season, including the last eight weeks he says, but has always worked hard and ended up with 15 goals. And as a lot of the papers write today, his wages were halved this season, from 28k to 14k a week, which while not exactly leaving him short of the price of a full breakfast in Ken's Cafe, does show his commitment to the club when he could have moved to Stoke or Turkey for bigger money. And he appears to have a real feeling for the club to judge by his Tweets:  "West Ham have shown me a home. I'm happy here as long as they want me." He deserved his "Sex and Drugs and Carlton Cole" banner. And to top it all, my old mate Steve "North Bank Norman" Rapport has, in words I never thought I'd hear, just called CC a "legend for life" on Twitter. 

Meanwhile Blackpool's Baptiste says all our players are "ten-foot tall", which seems a little bit of sour tangerines when you consider that Noble, O'Neil, Taylor, Nolan and Vaz Te are not exactly giants. Congratulations to the Daily Mirror though, for managing to get every cockney cliche going in its match report, including jellied eels and Dot Cotton. I'm off for a right-royal cockney knees-up...

3 comments:

Chrissy Brand said...

Oh well, I'd better show Manchester my ancestral Essex roots too & will go to the Manchester canalside beach for my lunch now and insist they serve jellied eels instead of mushy peas...

...Thanks for a great season of reports Pete-I always turn here first for Hammers' news.

Who should we sign and sell in the summer?

matt said...

Sick as a Flaubert's Parrot? So farewell then Julien, ending a long tradition of Pete May jokes, involving a 19th Century writer with a similar name. He probably had his best season for us this year, but overall the terrible injury he suffered when he first signed put a cloud over his Hammers career. Some fans seemed to have an issue with his crossing ability, but he had some speed and always put in a shift. Faye has been unlucky - he was contending for Player of the Season at one point, but then he gave away a silly penalty against Reading, and was not seen again. Diop had his moments, but also his injuries, and Carew looked great against Blackpool at home, but his mobility suffered later in the season, to say the least. Nouble was hardly a surprise, although he might have stayed had we not been promoted. No sign of Little or Big Fred in the released list, so I don't know what is happening there. Angela has been returned to the Library, but I still hope we may sign him.

With the Sweary Prof and Peter "never had a nickname" Kurucz also gone, we have released 8 and signed one so far (Hendo).

Pete May said...

Glad you enjoyed the blog over the season Chrissy. And say hello to Carlos Tevez in Manchester... maybe he's homesick for East London.

And agree with your comments Matt, just done a post on Faubert's sentimental education, etc.