We've only got ten men! (Again)

West Ham 1 Southampton 1

In Ken’s Café we’re musing whether West Ham could stay forever top of the Championship rather than return to the foothills of the Premiership. Could we be in a kind of “we’re West Ham United we’re top of the league” purgatory? “It’s almost Miltonian,” muses Big Joe, mentioning West Ham’s Paradise Lost. This is possibly the first time the word Miltonian has ever been uttered in Ken’s Café.

Anyone who’s anyone appears to be in Ken’s tonight. Alison, Scott and Joey O’Brien (no relation) are up from Essex, there’s John formerly of Shelter and Matt’s brought Lisa out for a romantic Valentine’s night dinner, having earlier been on a mini-break to Margate. “You can keep the Costa Brava and all that palaver, going no farther, me I'd rather have me a day down Margate with all me family,” suggests Matt, before recommending that Tate gallery there.

Big Joe is also with his Missus, and is offering Candy a tour of the Central and other Barking Road boozers after the match, along with Big Phill trying to decide which one Bobby Moore used to own.

There’s a good turnout in the stadium and a great atmosphere, helped by the noisy Saints contingent. For the first twenty minutes West Ham play some of the best football of the season. In the first minute slack marking from the Saints defence allows Vaz Te to burst through and strike a low half-volley that Davis does well to save. Reid later puts a chance over the bar from a few yards out and generally we look fluid with Vaz Te adding some pace to the forward line.

ONE MAN DOWN ONE GOAL UP

Then comes a very West Ham moment as we manage to both win a penalty and get a player sent off. Noble is brought down by Billy Sharp for the penalty, which looks clear enough to us. Sharp then accuses Nobes of cheating. Matt Taylor appears to punch him and Lee Probert is straight out with his red card. Later replays suggest Taylor has only pushed Sharp in the chest, though he goes down in the fashion of Sonny Liston being floored by Muhammad Ali’s phantom punch. Stupid of Taylor to raise his arms though and indiscipline is threatening to wreck our season.

Skipper Mark Noble ends all the fuss by calmly scoring his seventh penalty of the season on his 200^th appearance.

The Bobby Moore Stand serenades us with the new theme song of “We’ve only got ten men!” Big Sam removes Collison and brings on McCartney at left back. Carlton Cole takes tremendous punishment up front with no protection from the ref and is even clattered by keeper Kelvin Davis. Noble gets some great tackles in while Faubert shows great workrate but always gets his third touch slightly wrong.

We’re playing with spirit but the extra man shows as Robert Green makes a great double save from Sharp and then dives low to tip another Sharp shot wide after good skill by Lallana.

Going in still winning at the break feels like a victory. West Ham celebrate Valentine’s Day with a post-feminist half-time pitch appearance from Hayley Mac, a beauty queen from Grays and Miss Essex, Sydney Jennings. So there is hope for Russell Brand.

In the second half the ref still seems to get everything wrong. At one point Lee Probert gives Noble a free kick for stepping on the ball, though at least he doesn’t red card the ball. Faubert trips when he appears likely to score. Saints put a free header over but West Ham do a pretty sound defensive against seemingly endless corners until 15 minutes from the end.

WE'RE TOP OF THE LEAGUE

The skillful Lallana swings in a free kick after Abdy Faye goes down like Basil Fawlty suffering from his war would in a bid to waste a bit of time. Lambert knocks the ball back and Dutch defender Hooiveld prods home a softish equalizer.

But a draw will still keep us top of the league. The Upton park faithful make a lot of noise and immediately break into Bubbles after the Saints equaliser. Best performance from the fans this season.

Maynard comes on for Cole and after some slight hesitancy from the Saints defence fires an acrobatic volley towards the top corner that forces a great save from Davis. Promising from the new boy.

“You’ve only got twelve men!” chorus the Irons fans. We survive four minutes of added time and remain top of the league.

Nigel’s alternative route to the Black Lion takes us around most of East London, but eventually we make it into the back bar for restorative pints of Maldon Gold and Captain Bob in front of Sky Sports News. Not a disaster, but we’ve had six players sent off this season and it has to stop. We could have gone four points clear if we’d kept everyone on the pitch, though in the circumstances it’s another gritty performance from the Irons. If we ever get to play with 11 men we might be quite good. 

The Saints come marching in...

Offered Her Indoors a romantic Valentine's Day date at Upton Park tonight but strangely she declined Kenneth's Bistro and the Academy of Football under the glow of the floodlights. Would be nice to see either Maynard and Vaz Te get a game up front alongside Cole and Morrison given some minutes to see what all the fuss is about. With Matt Taylor fit we might at least get some decent crosses in... and the midfield may have more pace without the suspended Nolan. Hopefully it will be a better result than the St Valentine's Day Massacre when we lost 6-0 at Oldham in the Littlewoods Cup Semi-Final.

What might have been

Nasty feeling looking at Spurs v Newcastle on MOTD last night. Scott Parker starring in midfield, 16-goal Demba Ba up front for Newcastle and two successful managers that West Ham sacked in Harry Redknapp and Alan Pardew.

Posh romance

Breaking news… My pal Matt has taken his WAG Lisa to Peterborough anyway, despite the postponement of the WHU game. After all he's going to be at West Ham v Southampton on Valentine's night, so what could be more romantic than an early Valentine's Day trip to, erm, Peterborough. The Cathedral is stunning, apparently, though everything else is closed. This is a man who has previously taken Lisa for mini-breaks in Wigan, Bolton and Stoke, all strangely coinciding with West Ham away games. A true football romantic.

Game over, man

Nothing worse than waking up to a postponed game at Peterborough. And all because it's been -13 up there overnight, which is warm to most Geordies. As I'd already booked my rail tickets it's now a case of seeing if there's a way of getting them refunded and then walking the dog. What did humans do on Saturdays before football was invented?

Harry writes better than a two-year-old...

Just checked the inside cover of Harry Redknapp: My Autobiography, from when I interviewed Harry for Loaded back in 1998. 'Arry  signed his book  with the words "GREAT INTERVIEW", admittedly in caps, but all spelt correctly. 
He was a diamond geezer throughout. We did a photo shoot in Leicester Square and he claimed not to know where he was, saying he only ever went out in the East End. He also said that his late mum had egg and chips waiting for him on the way home and that he met his missus Sandra in the Two Puddings at Stratford… At least our Harry's unlikely to get into problems with thoughts on reincarnation, as Glenn Hoddle did.

Who is the mystery man?

David James had a good piece on captaincy in last weekend's Observer and mentioned a troublesome individual at West Ham in 2002-03. He wrote:
"At West Ham we had a player who managed to alienate everyone in the first team. It was the year that we were fighting relegation and endless stories were being leaked to the press causing further upset in the dressing room. When we finally discovered the culprit, the entire team united against him. As a result he was left off the team sheet, a sensible decision taken by the manager. By Christmas, however, and ravaged by injuries, we desperately needed reinforcements. Trevor Brooking, our manager by then, called a team meeting to say: "We're struggling for numbers, we're going to have to use our pal in the next game." The consensus was that we did not want him anywhere near the first team but the logic was that, if the guy could help us win a game, then we were not in a position to hold grudges. Avoiding relegation was our priority over everything. We did not manage to dodge the drop but we did go down with a record number of points after a superb final run-in."
James has his dates slightly wrong as Brooking did not step in until Glenn Roeder's collapse in April. But there's only one individual I can think of who was dropped and came back into the side for the final run in...