We are staying up!

West Ham 2 Wigan 0

My daughter Nell and her friend Anna are impressed with the sausage and chips in Ken’s Café followed by the purchase of mystery Doctor Who Lego figures in the Who Shop, resulting in one handbot, one Matt Smith and a River Song. Can the game match this? In the end, you could say it was overpriced at a quid for kids.

There’s an end-of-season feel to the match in the bright sunshine, with a group of fancy dress Irons in the Bobby Moore Stand brandishing plastic swords adding to the impression that it’s all nearly over. Fraser’s been to see Dexys the previous evening and is wearing his double-breasted suit in tribute. But can he tell us when West Ham’s light turns green?

Early on Mystic Morris predicts that Kevin Nolan will never score another league goal for the Hammers. Nolan immediately produces a great save from Robles as he volleys goalwards from a quick free kick. Wigan play some good passing stuff and should score early on when McCarthy plays in Maloney for a one-on-one, but his effort is smothered by Jaaskelainen. The Hammers’ take the lead after 21 minutes when Nolan goes for Jarvis’s cross, misses the ball, and the ball deceives keeper Robles. A bit lucky, but we’ll take it.

CAN WE HAVE OUR BALL BACK PLEASE?

Wigan dominate the second half against a lethargic Irons. Maloney dominates the game for Wigan. Boyce fluffs a header and then Beausejour shoots tamely when well placed. Jaaskelainen makes another great stop to deny McArthur after Maloney’s run and pull back.

The statistics tell the story: Wigan have 61 per cent of possession and West Ham a mere 31 per cent. The Irons might be tired after their efforts against Man United, but then Wigan have played on Wednesday too, at Manchester City.

In the second half it seems like a training exercise where the defence has been told to play on its own to see how good it is. It’s too much for the Vicar’s Son: “Vaz Te is having a terrible game… Diame is one of those players who scores a great goal against Man United and then think he can relax against Wigan… that’s terrible from Cole! Do something Allardyce!’

WIGAN NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN 

Thankfully James Collins has a great game at the back and Jaaskelainen is outstanding too. Wigan pay for paying pretty football with no penetration on 80 minutes. Collins’ free kick is chested down by Andy Carroll. His overhead kick is the superbly volleyed home by clucking Kevin Nolan for his 100^th league goal. Except there’s no clucking celebration today, just an arm to the sky in memory of his late aunt. Mystic Morris has been proved wrong again and departs early for the Silverlink.

An unimpressive performance from most of the team, but playing badly and winning isn’t a bad habit. And 42 points and tenth position sees us safe at last. A poor game, but a season of some character from the lads and we’ve achieved what we set out to. Four more wins and we’ll be talking about the Europa League…

We couldn't defend a fish supper…

West Ham 1 Wigan 4 (Capital One Cup)

It’s chaos in Ken’s as I forget to claim my toasted cheese sandwich while talking to Mike about his new pop-up comedy club (not known as West Ham United) earning a blast from Carol and Billy. And then it’s chaos on the streets outside the East Stand as half the season ticket cards haven’t been uploaded. My card works but Fraser has to go to the ticket office to get a paper ticket. Lisa is with us, receiving reports from Crawley versus Swansea from Matt Van Percy.

Big Sam makes nine changes from the side against Sunderland giving starts to Spence, Potts and Hall. Apart from Al Habsi it’s a Wigan reserve side too. It all starts well for the Irons as McArthur slices the ball straight to Maiga who scores with a confident finish after seven minutes.

But then we let in three before half-time. McManaman crosses from the left and £6m Argentine striker Boselli beats Tomkins to the ball to prod home. Centre back Ramis is allowed to stroll through from the half way line without being challenged, Potts backs off, and Ramis shoots home from the edge of the box. Boselli then beats West Ham’s feeble offside trap and chips over Henderson.

Hall shoots just wide before the interval, but Wigan’s passing game is much better than ours — a sign of just what a good manager Martinez is.

Fraser says I Get Around, revealing he’s seen the Beach Boys the previous night. Wouldn’t it be Nice if we could score, I suggest.

Sam moves Potts to left back and McCartney to centre back and our performance improves slightly in the second half. Though it’s a mystery why we don’t have any first team players on the bench to rescue a game like this. Hall hits the bar, Spence wins the match of the match award for some good runs forward. Big Sam brings on endless left-sided players in Taylor and Fanimo but no-one will pass to Jarvis, who makes semaphore signals on the flank without effect. The game's settled on 84 minutes. Gary O’Neil goes down holding his knee but the ref fails to stop play and Wigan win a penalty when Henderson brings down McArthur. Dylan Tombides gets ten minutes of action on his debut but has no time to make any impact in a capitulating side.

The Wigan fans cheer at the final whistle and head off for their taxi. It’s not a great way for Mark Noble to celebrate signing his new contract. Fraser says it’s the most indefensible thing he’s seen since Jeremy Vine danced on Strictly. At least we get a seat in the Black Lion afterwards.

“We couldn’t defend a fish supper,” says Big Sam. Though why would you want to defend a fish supper? He continues with an honest analysis: “There were howling errors from our defenders in all four goals, it was comical. All the good work we might have done with the ball meant nothing in the end because out of possession we were just rubbish. It was an embarrassing defeat. They can't come knocking on my door about not playing now. They've got to take responsibility for their performance. They should have given me a lot more value for my money than they did."

With experienced players like Noble, Jarvis, Tomkins, McCartney, Vaz Te and Maiga in the side we should have done much better. A worrying sign that we don’t have the strength in depth of Wigan. Sam needs to get that fish supper down to Chadwell Heath, put it on the goaline and instruct his charges how to defend it.

Sending out an SOS

West Ham 3 Wigan 1

We’re in Ken’s Café for the board’s designated “Save Our Season” match. Yes, we’re sending out an SOS, Abba style.

Match day announcer Jeremy Nicholas is preparing professionally over a fry up and reveals that Junior Stanislas is in the side and Wigan are bringing 152 fans, who presumably came in a taxi.

My lucky mascot daughters Lola and Nell are with me enjoying the chips and beans. My old school friend Alison and her 15-year-old son Scott are up from Maldon, wondering if Ken’s serves Maldon sea salt. Still, Scott seems happy enough with a huge special breakfast.

An interesting discussion ensues with Alison and Matt about whether the Upton Park crowd are partly to blame for the club’s demise. Alison suggests we’ve tried changing everything apart from the crowd and that ever since she’s been coming there’s been abuse of certain players. Matt agrees that we are a hard crowd to please and certainly in the early Pardew days the crowd would get on the team’s back if they’d gone a goal behind early on.

But conversely we’re also fantastic fans when we get behind the team. Although I do also wonder if we’re a bit like victims of domestic violence, blaming ourselves for our sufferings. West Ham… we were asking for it. An interesting topic, which shall be aired in the blog at greater length.

Inside the ground we learn that Tomkins in at centre back and Ilunga has been dropped. It feels more like a West Ham side with two Academy lads and two wingers in Barrera and Stanislas and Parker and Behrami in the middle. Carlton Cole has been dropped, presumably for saying we’re rubbish (which we were at Liverpool) in the Newham Recorder.

It’s cagey stuff early on, with Cleverley going close for Wigan. Nell asks why West Ham can’t score, and I explain how lack of confidence can affect a football side. But when Parker launches into two buccaneering tackles in the style of Billy Bonds we start to get going.

Lola picks out Behrami and Barrera as our best performers in the first half an hour and wonders why some of the fans give Barrera a hard time. Tomkins is playing well too, doing what a centre half should, nipping in to take the ball early off the Wigan forwards and tackling sharply.

In the 34th minute Jacobsen’s lobbed centre is headed on by Piquionne and Behrami nips between two dawdling defenders to score and run to the corner flag like a Swiss David Beckham.

“We’ve scored!” cheer Lola and Nell, jumping up and down and wearing the expressions of kids who’ve just seen Father Christmas arrive early. After enduring the Blackpool game they’d simply assumed that it was impossible we’d ever score again.

Nigel wonders if taking the lead so early was the worst thing that could possibly happen.

We start to play with belief. Stanislas has a great long distance shot tipped away by Al Habsi and from the corner the keeper produces a world class save from Piquionne’s header. It’s looking good, suddenly we have belief and a winger who shoots.

At half time we discover that Alison was in the loo when Behrami scored. “Can you go again in the second half?” ask Lola and Nell.

It’s interesting that they don’t see taking the lead as a potential problem, unlike their worn down seniors. So young and full of optimism.

Piquionne misses from eight yards early in the second half and you wonder if that will prove costly. But no. Mystic Matt and Mystic Morris are just saying that Obinna has had more shots than any other Premiership player (47) without scoring when Freddie Piquionne twists and turns in the Wigan box, finds Obinna on the left who takes a clever touch to shoot home off the post from an acute angle. Two-nil in our Cup Final.

Yes, it’s Vic there! He looks so startled that he forgets to do his triple somersault, but after the mob of celebrating players has cleared he points two fingers upwards as if thanking God for being an Iron.

Only this being West Ham we concede a penalty as Gabbidon trips the impressive Cleverley. Bizarrely, Wigan allow sub Boselli to take the penalty with his first kick of the game.

“You won’t beat England’s number 16 from there!” I declare. And sure enough Green makes a relatively easy save with his legs from a weak penalty. The crowd erupt.

We’re inspired by that and first to the loose balls. On 75 minutes Parker wins the ball in his own half, runs into the Wigan box, plays in Obinna and sprints for the return to fire into the net from close range. He runs to the Bobby Moore Stand clutching his shirt and shouting superhero things. It’s a great goal, cutting through the defence with the alacrity of a student scarpering from a police kettling operation.

“Daddy, we’ve got confidence!” says a disbelieving Nell.

“Our season is saved!” I declare.

“Don’t say that!” cry the others.

Sure enough just as we’re dreaming of a roasting (in the old fashioned sense), N’Zogbia cuts inside Gabbidon and another defender to find Cleverley, who curls a great shot into the top corner. There are five minutes left. Surely we can’t blow this?

“It’s your fault!” chorus Matt, Nigel and Fraser. I feel like sending out an SOS myself.

We look jittery. In stoppage time Obinna slices the ball, a Wigan player knocks it on and it falls to Moses who scores. But Mike Halsey’s disallowed it for offside, wrongly as it turns out looking at it on Match of the Day. Always said he was a great ref.

We play it in the corners and hold out. Our season is saved! Only it isn’t it seems, as Wolves have won and we’re still bottom. But to have lost would have left us way adrift. And for 85 minutes we’ve played well.

A perfect day is rounded of by a visit to the Who Shop on Barking Road with the girls and an after hours tour of the Who Museum, viewing the Tardis console, cybermats, cybermen, Yeti, Daleks and Tom Baker’s claret jacket. Perhaps it’s the Doctor who’s saved our souls. And I do think Avram Grant might one day have a role in the series…

We travel home on the tube dreaming of unusual things like goals, wingers, shots and victories. Not quite Escape to Victory, but if we treat every game as a Save Our Season match we might even stay up.

Beam us up Scotty

West Ham 3 Wigan 2

Ken’s Café is full of the extended West Ham family, united in suffering; Matt, Nigel, Jo, Mike, Michelle, Phill, Big Joe and even an unnaturally early DC, although the Gav is repairing a puncture somewhere on the motorway.

My old Essex school pal Alison is there with her son Scott, who has a cool touch phone that my kids admire and are soon demanding Daddy purchase. Al and Scott went to Everton in the home end and said the Scouse fans are just like us; moaning a lot and saying the away side were much better.

After a three-year exile in Spain Alison famously rerurned to London and described visiting West Ham in 1988 as “like walking into a room full of really angry men” and I fear she might be in for a further shock today, particularly if she sees the Vicar’s Son getting irate.

Eleven-year-old Lola sensibly prepares for the next day’s three-mile mini-marathon with Ken’s isotonic egg, chips and beans with white bread and sugared tea.

Us fans have done everything we can. I’m taking my daughters — even at £17 a ticket— because they have only seen West Ham lose three times out of a combined 33 games. Matt’s wearing his lucky red England World Cup shirt and Nigel’s brought CQ, his talismanic missus.

We leave young Scott trying to demolish a big breakfast with five minutes to kick off and head in to the Boleyn Stadium.

We concede a corner early doors. The Bobby Moore Stand howl to the referee that Ben Watson has put the ball outside the D but he ignores them. Ginger Watson proceeds to whip in a straightforward corner and Jonathan Spector inexplicably heads the ball into his own net after just three minutes. All going to plan. Erm, you head it away from the goal, Specs.

I wonder what I’ve done taking letting my kids witness this. Nell looks like she’s going to cry and I’ve lost out packet of Starbursts too.

Wigan look much the better passing team. We misplace simple passes and the tension is evident. But we should equalise when Cole capitalises on a lapse by the Wigan back four to round Kirkland and stroke the ball towards goal only for Caldwell to block at the last.

The Wigan keeper has been accidentally caught by Cole’s trailing foot and needs stitches on the pitch.

“What would happen if we broke all the Wigan players’ legs?” asks Lola.

Gently I suggest that this might not be quite the Corinthian spirit that I’ve tried to instill in my children.

Upson looks completely out of form in defence while Behrami and Faubert misplace endless passes. It nearly gets worse when McCarthy hits a 30-yarder that Robert Green brilliantly tips on to a post.

“That could be the turning point of our season,” says Matt. Although so could Cole’s miss.

The crowd are still behind the Irons, willing the side on and chanting “Your support is F***ing s**t!” at the small band of Wigan fans, along with what the kids believe to be a chorus of “Dirty northern custards!”

Then comes a breakthrough. On half an hour Ilan cleverly finds Cole, who drifts wide beats a hesitant Melchiot and crosses for Ilan to score another excellent poacher’s goal. Yes! Even a point would be something.

On half time we’re awarded a free kick after Cole is bundled over on the edge of the box.

“Haven’t we got any players who can take free kicks?” asks Lola.

“Noble can’t. The only player who can is on the bench,” Matt says sagely.

The curse of Mystic Matt works superbly, Noble bends a brilliant free kick over the wall, Kirkland can only punch it up in the air and Kovac heads into the empty net. Two-one in our cup final. And Hull are losing at home to Sunderland too. And to emphasise that fortune is no longer hiding I find the missing Starbursts under our seats.

As the half-time talk turns to the election I wonder if we could decide relegation through a TV debate. Zola would be much more telegenic than Iain Dowie and has a nice smile to impress the floating voters.

“Only Dowie’s a rocket scientist, so he might win,” points out the pragmatic Nigel.

We look even more nervous when we’re winning than we do when we’re losing. Sure enough, five minutes into the second half we’re undone by another simple corner. Watson again doesn’t place the ball inside the D, we lose a flicked header and Rodallega pushes it in with his midriff — although our embarrassed defence claims for hands.

“Wigan are poohy dogs! No, I like dogs, Wigan are poohy crocodiles!” says Nell. “Boo Wigan!”

Wigan really start to look impressive with their quick passing game. Only Da Costa and some great tackles from Parker keep us in it.

A crude foul by Spector stops a fine dribble by N’Zogbia on the edge of the box. Green gets down well to palm away the free kick.

We launch endless high balls at Carlton Cole, who is carrying an injury and now resembles the player of two years ago as the ball cannons off him in a Dowie-esque array of angles.

But we’re still fighting. A Kovac header from a corner skims along the bar. On 77 minutes another long punt is headed on by substitute Franco to Parker, who has time on the edge of the box to fire home an unstoppable shot into the far corner.

It's a fantastic goal. The normally reserved Scotty runs to the crowd with an expression not seen since Ray Winstone hit that bloke with the pool balls and announced “I’m the f***ing Daddy now!” in Scum.

The fired-up Hammer shouts at the crowd and then runs to embrace Zola on the touchline in a not-so-coded message to the Club Landlord.

The next 13 minutes are an excruciating mess of whistling and worry as “Super Scotty Parker!” rings round the ground.

We take the ball into the corners, lose it, concede free kicks and waste some time bringing on Daprela in the third minute of added time. Lola and Nell are as tense as everyone else and I’m pleased to se it, but sure we’re going to concede a Gerrard-like shot late on.

And finally the whistle blows. Jeremy Nicholas announces that Hull have lost and plays Bubbles followed by Hi Ho Silver Lining. Upton Park erupts in exhausted celebration as a 33,000 fans wonder if Burnley can win three games or Hull make up a minus 23 goal difference. No, even we can’t mess this up, surely?

A text arrives from my mate Nick, whom I’d informed of the "we’re desperate so I’ll take the lucky kids ploy” reading “It worked!” I text Her Indoors the news. We celebrate at the Who Shop (newly moved to Barking Road) by buying the girls a Doctor Who comic and novel and nipping into the Tardis with Amy Pond to move forward five years to see us win the Premier League at the Olympic Stadium.

We even get home in time to see the Weeping Angels (Hull City fans maybe?) on Doctor Who. It’s one of the most emotionally exhausting games I’ve ever been to but now we can dream of survival. As long as we don’t lose 24-0 to Fulham that is.