Remember where you were when it happened. It was a late summer's day, the end of August, a Bank Holiday weekend and, in Notting Hill, festivities were underway at the Notting Hill Carnival in London. The English football League season was a fortnight old and the yellowing leaves of autumn were poised to make their perennial appearance. The kids were getting ready for the much anticipated return to school after six weeks of play, recreation and becoming immersed in their latest batch of computer games on their phones. All is well in the land of the United Kingdom and in one corner of the East End of London they were pinching themselves in case this was some kind of hallucination, a phantom event that must have been some lingering dream during the night.
So you woke up this morning and discovered that everything around you was still the same and yet there was some revelation that some of us could hardly believe. The blinds or curtains were in sparkling form, the living room tables and chairs had never looked better, the kitchen was spotless, the dishwasher properly functioning, the oven and cooker clean as a whistle. Even the plates, dishes, crockery and cutlery had been washed and dried. Everything seemed set fair. But on this Sunday morning, your football team West Ham United were top of the Premier League, top of the class, undoubtedly so and you rubbed your eyes with incredulity and amazement.
This is not supposed to be happening. For as long as you can remember West Ham were just ordinary, models of mediocrity, harmless, inoffensive, terrible on most occasions, average, foolhardy, comical, never remotely close to winning the Premier League and just shockingly bad. In fact they were a complete waste of time and space, a complete embarrassment, shameful and forgettable. There were frequent times when the club who play their football at the London Stadium might have dropped off the radar. But then you realised that some of us were longing for a wholly different kind of season.
The fact that West Ham as a club are still a viable, thriving geographical location is testament to raw perseverance. When the club moved from their century old ground at Upton Park in 2016, a vast majority of us were convinced that this was the end of West Ham as we knew it. The re-location to the London Stadium in Stratford would lead to ruination, anonymity and decades of tradition in the heart of the East End of London. The Saturday markets would promptly disappear, the nearby cafes, fish and chips shops and restaurants no more than some poignant footnote. Those of a sentimental mindset would just have to cry.
Roll forward seven years later and the air of traumatic upheaval has now given away to something special. Of course there were bumps on the road, turbulence and turmoil along the way, frightening downs and near catastrophes. But now the team in claret and blue have dusted itself down, knuckled down to the onerous task at hand and rolled up their sleeves. Fate could have taken West Ham down a much rougher path and the claret and blue brigade may have found themselves in no man's land by now.
Last season of course West Ham struggled so desperately for any semblance of form that by the end of the season some of us were just willing to see the back of it. They finished a miserable 14th in the Premier League and very faintly you could see and hear the Grim Reaper again. Relegation had stalked the club for quite some time at the back end of the Premier League season. But then on a warm night in Prague West Ham lifted their first trophy of any description with a 2-1 victory over Italian club Fiorentina in the Europa Conference League Final. The mood would change overnight.
After challenging pre-season preparations, the Hammers were caught between the devil and the deep sea. The lengthy and protracted transfer of Declan Rice to London neighbours Arsenal is now a mini Greek tragedy. All at the club insisted that the limited amount of time they'd now had since the end of last season before the resumption of the Premier League two weeks ago had left them cramped and restrictive. The fact is though that this may have been a blessing in disguise since essentially the late end to last season as a result of the World Cup last November may have done them a considerable favour.
With new signings Edson Alvarez from Ajax of Amsterdam, midfield maestro and general James Ward Prowse from relegated Southampton, Konstantinos Mavroponos from Stuttgart and yesterday Mohammed Kudus, a potentially brilliant acquisition from Ajax, it could be said that West Ham are flush, giddy with delight, a side transformed overnight when it looked as if all the wheels would fall off and the new season would just crumble around them in a crumpled heap.
So it was that the devoted, unwavering fans from the London Stadium descended on the South Coast once again. They were denied by a late Dominic Solanke equaliser at the Vitality Stadium in Bournemouth on the opening day of the season. Then the flaunting peacocks of Mauricio Pochettino came to East London last Sunday lunchtime and Chelsea, although completely dominant in possession, failed to find a way into the locked vault of the West Ham defence. Against all the odds West Ham beat Chelsea 3-1 with goals from Nayef Aguerd who was later to be sent off, Michal Antonio who shrugged off defenders robustly to fire home and then a last minute penalty from Lucas Paqueta.
For those who can remember previous recent seasons and the enormous difficulty that West Ham had encountered in the opening stages of a new season, this is now dreamland territory. The controversy surrounding the Lucas Paqueta fiasco and all those damaging gambling charges against him had brought to an end any speculation surrounding the player's future. For the time being the Brazilian will lay his hat at West Ham and just get on with the business of playing. A move to Manchester City will presumably be delayed - at least until the end of the season- so most of us would hope.
Yesterday at the Amex Stadium, home of Brighton and Hove Albion, another complete monopoly on possession from Brighton rendered any of West Ham's attacking endeavours almost irrelevant. Brighton were passing and moving with effortless nonchalance, tapping the ball amongst themselves in ever increasing circles. For a while West Ham must have pleaded for the intervention of the referee's whistle if only to stop the humiliation. But for the first time in 12 attempts West Ham had finally beaten Brighton, a cause perhaps for another open top bus parade celebration.
But this time everything worked for West Ham. An annoying jinx had been lifted and victory was theirs for the taking. They had taken the lead when Ward Prowse, once again the central midfield prompter supreme, floated the ball down the line for Michal Antonio who muscled his way past a gasping Brighton defender to the by line before adjusting himself and then stroking the ball low with a well minted accuracy across the Seagulls penalty area. Here Ward Prowse threw himself at the ball before tickling the ball home into the net for West Ham's opener and the former Southampton schemer's first goal for the club.
By the second half Brighton seemed to be getting all hot and bothered over nothing, moving their chess pieces all over the pitch but then finding that the bishop and knight were just getting in each other's way. The ball spent most of the match just hovering with intent inside West Ham's penalty area but just going nowhere. West Ham's second goal had also come completely against the run of play but then their defensive organisation had become exemplary so there was no way through their solid back line.
From deep in their own half Paqueta had smuggled the ball into space before setting up Said Benrahma who ventured forward admirably on his own, running with the ball with nobody around him before glancing at available options. Benrahma looked up briefly and swung an immaculate cross field ball that flew beautifully to the far post where Jarred Bowen was waiting and steering the ball into the net for a decisive second goal for West Ham.
West Ham had now emerged from their chrysalis and began to hunt in pairs and then en masse. Any more Brighton's ideas and progressive movements were just fading into the late summer's evening by the South Coast. Bowen and Benrahma were forceful and dynamic, new signing Alvarez looked as though he'd been in his defensive position since the halcyon days of Billy Bonds or Bobby Moore. The Hammers third goal was just icing on the birthday cake. Bowen, once again irresistible, chipped the ball towards Antonio deftly and intelligently. Antonio turned his defender superbly, bustled forward athletically and then rammed the ball into the net for West Ham's third goal. A late consolation goal by Brighton's Pascal Gross was no more than that.
And so the travelling hordes jumped onto their trains home in buoyant mood. There was a moment when the whole world seemed to stop on its axis, a suspension of belief. Your mind went back to the 1986 season when your football club almost won the old First Division. You remembered being trapped in the sandwich that was the South Bank and acclaiming West Ham's last game of the season victory at home to Ipswich Town. If only Chelsea had beaten Liverpool at Stamford Bridge on the last day of the season and Everton had lost their final games 11-0 then quite possibly a first League championship triumph would have been theirs for the taking. But then probably and possibly are just words so it'll remain a fond hypothesis. Even so there is another season to experience and anything can happen but some of us will be blissfully content with a top ten finish for the team from the London Stadium. Full speed ahead the happy Hammers.
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