Tuesday, July 25

Little Pea joins the ranks of Psycho and Terminator

The signing of Javier Hernandez brings a welcome upgrade to the quality of Hammers' nicknames. He is nicknamed Chicharito, meaning Little Pea. His dad, also a footballer, was nicknamed Pea because of his green eyes. It's certainly a change from the likes of Mooro, Bonzo, Pottsy, Keeny, Tonks and Nobes. West Ham have had some interesting nicknames in the past. Alvin Martin was nicknamed Stretch because he used to stretch out watching television while the lads nicknamed Trevor Brooking Hadleigh because he resembled the lead character in a 1970s TV series. Paul Goddard was Sarge due to his involvement in the Boys Brigade.

Other nicknames have been performance-related. We had David 'Psycho' Cross and Stuart 'Psycho' Pearce, Julian 'Terminator' Dicks and our favourite canine midfielder, Martin 'Mad Dog' Allen. While the very large Papa Bouba Diop was simply The Wardrobe. Of the current squad, we're pretty short of nicknames even if we do have Ginger Pele in James Collins and the Enid Blyton-inspired Snoddy in the case of Robert Snodgrass and Manuel Lanzini is called 'The Jewel' in Argentina. Let's hope the arrival of Little Pea inspires a host of new vegetable-inspired monikers. If only we still had Michael Carrot and Florin Radish-cioiu.

5 comments:

Jackhammer said...

Hi Pete,
I can hardly believe it so far, for a small club we have done good business.
Man U is now a game I am looking forward to rather than being nervous about, Little Pea could give them a right poke in the eye!
Heres hoping anyway,
Rob

PT said...

Not forgetting Tony Kale

Pete May said...

Good call PT! Yep Rob, we're not signing youngsters but they al lok an improvement on last season.

mj said...

I'm saying our centre halves are looking a bit slow? Reidy, Ginge, Fonte

Pete May said...

Assume Ogbonna will play most games, and Reid is fairly quick in the tackle. Though you're right about Ginge and Fonte, MJ, while Zabaleta must be slowing a bit at 32. Maybe we should play five at the back in some matches so we don't get too exposed.