A special Brand of ham

40 years ago, England won the World Cup. This made them the greatest football team there has ever been, and every player in that team a legend. The fact that England have won nothing since, not even contesting another final, is because referees and opposition players have cheated them of their rightful dues. In no other way can the aberration be explained.
The captain of the victorious England team, Bobby Moore, and the striker who scored a hat-trick in the final, Geoff Hurst, played for West Ham. In essence then, England's success is due to West Ham. West Ham is the cradle of English football. English football can only be truly great if the England team has a nucleus of West Ham players. The welfare of West Ham United is thus of national significance. The club plays a unique brand of English football, pure English football if you will. English football in its truest form.
Ideally, the England team includes West Ham players, but if not, players who once played for the club are the next best thing. They have at least learned to play the game the West Ham way, and since the West Ham way is what won England the World Cup, so it will be what wins the trophy back.
If you are a journalist, a writer, a TV presenter or DJ, or a celebrity in the public eye, you must express your opinions of the England football team. To not do so is to be unpatriotic. The England football team is what your public - the English people - care about most. And since West Ham United is the embodiment of all that is great about English football, it helps if you have an interest in them too. Ideally you are a diehard West Ham fan, whose articles lamenting the present state of West Ham (and England) are incoherent wails of anguish, lapped up with delight by your equally grief-stricken audience.
Ideally you are Russell Brand. Do not worry about your am-dram, Dot Cotton performances on the radio - you are a lovable Cockerney speaking the true voice of England, the voice of Babs Windsor, of dear old Reggie Kray, of Pete Doherty and Jack the Ripper, of the saucy Southend seaside and dear old Landan tarn. Do not worry about submitting newspaper articles so full of babbling gibberish they read like adolescent poetry - you are speaking on behalf of the nation in a voice that is their own. You are speaking the language of England just as West Ham are playing the football of England. You are Russell Brand. You love West Ham. You love England. England loves you.
Which is why I'm glad I live in Scotland. I do not love you. I do not love your club. I do not love your country. I think you are a talentless mockney twat. I am bored witless of hearing about your beloved Hammers and their 'unique' Brand of football. I am sick to death of hearing you and your media colleagues drone endlessly on about the salt-of-the-Earth West Ham fans, their love of good football, their love of England, and how their poor start to the season is a tragedy. It isn't. It is an irrelevance. The team plays the same football is almost every other team in the country - mostly insipid, dull and flair-free - and their fans are indistinguishable from the imbeciles who fork out barrowloads of cash every week to watch any other Premiershit team. You aren't special, you never have been, and until you realise this you never will be.

Comments

madliam said…
As if to prove my point, the BBC Sport website has currently got the two "biggest" sports stories of the moment as:
1. West Ham have new manager
2. West Ham player fears new manager won't pick him