"And now there are no games
To only pass the time" -
The Byrds - "Going Back"
To only pass the time" -
The Byrds - "Going Back"
A couple of years ago I attempted to rank the best 50 West Ham players of all time, and ended up in more arguments about Yossi Benayoun than I expected. With that task behind me I decided that the time was ripe to spend my lockdown summer pondering the best matches I've seen as a West Ham fan. And yes, I'm aware it's now 2021 but you know that my favourite speed, much like Mark Noble these days, is "glacial".
Before I start, an important caveat - I restricted myself to the Premier League era. I didn't do this for any particular reason other than that I had to draw a line somewhere, as the previous list taught me that trying to assess players and matches you've never seen is tremendously difficult. So I decided to limit myself to the period from 1992 until now. It doesn't make a huge amount of sense, and precludes me from including Eintracht Frankfurt, Dinamo Tbilisi, many of our various trips to Wembley over the years, or my own favourite match - the 1991 FA Cup semi final against Nottingham Forest. But there you go.
So, before I launch into this list I should explain a little about my criteria. "Best" is a subjective, almost meaningless term in this sense. Some of my favourite games have been draws, and objectively some of the best games we've been involved in have been defeats. No impartial assessment of this period would exclude the pulsating 4-3 home defeat to Spurs in 2007, for example, which is one of the benefits of not being impartial as it'll be a cold day in North London before I include that game.
This one makes it, mind you
The list is thus an illogical, emotional trip that characterises "best" in any number of ways. Upon reflection it seems I have a predilection for games where we were underdogs, and thus there are multiple matches against the biggest teams of the time. Others make it for their wider significance, some make it because the game itself was thrilling, and then there are those that just had....something special about them.
I have tried to steer clear of choosing games due to personal milestones. I met my wife as West Ham were winning 3-2 at Chelsea in 2002, for instance, but that's not the reason it makes the list. Likewise, I haven't included our 2-1 win at Watford in 2000 despite the fact it coincided with me seeing a West Ham fan pick up a six foot advertising board from outside a pub and throw it through a window on the other side of the street in a frankly demonic show of strength. As such, it's quite likely that there are games missing from this list which probably ought to be there. I'm fine with that, not least because I am fairly certain that this list would be different if I did it again tomorrow. That's certainly how the list of our best players ended up.
So, please, dive in and enjoy a nostalgic trip down Green Street and feel free to let me know where I went wrong in the comments.
No comments:
Post a Comment