Inching closer

West Ham finally played against a fellow straggler the way the side has played against teams in the top six, as they dominated Wigan Athletic in a 3-0 win that wasn't even as close as the score indicates. Wigan had few threatening chances, and when they tried to push the action, they were vulnerable to the countertattack, which was part of the second and third goals scored by the Hammers. I can't think of a single player who looked poor for West Ham. It was quite a reversal from the last time I saw them play, in the 3-0 loss to Sheffield United. Goals from Luis Boa Morte, Yossi Benayoun and Marlon Harewood, keyed by excellent playmaking by Lucas Neill, Bobby Zamora and Carlos Tévez led to the most impressive game West Ham has played in the short time that I have been watching them.

The win did not lift the Hammers out of the relegation zone, but they are in the drop zone only on goal differential now, tied with Wigan. Three results Saturday bode well for West Ham. Charlton Athletic lost 4-1 to Blackburn Rovers. Manchester United has nearly closed the door on Chelsea's ambitions to win the league. Man U beat Everton 4-2 despite a 2-0 lead for Everton at 50 minutes. Chelsea and Bolton drew at 2 goals apiece, leaving the Blues five points back of the Red Devils with three matches yet to play. Chelsea manager José Mourinho acknowledged that the league title "is almost lost, almost." That could work in West Ham's favor, as Manchester United is in the midst of a challenging series of games in the Premiership, Champions League and the FA Cup. By the time West Ham visits Old Trafford on May 13, Man U is likely to have wrapped up the Premiership title, and will have the FA Cup final on May 19 to look forward to. Besides that, Man U is playing the second leg of the Champions League semifinals this week, and could have a May 23 date for the final in Athens on the calendar. Combine the declining meaning of their match with West Ham with their injury woes and the busy schedule, and West Ham may be able to sneak the vital point or three that day that keeps them in the Premiership. Not that I would want to count on that game to stay up, but things beyond West Ham's control are breaking their way.

In other action Saturday, Sheffield United beat Watford 1-0 on an own goal, giving the Bramall Lane faithful some relief, as Sheffield is now two clubs and three points above the drop zone. Fulham, just one point ahead of West Ham, is about to start a fixture against Arsenal at Emirates Stadium as I type this. The table has tightened at the bottom, even as the final standings at the top become ever clearer.

One other important thing happened with Saturday's fixture: The Marquette Grad finally got to see West Ham score a goal. TMG had suffered through three scoreless efforts by West Ham, starting with the 1-0 loss at Upton Park against Watford in the Premiership, the game that we attended in February. She also patiently watched West Ham get smoked by Charlton Athletic 4-0 two weeks later as we sat at home and I made breakfast. And then there was the Sheffield United loss that we took in from the Globe two weeks ago. TMG has already put up with a lot already as I become more interested in football. The least the Hammers could do is score a goal or two every now and then.

TMG and I were getting ready to leave for the Globe Saturday morning when the subject of Jonathan Spector came up. Spector is a native of Arlington Heights, the same suburb that TMG grew up in. She suggested that Spector should be my favorite player.

VG: Well, he rarely plays. How can he be my favorite player if I've never seen him out there?
TMG: Doesn't matter. He should be your favorite.
VG: Um, I didn't grow up in Arlington Heights.
TMG: Uh, your girlfriend did, and you used to work there.

I found these to be insuffient reasons for adopting Spector as my favorite player. Sure enough, though, he came on for Carlos Tévez near the end of Saturday's game. I pointed him out to TMG and her brother as Spector ran on the pitch.

Still, I'm sticking with Yossi Benayoun as my favorite player.

It's only money

The verdict from an indpendent panel named by the FA is in: West Ham are fined £5.5 million (about $11 million) for the improper transfers of Carlos Tévez and Javier Mascherano, but the club won't suffer a points deduction that could have amounted to a relegation sentence. West Ham admitted the club was guilty of deceiving the FA about the third party that retained partial control over the two Argentinians, but its cooperation and the change in ownership and executive management seems to have brought mercy on the Irons.

The initial reports that I read about this Friday afternoon said that West Ham would have to sign Tévez to a new deal that eliminated the third-party partial ownership of his rights. The Times reported that Tévez was cleared to play for the remaining three games of the Premiership season. Predictably, one columnist already has taken the angle that it's not fair to other teams near the bottom of the table if Tévez helps West Ham to stay up. The writer, David Bond of the Telegraph, contends that the club's deceiving of the FA is what especially makes it unfair that they may avoid the ultimate penalty.

This situation seems unprecedented to me. The fine is more than triple the largest fine ever handed out by the FA. The charges seem as serious as can be leveled. Situations like this don't come up much in American sports. Even baseball, which has a very international player pool, has clear-cut rules for players signing with clubs, often years before they are ready to play in the major leagues. Only baseball players from Japan go through a situation that compares to the football transfer market, and the number of players moving from Japan to Major League Baseball is far fewer than the myriad players shifting from one league to another in football.

Obviously, I'm relieved that there was no points deduction. West Ham is still alive for its huge six-pointer at Wigan on Saturday. TMG and I are going to watch it at the Globe.

Hanging around

Just three days after a 4-1 spanking by Chelsea, West Ham managed to keep its all-but-expired hopes alive with a 1-0 victory over Everton at Upton Park. I did not try out Setanta Broadband, as I thought I might, because I have been rather busy ahead of a trip overseas. But the accounts of the game that I read credited West Ham with playing much better on the back line than in the losses to Sheffield United and Chelsea. Lucas Neill, Anton Ferdinand and James Collins all were singled out for their play by various reporters. The Irons, too, were fortunate that Everton striker Andy Johnson left in the seventh minute with an ankle injury. Bobby Zamora, even as he continues to battle a knee injury, scored the lone goal of the match in the 13th minute. The Times likened West Ham's task to Steve McQueen's in The Great Escape. The paper noted that McQueen's character ultimately finds himself thwarted by a barbed wire fence.

I was disappointed that I didn't get to see Zamora's goal. I recorded the "Super Saturday" highlights program on Fox Soccer Channel, but the West Ham-Everton game wasn't featured. By the time I watched it, the EPL Review program had already been broadcast. I'm especially disappointed because the goal was set up by Yossi Benayoun on a back-heel pass that fooled two defenders. In the short time that I have been watching West Ham, Benayoun has become a personal favorite. Maybe it's just a result of having seen him play only a handful of times, but Benayoun seems to be a solid player who always makes the right decision. I love watching the wizardry of a player such as Carlos Tévez, but in some ways, I appreciate even more the consistently steady performers such as Benayoun.

Other results from the weekend mostly favored West Ham. Charlton Athletic and Sheffield United played to a draw, so West Ham picked up two points on both of them. Liverpool beat Wigan, West Ham's next opponent, 2-0. Fulham and Blackburn Rovers drew, and while a Blackburn victory would have been preferred, a draw is not disastrous. The bottom of the table has tightened considerably, with just four points separating 15th (Fulham) from West Ham second from bottom.

Looming over the results on the pitch, of course, is the FA's inquiry into the signings of Argentinians Carlos Tévez and Javier Mascherano. The Premier League's disciplinary commission will conduct a hearing on the signings on Thursday. What's interesting is that those involved in the signings are no longer involved with West Ham, of course. Eggert Magnusson, the club's chairman, and manager Alan Curbishley both have joined the club subsequent to the signings. It would be horribly ironic if the commission deducts Premiership points from West Ham's total for signing two players who were underused during Alan Pardew's tenure. That points total perhaps would be bigger if Tévez, in particular, had played more often.

It doesn't look like I will be able to watch Saturday's match at Wigan Athletic. It is not on Fox Soccer Channel. I am also leaving Saturday afternoon on a family trip to Italy, so I'm not sure that I'll be up for going to the Globe. Maybe if I get myself fully packed ahead of time, I'll be able to do it. That would make for a very long day, but maybe it will be worth it.

Fading silver

There is almost nothing to be optimistic about concerning West Ham's match with Chelsea Wednesday at Upton Park, but it's my nature, when presented an overcast sky, to see silver linings everywhere.

Chelsea's exciting 2-1 victory on Sunday against Blackburn at Old Trafford in the FA Cup Semifinals went just about as well as West Ham manager Alan Curbishley could have hoped. The Blues were stretched by Blackburn to two extra-time periods. Chelsea striker Andrei Shevchenko was injured and will miss Wednesday's fixture. Chelsea may find an extra smidge of urgency thanks to Manchester United's 2-0 win over Sheffield United expanding Man U's lead to six points at the top of the table.

At least West Ham should be well rested, as they didn't exactly play all out against Sheffield United. OK, that was finding a silver lining in a hurricane. More seriously, Curbishley was unhappy with the effort by striker Carlos Tévez, and Curbishley discussed the problem with his Argentinian star. The idea seems to be that the team feeds off Tévez's energy, so when he came out flat, in Curbishley's opinion, that left the rest of the team flat, too. It's fair to note that Tévez played well at the outset of the second half at Sheffield United. It was during this period that West Ham had its best chances, and Tévez was in the middle of them, but they couldn't dent the net in what was a 1-0 deficit to Sheffield United at the time.

West Ham has managed three wins against the top four clubs -- two against Arsenal and one against Manchester United -- and lost to Chelsea 1-0 at Stamford Bridge back in November. Of course, any silver lining regarding the Hammers' play against the top clubs has to be measured with the poor results against the other teams scrapping for survival at the bottom of the table: two losses to Charlton Athletic, a loss and a tie to Watford, a win and a loss to Sheffield United and a loss to Wigan with the fixture at Wigan remaining. West Ham also drew twice with Fulham.

The fixture with Chelsea will not be televised on Fox Soccer Channel, and neither will Saturday's with Everton. I am thinking about giving Setanta Broadband a trial. For $11.99, I can watch matches on Setanta for a month, which would take me to the end of the Premiership season. Has anyone tried Setanta Broadband? Do you have any suggestions for working it?

(Music to write by: Charlatans UK, "The Charlatans UK.")

Frittered

Sheffield United really put a crimp in our morning. An excellent strike from Michael Tonge in the 39th minute finally put the evidence on the scoreboard that the Blades were outplaying West Ham at Bramall Lane. A pair of second-half goals added to the foreboding we all felt in the back room at the Globe. Well, almost all of us felt that: There were a handful of Manchester United fans who were staking out positions to watch the Red Devils' FA Cup semifinal against Watford, which followed the 9 a.m. games. I doubt they cared about a fixture featuring two teams at the bottom of the table.

Even after a three-game win streak, I knew that West Ham had only a small chance of beating the drop. Losing 3-0 to Sheffield United largely kills whatever slim hopes we had. We'll know more tomorrow, after Charlton and Wigan play, but West Ham couldn't afford to come away empty-handed at Bramall Lane today. That win streak was fun while it lasted.

Sheffield United-West Ham was the main game in the back room. It was on the big projector screen and several flatscreens, too. The Marquette Grad and I joined a crowd of six or seven West Ham fans. There was a father and son in West Ham jerseys. The father's had Dr. Martens as the sponsor on the front. I overheard him speaking to the waitress with an English accent. I think there was another father-and-son table immediately to our right. The father asked TMG if he could buy a cigarette from her for a dollar. She let him have one for nothing, as he was wearing West Ham gear. As we were leaving the back room (there was no way we were paying $20 to watch Man U demolish Watford), she left another one on the table for him.

TMG enjoyed the atmosphere, even if she didn't enjoy the 7:25 a.m. wake-up time. It didn't hurt that I made breakfast for us before we left for the Globe. Once there, I had pints of Guinness, she had Bloody Marys. She pointed out something to me: West Ham has not scored a goal in her presence, either the one time we saw them in person (against Watford at Upton Park) or the two matches we have watched on TV (Charlton and Sheffield United). I know what you're thinking. I did make that joke to her after she pointed that out to me. She doesn't appear to be bad luck when we go to White Sox games (although, suspiciously, they lost today, too, and also did not score...).

Anton Ferdinand probably had the toughest day of any Hammer. His foul just outside the box set up Tonge's free-kick strike, and the announcers believed that he should have received his second yellow card for the offense. It wasn't Ferdinand's fault that Jon Stead came free down the right side, of course, but Ferdinand did little to impede Stead's run, either, resulting in the final goal. I've barely ever played the game and have only been watching it closely for a few months, but even I could see that Ferdinand was unsteady the entire game. He looked unsure whenever he needed to clear the ball.

I also thought that Bobby Zamora appeared to be a step slow. I have to imagine that it's because of his knee injury, which has kept him out of training between matches. He did play better in the second half, as the team did as a whole for about 15 minutes. But they missed the best chances that came during that stretch: Lucas Neill on a deft pass from Carlos Tévez (thanks to a great save from Sheffield United keeper Paddy Kenny) and Tévez (who shot high from 12 yards). If one of those chances goes in, perhaps it's an entirely different game. Maybe West Ham used up all their luck in beating Arsenal last week. I know that they have used up all the boost that that surprise win gave to their chances to beat the drop.

Some switch, eh?

Welcome to The Pride of the East End, a blog about a novice soccer fan in Chicago who roots for West Ham United. You may be familiar with my first blog, Exile in Wrigleyville, a blog about the White Sox written by a North Sider. (Much of this post, incidentally, came from a post that I wrote for Exile in February.) I hope you'll follow along as I shift gears to write about a game that I didn't grow up with, unlike baseball.

Until recently, I'd never been much of a fan of soccer -- I'll call it football from here on out. Other than a few times in gym class, I never played the game. The game wasn't on television much, and I didn't watch it when it was. In 1998, my friends and I went to a Chicago Fire game. It was my first professional football game. We went because we wanted to watch Bo Deans perform after the game.

Six years ago, I went to London with a couple of former co-workers. One of them had spent a summer studying in London when she was in college, and we stayed with an Englishman, named James, whom she had befriended during that summer. A few months after our trip, James visited Chicago, and at his urging, he and I went to a Fire game. He taught me a few things about the game that night. For instance, he explained the offsides rule to me. Having watched a fair amount of hockey, offsides, to me, had to do with a line on the field. It just had to. So I was wondering as we watched the game: Is it the center line? Is it the bigger box in front of the goal? (Yeah, I didn't even know that that was called the penalty box.) The game made a whole lot more sense to me after I stopped expecting the players to clear the offensive zone when the ball passed over the center line. James roots for Queens Park Rangers, which has improved its results of late to put some distance between themselves and the drop zone in the Coca-Cola Championship.

That was it until I watched some of the 2002 World Cup. I even got up early to watch the U.S. team play in the quarterfinals against Germany. The American team lost 1-0, but it was quite a game. They had plenty of chances, including one near-miss that I thought had gone in for the equalizer. I leaped out of my recliner and yelled, "Gooooooooooooooooooal!" It looked like it was in the back of the net, but the ball was just sitting on top of the side netting.

After that, I didn't watch much football over the next few years. I recall tuning into a Fire playoff game a couple of years ago. I was just flipping around and stopped on the game, as there wasn't much else on. I think it went to extra time and the Fire won. I think. If I recall correctly, Justin Mapp came on as a substitute and made a great run down the right sideline and a good cross to the front of the net on the winner.

It was a similar situation last spring that brought me to watch West Ham United. I was just flipping around the dial on a weekend morning last spring when I came across an FA Cup match involving West Ham on Fox Soccer Channel. It's a part of my basic cable package on RCN. I decided to watch the game because I have a good friend named Phil who roots -- no, lives and dies -- with West Ham. Phil is an Aussie, but he lived in London for a few years and became a West Ham fan. "I'll watch Phil's team play," I thought. The Hammers won that day. I'm probably lucky that I didn't watch the heartbreaker in the FA Cup 2006 finals against Liverpool.

I watched some of the World Cup last summer, too. My girlfriend (whom I refer to as The Marquette Grad online) and I watched the second half of the England-Portugal quarterfinal match in a bar near Wrigley Field on my birthday, which happened to fall during the Cubs-Sox series at Wrigley. We went to John Barleycorn to have lunch and meet some friends who had tickets to give us for the Sunday game. The England-Portugal match captivated the entire bar -- and if you've been in the Wrigleyville John Barleycorn, you know that's a pretty big space. It was a scoreless tie after 120 minutes (90 minutes of regulation plus two 15-minute overtime periods). Portugal won on penalty kicks, but TMG and I had headed home by then to make the first pitch of the crosstown game. Still, the match reminded me how much fun it can be to watch top-notch football.

Late last year, I started watching Barclays English Premier League matches on FSC, including the Irons occasionally. I tuned in to watch the last 15 minutes of the West Ham-Manchester United game that marked Alan Curbishley's start at Upton Park. It was thrilling to watch the Hammers hold off Man U. About the same time, TMG and I began talking about visiting her sister and brother-in-law in London. They are about halfway through a three-year work stint for an American company's London-area operations. So as we were trying to pick a long weekend to make the trip, I consulted the West Ham schedule. West Ham's home match against Watford on Feb. 10 fit our schedule. Losing to Watford was a brutal, but perhaps appropriate, introduction to being a Hammers fan.

I'm at a stage where I'm soaking up information about the game as rapidly as I can. I watch as many games as I can through FSC and ESPN's coverage of the UEFA Champions League. I'm a newly minted subscriber to Four-Four-Two, a copy of which I picked up in London and read nearly cover-to-cover on our flight home from London. (Unfortunately, I'm still waiting for the first issue to arrive.) I am reading The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Football. The reviewer in Four-Four-Two made it sound like something that I couldn't pass up as a new fan of the game. I'll share my thoughts when I finish it. One of the things that I really appreciate about English football is the long history of the clubs. It reminds me a lot of baseball. This book is providing me with some of the background that can enrich the watching of a sport, when you know the historical basis for various rivalries that go beyond mere geography.

This blog probably isn't going to provide sophisticated analysis, at least not for a while. The game is still new to me. What I hope I will be able to do is use this blog as a vehicle to learn more about the game and to share that discovery process with readers. I welcome you and appreciate the time you took to visit the site.

Does history offer any clues?

I don't know if this table will tell us anything about West Ham's fight to beat the drop, but I compiled it (from Wikipedia), so I may as well share it. The three columns in the middle give point totals for the: the team that was the last to avoid relegation, the team that was the last to be relegated and the champs:

Year	Last in	Last out	Champion	Teams	Notes
2005-06	38	34	91	20
2004-05	34	33	95	20	West Ham promoted
2003-04	39	33	90	20
2002-03	44	42	83	20	West Ham relegated
2001-02	40	36	87	20
2000-01	42	34	80	20
1999-00	36	33	91	20
1998-99	41	36	79	20
1997-98	40	40	78	20
1996-97	41	40	75	20
1995-96	38	38	82	20
1994-95	48	45	89	22	Four sent down this year
1993-94	43	42	92	22
1992-93	49	49	84	22	West Ham promoted

Right now, West Ham stands at 29 points with six fixtures remaining. Manchester United are top of the table with 78 points and six fixtures remaining. Either Man U or Chelsea figure to win the Premiership with 90 points or more. Looking at the 11 Premiership seasons that have been conducted with 20 teams, when the league champions have 90 or more points, 35 or more points has been enough to finish ahead of the three relegated teams. Right now, Charlton Athletic sit on the edge of the drop zone with 32 points after 33 fixtures, leaving five fixtures remaining. So it seems likely to take more than 35 points beat the drop this season.

Saturday's fixture against Sheffield United at Bramall Lane is another in a series of must-wins for West Ham. The match will not be shown on Fox Soccer Channel, so The Marquette Grad and I are planning to go to the Globe pub on Irving Park Road to watch it. Sheffield United have managed just one point in their last five matches (a draw against Everton at Bramall Lane). West Ham need to pass Sheffield United and one other club to climb out of the relegation zone. After Saturday's fixture, they have one other fixture against a team within striking range: at Wigan Athletic on April 28. In 2003, the last time West Ham was relegated, they managed 42 points -- the most points accumulated by a relegated team in the 11 years of the 20-team Premiership. If they manage 42 points this year -- which would take four wins and a draw in their final six games -- they seem likely to beat the drop this time.

Why I've been rooting for Man U, Chelsea

I've been sort of following the UEFA Champions League matches shown on the various ESPN channels. After looking at West Ham's schedule about a month ago, I decided that the right thing to do was to root for Manchester United and Chelsea. Take a look at the upcoming schedule for the Premiership's top two teams:

Saturday-Sunday: FA Cup semifinals
4/17: Manchester United-Sheffield United
4/18: West Ham-Chelsea
4/21: Manchester United-Middlesbrough; Newcastle United-Chelsea
4/24-25: Champions League semis, first leg
4/28: Everton-Manchester United; Chelsea-Bolton
5/1-2: Champions League semis, second leg
5/5: Manchester City-Manchester United; Arsenal-Chelsea
5/9: Chelsea-Manchester United
5/13: Manchester United-West Ham; Chelsea-Everton
5/19: FA Cup finals at Wembley
5/23: Champions League final in Athens

I like the idea of keeping these two teams busy, as it may help West Ham. I must acknowledge that I was disappointed to learn that the FA eliminated replays for the semifinals in 1999. I suppose that I can stop rooting for Chelsea now. If there's any benefit to West Ham, it's come already, as the Irons will play the Blues before the first leg of the Champions League semifinals. In fact, it would be a good thing if Chelsea dropped off Man U's pace in the Premiership a bit. Perhaps that May 13 match won't mean anything for Man U. We have to hope it still means something for West Ham.

In the Champions League, I was rooting for the Premiership sides regardless of some potential benefit for West Ham. It's rather like how I approach games involving my alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. When the other teams in the Big Ten conference are playing out-of-conference games in American football and basketball, I root for the Big Ten squads because it reflects well on the league. Also, Illinois derives some financial benefit, as the conference splits money earned in post-season tournaments and, in American football, the so-called bowl games played on or near New Year's Day.

Also, I am familiar with the English clubs, but haven't been following them long enough to build up a seething, jealous hatred of their success. It is only through clenched teeth that I can "root" for teams from the University of Michigan or the Indiana University basketball team, to name two examples from the college sports analogy.

I'm sure that, over time, I'll come to despise certain English football clubs in the same way. But for now, I have just enough familiarity with these clubs to enjoy watching them beat the other clubs in Europe. I can understand, however, if more seasoned fans would rather stab their own eyes out rather than root for the Red Devils or the Blues.

(Music to write by: Albert King with Stevie Ray Vaughn, "In Session," and Blur, "The Great Escape.")