You're going down with the Shearer!

West Ham 2 Middlesbrough 1

Ken’s Café is free of fry-ups at 3.30 pm on Sunday as we experience yet another kick-off time. DC arrives and then glides away to the Doctor Martens, while Matt and Lisa listen to cheers from the pub as Millwall lose to Scunthorpe. Big Phill is regaling us with tales of giving that Brian Dear and Paul Brush a lift home in the back of his cab after the End of season Gala Evening.

Boro need to win to have any hope of staying up. We have to win to finish either ninth or tenth. We have an ambient end-of-season feel to our game, but at least Cole is back up front and Zola has dropped both Di Michele and Tristan in favour of a five-man midfield.

Johnson fires over from a good position for Boro and inspires chants of “That’s why you’re going down!” Upson does well as Boro press without really threatening. Junior hits the bar with a deflected effort for WHU. Then on 33 minutes Luis Boa Morte plays a great ball through to Herita who crosses for Carlton Cole to slide the ball in to the net.

Boro come into it after the break and inevitably score. Tuncay is allowed the freedom of our area to pass to O’Neil who scores from an angle. But just to prove why they’re rubbish, Middlesbrough let us straight back. Junior Stanislas does well to shoot from the edge of the box but Bates allows his shot to squirm over the line.

“Down with the Geordies! We’re going down with the Geordies!” chant the admirably humorous Boro fans.

Luis Boa Morte has a storming game, winning tackles and running at the Boro defence, being rewarded with his own song from the Bobby Moore Stand. Who’d ever have thought it?

For the last 15 minutes Tristan and Di Michele come on to give us their full repertoire of badly weighted passes and stupid dribbles. “How shit is that? It’s like watching Laurel and Hardy!” rages the vicar’s son beside me. Kieron Dyer makes a couple of runs into their box and looks as knackered as the break-dancing 73-year-old on Britain’s Got Talent. Gav texts to ask us our orders for the Central. We wondeer if he'll be able to sit there alone with five pints, or if it will be like Poo Bear and the honey. The ground breaks into end-of-season choruses of Bubbles and "West Ham 'til I Die!"

We win and Boro go down. Their players collapse. Jeremy Nicholas plays Heroes, two clowns gather in the crowd beside the pitch (Are they Diego and David in disguise?) and it’s announced after the Doris award goes to Junior that Scott Parker is the official Hammer of the Year. Zola who's only five foot three and comes from Italy gives a speech with a feedback-inducing microphone and the lads parade around the stadium.

“It’s more a trudge of honour than a lap,” says Matt as the lads shuffle around the pitch accompanied by a banner and numerous injured stars in suits.

“We’re up a place from last season. That means we’ll win the Premier League in 2018,” I suggest to Fraser.

We adjourn to the blitz-themed beer garden at the Central where Gavin is getting the drinks in. We meet a Welsh Iron from the Valleys who now lives in Poland, over for the match. Matt presents Fraser with a designer cigar. We reflect on the likelihood of Nigel Quashie turning up in a Chadwell Heath broom cupboard over the close season. We’ve come a long way, from knowing what Dean Ashton looked like in August to relegating Boro and finishing ninth, while losing an owner, manager and sponsor. That’s good enough for us.

Hammer of the Year

I've voted for Herita Ilunga as he's slotted in brilliantly at left-back, been consistent all season and plays with real passion and hunger. We've not missed McCartney at all, the player Curbishley resigned over. Plus he writes a good blog too and has lobbied Parliament over human rights abuses in the Congo.

Mattie Upson, Robert Green, Valon Behrami and Scott Parker were all candidates too and even Carlton Cole has been a revelation. Since Zola gave him unconditional love and a bit of shooting practice. Young players of the year are Jack Collison, who at times looked like a young Brooking and James Tomkins has been fantastic in recent weeks.

Mersey beat

Everton 3 West Ham 1

Everton away has an end of season feel to it. By the second half it's more interesting listening to the Hull and Newcastle dogfights on Sky Sports News. Kovac puts us ahead with an unexpected rocket from outside the box — where has he been hiding that ability?
But the game turns on the moment Tomkins concedes a penalty by tripping Cahill and the centre back is somewhat harshly sent off. Saha scores despite Green enticing him to shoot to his left by standing closer to his left post.
The unmarked Yobo fires Everton ahead from a corner after the break, but Hammers come back. Sub Carlton Cole plays a tremendous ball through to Boa Morte who shoots tamely at Howard.
The game's over when Piennar tricks Spector to send over an inviting cross for Saha to tap home his second. There's still time for Robert Green to make absolutely fantastic one-handed save late on to prevent Saha getting his hat-trick.
We've single-handedly resurrected the career of Luis Saha, who has now scored four in two games against us.
Our European dream is over, but really with Di Michele and Tristan up front it was never going to happen and hey, we've been spared 19 games to win the Europa League. Collison has returned, Carlton's played a half and next week we can officially relegate Middlesbrough. Rejoice!

West Ham stars caught in Brewery

“This is proof that the West Ham directors can organise a piss-up in a Brewery!” quipped host Phil Jupitus (pictured with some well dodgy members of a mystery consortium trying to buy the club and install Carol from Ken's Cafe as the stadium catering manager) at the first West Ham End of Season Gale Evening held at the Brewery in Barbican. The night features old and current players mixing with fans who’d paid £250 to charity for their tickets.

Mr Jupitus’ first question to Gianfranco Zola was “Have you ever eaten the full English breakfast in Ken’s Café?” Strangely, his answer was no. Zola was adept at stand-up banter on stage and said he might leave Ken's “not having eaten anything,” before being embraced by Phill.

Ray Winstone upped the geezer quotient on a table including John Motson, Matt Lorenzo, Jeremy Nicholas and Scott Duxbury. Former stars present included Alvin Martin who’s got even less hair but we don’t care, Kenny Brown, the legendary Steve Potts, Paul Brush, Brian Dear, Malcolm Musgrove and, erm, Ray Parlour.

Tony Carr got a sort of lifetime achievement tribute and said we should be nicer to big Fat Frank as his success reflected well upon the club. Matthew Upson and James Collins were discussing golf in the gents and Freddie Sears still looked about seven at close quarters. Walter Lopez, sitting on a table of expats, appeared a little bemused by the cockney banter, but young Kevin Keen joined in a knees-up to the very enjoyable Rat Pack band. And yes, Frank Sinatra crooned Bubbles.

The only thing that was missing from the evening was an appearance by Hayden Foxe…

Boa selector

Luis Boa Morte has been called up for Portugal's training squad, prior to the World Cup qualifier against Albania. They will surely be quaking in the streets of Tirana now the Boa has returned to the world stage. Who needs Carlos Tevez, eh? First Boa got his own song and now this. Luis, we never doubted you (much).

He ain't Chelsea no more

The BBC has agreed to pay libel damages to Gianfranco Zola and Steve Clarke after Harry Harris, speaking on Five Live, "wrongly alleged they had attended an interview with the Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich the previous week with a view to becoming the club's management team next season".

"The broadcast of this unfounded allegation caused Mr Zola and Mr Clarke acute distress and anxiety as it was understandably feared that it would damage their relationship with their employers and with the players and fans of West Ham United," said Zola and Clarke's brief James Quartermaine. Which seems to be legal-speak for "Stick your blur flag up your arse!"

Home truths

West Ham 0 Liverpool 3

It’s chaos at Mile End as numerous fans try to get on the truncated District Line trains. Planned closures for maintenance work, scheduled a year in advance, says TfL. It takes three trains before it’s possible to squeeze on board. You wonder if it might be possible for West Ham to have planned injuries. We could book Kieron Dyer in for September to May already.

Yossi receives a cheer as Jeremy Nicholas announces the teams and plays Fat Boy Slim. We would cheer Mascherano if we remembered him ever playing for us. We kick off and after 60 seconds, in horrible sallow motion, Torres plays the ball though our defence. The centre backs have stepped up, Neill hasn’t and Gerrard calmly rounds Green to score.

Fraser arrives after eight minutes citing a suspect package at Stratford (thought to be Di Michele’s shooting boots) and a late night watching the remains of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. They even performed I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles (better than Frank Sinatra’s version) but sadly there was no sign of Billy Bonds doing a turn.

We improve after the early shock, Kovac heads Noble’s free kick over the bar. Amazingly, Boa Morte is causing them problems. He’s chopped by Mascherano and Alan Wiley waves play on, resulting in chants of “You’re too fat to referee!”.

Tomkins makes a superb tackle on Torres, which we all think is Moore-esque. Boa is hacked down by Mascherano again (what do you expect from a poor man’s Hayden Mullins?) and Liverpool race down the field to win a penalty. Torres heads over after a defensive mix-up, Yossi chips into the path of Torres and Boa Morte pulls his shirt. Green saves the penalty like a goalkeeping Odysseus, but the ball falls straight to Gerard who can’t miss.

Then comes our chance. Carragher air kicks in comic style, leaving Di Michele to run at goal. He hesitates like Bobby Zamora on Valium, tries to round Reina, kicks the ball against his foot, dives and gets booked for simulation. “He wanted to beat three players and then back-heel it in,” suggests Matt.

Liverpool continue to break at lethal sped in the second half. Yossi blazes a volley over, Green saves from Kuyt, Benayoun fires just wide. Boa still wins a few free kicks and Collison gets on for the final xx minutes. He plays one sublime ball to Ilunga down the left.

Di Michele seems to get the ball more than any other player, control it superbly, and then make ridiculous decisions rather than play the simple ball. “How many times? Get him off!” rages the vicar’s son beside me.

Herita (Hammer of the Year anyone?) never stops trying and with Noble is involved in our best move of the game, which ends with the hapless Di Michele firing wide. But really it’s like training game for Liverpool

“It’s a wake up call for this side,” suggests Matt. “We’ll struggle to stay up next season if all we have is Tristan and Di Michele up front,” I suggest. We need to buy at least two strikers.

Four minutes from time Babel has a header saved but scores from the rebound and the Koppites are singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.

And then, because of the 5.30 kick-off, it’s time to rush to East Ham to make an Islington dinner party with Julie from Growing Communities and Polly a barrister turned environmentalist. No consideration for the chattering classes at Setanta.

We’re down to ninth, and now have to hope Parker and Cole are fit for our final two games, otherwise our obligatory tenth spot beckons.