Down to Margate

Greg de Carnys parting of the ways with West Ham Ladies is the latest instalment in what seems like a never ending saga. It was never going to be easy to fill the shoes of title winning manager James Marrs once he had parted company with West Ham Ladies the ‘mutual consent’ way. Mutual consent? That usually means ‘You’re surplus to requirements, but we won’t slag you off if you don’t slag us off. Oh and here’s some dosh to keep schtum.’ I would have thought James Marrs would have jumped at the chance to work with West Ham Ladies’ new regime, being a respected coach with years of experience in women’s football and had just started turning the team’s fortunes (which had been well and truly hiding)… but no. Surely West Ham could see that they had a manager in place that with the right resources could take them to the very top. Apparently not.

  Instead they appointed under 23’s performance coach Greg De Carnys and first team fitness coach Joss Ewens (two very personable young men but with no experience of women’s football) to take the reins in a kind of part time capacity running alongside their ‘real’ jobs. I’m not sure whether they volunteered or were volunteered, either way their Sundays for the next year would never be the same. 

The look of defeat

 There were to be some highs (a few) and some lows (quite a few) the highest point being the much lauded 3-1 victory away at Charlton and the lowest point being Joss Ewens having to pick up some dog shit  off the pitch away to Swindon before anyone trod in it. I’d have thought he way the results had been going that season the whole team should have been lining up to tread in it for luck.

  Greg had revealed to me after a defeat last season that his MO was to make the players better players and then the results should follow. Quote … “If I was being judged on results I’d be gone by now.’ Maybe the MO has changed. After all …West Ham Ladies  have one stiletto in the door of WSL1 and even though results are not nearly as important as money, it would be embarrassingly soul destroying to lose every week and to be propping up the ‘big girls.’ 

   The timing of the sacking (there… I said it) could be down to quite a few different factors. I don’t know when the decision was made (or who made the decision) but in the wake of West Ham United men’s win over Chelsea (the perfect demonstration of the ‘New Manger Effect’ ) ,West Ham Ladies impending two very winnable cup games against Brislington (who?) and Margate Ladies, plus the possible availability of well respected and experienced coach Keith Boanas who has just left Watford Ladies just might have had something to do with it.

Unfortunately the Brislington (where?) game was snowed off… so the Margate match was the start of yet another new era.

Margate.

I hadn’t visited Margate since 1968. It used to be the place to go with it’s goldish beaches, donkey rides and the thrill of what we would refer to today as a theme park. Dreamland. Dreamland features in one of only three memories I have of Margate. It’s as if I’ve saved those three memories to a hard drive and put the rest of the day in a recycle bin. 

The first saved memory was when we arrived in sunny Margate and visited a tea shop for refreshment. It was decorated in the style of an OAP’s parlour and was full of OAP’s enjoying a busman’s holiday. I remember the must. It could have been the carpet or the people. Or both. I also remember the quietness. Just the chink of bone china cups on bone china saucers breaking the library-esque silence of the room. 

Bizarrely there was a jukebox in the corner. I wondered if it played hymns. Panpipes hadn’t been invented in those days. I wondered if the records inside were 78’s, or if there was a huge handle that needed turning. “Mum! can I have a tanner for the jukebox please?’’ It was boring. I thought a bit of music might liven the place up. 

Once I had procured the sixpence I had the daunting task of choosing one song from a choice of a hundred. The next three minutes would be mine. I had to choose wisely. The ditty I went for was ‘Fire’ by Arthur Brown and his Crazy World. I was an apprentice headbanger and had enjoyed Arthur’s strange performance and behaviour on Top of the Pops the week previous, especially the really bad fire effect and his lame attempt at face painting which Alice Cooper copied and has made a pretty good living out of it ever since. I have no idea why that record would be on that jukebox in that tea room but it was. The sixpenny dropped, the arm hunted out the 45 and placed it delicately on the  already spinning turntable. The crackle of needle on dust sounded a bit louder than anticipated, although it still didn’t prepare me for what was to come. 

‘I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE AND I BRING YOU…..’Arthur screamed from the speakers. 

It might as well have been coming out of a Marshall stack turned up to eleven. I ran back to our table. ‘What’s that racket?’ my mum said. I was being stared at over cups of tea. I would’ve heard the tutting if the ‘music’ hadn’t have been so loud. My face was a bright flame red as the three minutes seemed like three hours and Arthur’s maniacal laugh for the middle eight was the cherry on the top of my embarrassment.

 ‘Can we go?’ I said. 

Arthur... still crazy...

The second memory I have is a short one. I vaguely remember my (older) sister suggesting that we go on the scenic railway. A kind of train that goes around a track with steep hills. Why it’s called a scenic railway heaven knows because I had my eyes firmly shut all the way around. As soon as we started our ascent with the click click click of the pull chain I decided I’d seen enough. On the descent  I screamed even louder than Arthur as we careered round the track with my face being distorted by the G force  (it seemed like it could have been H force ) and my stomach had turned into a yo-yo, whilst all I could hear was the clattering of the wooden track and people giggling and laughing with joy. Nutters the lot of them. It was to be twelve years before I was brave enough to go on another one. 

The third recollection I have of that (fateful) day was at lunchtime. It was called dinner time back then and dinner time was called teatime. Anyway…. it was a midday meal. 

Eating habits. We’ve all got them I suppose. Eating peas off a knife. Saving the best bit till last. Using a spoon to finish the gravy. An ex-girlfriend of mine’s dad used to do that thing where you load up the prongs of a fork with food then scrape it off, go to another area of the plate, scoop some chow then tip it back on the plate, then load up the fork again, have a little chat with the fork about six inches away from his face and then finally put it in his gob, only to chew it a thousand times before begrudgingly swallowing it. 

I wanted to shout at him. I wanted to shake him. I wanted to force feed him with a shovel. Luckily I was spared the torture of watching him eat peas …. she packed me in.

But my dad’s eating anomaly (in my eyes) was the whole soup eating experience. What is the etiquette for eating soup with a bread roll? My take on it is if you’re posh you sup the soup from a spoon (no slurping) then put the spoon down so that you can tear off a morsel of bread which is eaten separately. And repeat. The other option open for us mere mortals is to shamelessly dip the roll in the soup. Never mop up with it though unless you were born in the 17th century and say ‘Cor luvva duck’ quite a bit.

My father’s spin on soup etiquette is to break his roll into 15-20 pieces then tip it into the soup thus making it into tomato and bread soup. It was always tomato. Watery tomato at that. It used to horrify me. I used to stare aghast and in bewilderment at his almost peasant behaviour. I began to wonder whether we were poor. Oh the shame. I couldn’t advise him differently though. It wasn’t quite ‘seen and not heard’ times but there was an unwritten  parent child class system. These days offspring would bawl ‘For fuck’s sake dad… eat properly … people are staring!’  …but for me suffering in silence was the order of the day.  

So on that day in Margate dad ordered tomato soup. Of course he did. And a roll. I was on cringe alert. The soup had arrived accompanied by some rather large crusty rolls. Dad passed them around. He kept the biggest one for himself. He probably thought it would soak up all of the soup and turn it into a mutant tomato loaf albeit in a hundred bits. He was wrong. As he held the roll in both hands above his bowl, a lack of concentration on his part caused the roll to slip out of his hands and fall straight into the soup. Anyone familiar with Archimedes would know that there was to be a certain amount of displacement of the soup. To be precise, the soup displaced itself all over my mum, dad, sister and me. And the crisp white table cloth. No-one shouted Eureka! I wanted to shout ‘You idiot!’ but refrained. Our table looked like a scene from Reservoir Dogs. People stared. Dad said ‘Oopsy,’  very sheepishly. My mother didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She did neither. 

Margate’s twin town must be Schadenfreude……….

Since those heady summer days of the sixties Margate has suffered a decline and at one point went all Jaywick, but with millions spent on regeneration projects in the area it could now boast that it wasn't quite Brighton but it could give Clacton a run for it’s money.

So I was off to Margate. It was not as far as I remembered. Maybe the roads were better now or my dad’s old car was a bit slow. Just over an hour. And for the whole duration of the drive I had an ear worm….

‘Down to Margate, don't forget your buckets and spades and cossies and all

Down to Margate, we'll have a pill of jellied eels at the cockle stall

Down to Margate, we'll go on the pier and we'll have a beer aside of the sea

You can keep the Costa Brava and all that palava, going no farther, me I'd rather have me a day down Margate with all me family’

Turns out Chas n Dave, the ‘cockney’ duo are Tottenham supporters… would you Adam and Eve it?

West Ham Ladies general manager  Karen Ray was to have her second spell interim manager until Carnys replacement has been announced. It would surely be easier than her first spell ....against two top European sides. Nothing had been announced over Joss Ewens position, but it appears that he only helps with the ladies if the men’s team aren’t playing and luckily for him he wasn’t on touchline duty when West Ham Ladies were being unmercifully hammered by Coventry ladies in the straw that broke the camel’s back match. 

The big guns of West Ham Ladies coming to town had bolstered the crowd beyond expectation. The official attendance was just over 200, but there were no turnstiles and it was free to get in so I'm not sure how they arrived at that figure. Perhaps they used the Duckworth Lewis method. I did a rough count of blocks of fans and made the number twice that. At Least. And there was a queue for the burger stall... that was always a good sign. 

It was a cold clear night, with the l.e.ds of Dreamland's ferris wheel  simulating a firework display in the black sky with the sea just a skimming stone's throw away .

The pitch was perfect.It was like a carpet. On closer inspection.... I realised that it was a carpet. 3G or 4G I'm not sure. It could have been Axminster for all I knew. This would suit West Ham, after the debacle of Coventry's terrible pitch where they didn't know whether to play football or dig for potatoes.

As good as the pitch was, the floodlights were a little inadequate. They had what seemed to be four 40w bulbs in each corner which were doing nothing to help me get some good photos and the players seemed to disappear into the gloom every now and then.

Margate were an unknown quantity to me. Someone had told me they weren't very good, which ended up being the mother of all understatements. After the first couple of minutes it was evident that Margate were in for a traumatic night. West Ham Ladies were all over them like a swarm of bees bamboozling Margate with their one touch passing, neat tricks and flicks and their frighteningly superior pace. Ironically this was the Barca style of football that Greg de Carnys had been advocating and dreaming of during his time in charge, and the week that he 'leaves' they finally meet a team of such little resistance  they could put into practice what he had been coaching them for the past year. West Ham Ladies were a joy to behold, watching all those El Classico videos was at last paying off, whilst Margate Ladies must have been watching 'Zulu', 'The Alamo' and 'They Died With Their Boots On.'

Margate Ladies managed to resist conceding for a full 9 minutes before Amber Stobbs, enjoying her role as captain buried the first.

Amber Stobbs hits the back of the net

 West Ham Ladies were finding most joy through the middle and were allowed to just wander through. The surprisingly low half time score of 4-0 was down to a mixture of poor finishing, the woodwork and a some unorthodox saves by  Margate's keeper who had strangely  decided to dress like Benny from Crossroads. I'd never seen a goalkeeper wearing a beanie hat before. I wasn't even sure it was within the rules of the game. Maybe she will start a new trend. And whilst I'm on the subject of fashion, it was no surprise to see the West Ham Ladies wearing an        assortment of different gloves as most of them are Arsenal supporters.  

Nice gloves..... Marigold's?

4 goal Ellie Zoepfl

         


















And whilst I'm on the subject of supporters, there were not many West Ham fans present. There was the hardcore gang consisting of me, Owen, Moira and Dean, joined by local lass Vikki plus some other bloke with a West Ham scarf on. Six. Our rendition of 'can we play you every week?' was drowned out by home fans mumbling to each other. 

  Newish recruit Ellie Zoepfl (I have't tried to pronounce that yet through fear of spraying someone) had a field day, ghosting through the Margate defence like Margot Fontaine on roller skates, and helping herself to a brace before the break. Andrea Goergiou chipped in with a tap in to complete the first half rout, but the real heroes of the first half West Ham Ladies goalkeeper Sindi Kanto who only had two touches of the ball (she really could have put up a deck chair, put on a ‘kiss me quick’ hat and had a snooze without any risk of conceding) and central defender Chenise Austin who had driven nearly 200 miles from Swindon to Margate, played 45 minutes and then was substituted at half time so that she could drive back again. Now that is what you call dedication. 

Amber Stobbs on target

 The second half saw the introduction of both Kmita twins who took a wing each. Chantelle Mackie moved across to play central defence just in case Margate got brave and crossed the halfway line. Coincidently there was a repeat of the first half’s 9 minute ceasefire before West Ham Ladies turned in a masterclass of attacking football that Margate could only fall flat on their backsides and admire. Zoeplf scored two more,Stobbs netted a second half hat trick, one of which was my goal of the game, lobbing over the defender before volleying into the net and Rosie Kmita went ahead in the sibling rivalry stakes by scoring two in two minutes. Zoe Swift made it unlucky for Margate by scoring the 13th and final goal of the night. 

Margate Ladies had their own highlight when one of their players tried a speculative volley from 40 yards a la Beckham, only to see it go inches over the bar whilst the back pedalling Kanto was having deja vu from the week before’s game against Coventry. 

The final whistle blew and the game ended in smiles all around. The West Ham Ladies at last being able to show what they can do and scoring 13 goals, cancelling out the 13 goals they had conceded in the previous two games, and Margate Ladies having the chance to battle it out with a professional club and living to tell the tale.

I couldn’t help thinking that the gulf between teams in women’s football is too large. The gulf is too large between teams in the same division even. West Ham Ladies’ division is split into three mini leagues, the top five, the bottom two, and the rest in the middle. 

WPL1 has a top three and the rest make up the numbers. The games need to be more competitive between different level teams or else no giants will ever be killed.

So I beat a retreat to the sanctuary of my soon to be warm car and headed home…. still with the worm firmly planted in my ear…..

Down to Margate, don't forget your buckets and spades and cossies and all…..

  

  

April Gives West Ham Ladies the Fool Treatment

We all make mistakes. I made the first mistake when I was tricked into thinking ‘mmm ..it’s not all that cold out’ by the low deceptive winter sun and  proceeded to reject my insulating quilted jacket for some flimsy permeable thing hanging in the porch which had as much resistance to the bitter biting wind as a string vest with a hole in it. The mistakes that followed were to cost West Ham United Ladies dearly.

But first the positives. 

Zoe Swift and Ellie Zoepfl had auspicious home debuts, Ellie scoring a magnificent goal from just outside the penalty area and Zoe with two assists, one of which she pulled the ball back from the byline for Molly Peters to ping it into the net. This was a new one on me. In all the games I have witnessed West Ham Ladies play, this was the first time I had actually seen a player reach the byline and pull the ball back across the goal. 

West  Ham Ladies scored three times against a very mean Basildon defence, only the second team this season to achieve that stat. 

West Ham Ladies were fit. Super fit. Josh Ewens has got them in tip top shape … not a hands on hips in sight.

The pitch was in perfect condition.

The stadium had all the trappings befitting a WSL team. Excellent facilities (I recommend the the toilets if you want to keep nice and warm) professional catering, turnstiles, stewards from the days at Upton Park (very helpful and friendly) a beautiful stand and a car park to boot. 

West Ham Ladies stand

After the Lord Mayor’s show of the family fun day with it’s just over a thousand crowd I was half expecting a ‘manure’ cart of an attendance for this one, but there was a healthy 60+ watching the game, which was pretty good considering the artic conditions and a distinct lack of face painting.

It was a mouth watering local derby. C&K Basildon Ladies had rolled into town in a rich vein of form and West Ham Ladies were hoping to continue the ‘on and off the pitch’ success of their last home fixture against QPR. Jay Blackie (ex-West Ham) is their playmaker. Everything revolves around her, whether it be by accident or design, and if you mark her out of the game the apple cart will not only be upset, the apples will be rolling around all over the show in total disarray. West Ham Ladies however made the schoolboy(girl?) error of not doing their homework on Blackie and allowing tough tackling captain Amy Cooper, the player best suited for the shackling job, to reside on the bench instead….. ergo Blackie had the freedom of the pitch to orchestrate and inflict punishment on West Ham Ladies from all angles. 

    

I’m trying not to bang on too much about CK’s captain but her work rate and positional sense is something to be admired and aspired to. She appears to saunter around the pitch then boom….. it’s too late..because in the time it took you to blink she’s either scored or performed a crunching tackle or a smart assist. West Ham Ladies must have been aware of her threat but failed to act on it and it took her a mere  3 minutes to be party to CK’s first goal with an oscar winning performance. 

CK were awarded a cheap free kick after a foul by Zoepfl.  The free kick was directed at Blackie who seemed ambivalent towards the ball as it rolled through her legs to be struck beautifully by ex- West Ham player (yes.. another one) April Bowers into the bottom corner of the net from 25 yards. It was a training ground ‘pièce de résistance’ of a free kick, so good that West Ham’s defence seemed to stop and admire it instead of trying to just stop it. 

The wall looks good, April unmarked.

Addison goes on a dummy run, the played towards Blackie

Blackie lets the ball go through her legs April still unmarked

The ball rolls towards April still unchallenged

April strikes the ball from 25yds

The ball curves towards the bottom corner

T Addison reacts first in case of rebound

Cant just can't reach the ball

April admires her handiwork 

  Four minutes later and with West Ham still having yet to venture out of their own half, CK scored from a corner when Danica Revell (you guessed it another ex- West Ham) headed home. 

11 minutes in and it was 3-0. Jay Blackie put in a high through pass to catch the West Ham defence betwixt and between a mannequin challenge and vainly appealing for offside with all the fervour of Tony Adams, whilst Bowers was busy controlling the ball and slotting it past the keeper Kanto to score her second. 

West Ham’s media claim is that they are one big family, however in the early phases of the game the players looked like they hardly knew each other. let alone be related, however they managed to steady the (sinking) ship for the next 30minutes but the space Blackie was being afforded was bordering on the ridiculous and in the 40th minute she was allowed to stroll, like she was taking a dog for a walk, unchallenged for 50yards before slotting a pinpoint through ball to the lively Therese Addison who nicked it past Kanto whilst the West Ham defence looked like they had just spotted Medusa in the crowd.

On the stroke of half time a short CK corner found Amy Nash who picked out Blackie to head in at the near post which brought back fond memories of Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters back in the sixties when they patented that move at Upton Park. 

Blackie (left) heads in at near post

It probably didn’t make de Carnys half time talk much easier, but in first half added on time West ham Ladies showed their first bit of class when Zoe Swift sprinted down the right wing to the byline and pulling the ball back to the loitering with intent Molly Peters. Even though the ball was passed slightly behind her she managed to readjust her feet to clip the ball in to home cheers.

Peters scores a beauty

Half time seemed abridged which was a blessing as we were all freezing cold, the only things being heated at that time were the toilets and the West Ham dressing room discussions (I imagine).

CK were at it again in the second half and a smart cross found the unmarked April Bowers who tapped in from close range to complete her hat trick. 1-6

The game was becoming a little stretched and ragged when De Carnys made the decision to bring off Peters and replace her with captain Amy Cooper, pushing Swift and Zoepfl further forward, which paid dividends when the two combined, culminating in Zoepfl scoring a superb goal from just outside the area to genuine cheers. I say genuine because if this were a men’s game the cheers would have been ironic. Viva la difference. 2-6

It was becoming a slugfest. It was CK’s turn to land a blow to the Hammers, and it was the other Addison twin Angela to deliver it scoring from an acute angle which maybe keeper Kanto will be unhappy with, being beaten at her near post. Still, West Ham Ladies took the disappointment on the chin and it was their own twin Rosie Kmita who got in on the scoring act to react first to a saved Swift attempt.3-7

Rosie Kmita pounces on the loose ball to score

8 minutes to go. I willed De Carnys to throw on Molly Kmita. The game was up, but we still had a chance of history if both sets of twins were on the pitch at the same time. That would have been a great story. And… if she’d have scored it would have had a stat probably never to be repeated of a set of twins on each side and all four scored. 

It wasn’t to be. 

Spoilt sport. 

Literally.

West ham Ladies get a chance to regroup against Coventry Ladies in the cup this Sunday 3rd December. Dogged by injuries West Ham Ladies have limited options at the back and up front, whilst they have an abundance of midfielders.

Against Coventry (without any knowledge of injuries or new signings) I would go with. 4-3-1-2

GK Sindi Kanto - played well last time at Coventry

RB Molly Kmita - needs to play more games

CD Hannah Wheeler and 

CD Chenise Austin as only two available unless injuries have cleared up

LB  Chantelle Mackie - can play either back position / reliable

DM Amber Stobbs - good tackler and good distribution

LM  Rosie Kmita - things happen when she is on the pitch

RM - Ellie Zoepfl - looks class so far

CM - Jasmine Auguste - playing just behind the front two, much more potent powering forward

F    -  Zoe Swift - has had a hand in all the goals in her first two games

F    -  Peters/Chong - if Peters unavailable Dayna has the skills to play her role.

West Ham Ladies have three members of their management team. 

Greg De Carnys - specialising in player development.

Joss Ewens - Fitness coach (and for first team men's)

Karen Ray - General manager .. organising PR etc

Maybe a fourth member who is a tactician would be a good shout. A manager in the true sense of the word. Unless the club are happy to tread water until the promised land of WSL1. They've shown it can be done with a great win over Charlton, but there's just so long you can dine out on that win. 

...after all...one swallow doesn't make a summer.... 

West Ham Ladies vs C&K Basildon Ladies preview

The last time West Ham Ladies played at home they achieved two victories, a victory against QPR in the cup and a victory for women’s football as they attracted a crowd of 1057 which would put a lot of WSL sides to shame. This was the first impressive muscle flex of West Ham Ladies to show their worth to the powers that be at FA headquarters. 

This Sunday West Ham Ladies host C&K Basildon Ladies in WPL1 local derby at Rush Green in a fixture that has always had a bit of added spice and is invariably close, the exception being the reverse fixture this season where CK ran out comfortable winners in a 3-0 victory.  CK’s Jay Blackie who has played for both sides and scored for both teams in the previous two meetings will be joined by fellow ex-Hammers Danica Revell, Gemma Abela and April Bowers in trying to continue Basildon’s push for top spot. 

Jay Blackie celebrates with Chloe Burr after scoring the winner against CK Basildon

BBC Sport has been reporting this week on CK’s two sets of twins, Therese and Angela Addison, and Macy and Eliza Diaz, and sporting history could be made if they all (both?) play and West Ham Ladies field Rosie and Molly, the Kmita twins to make it three sets of identical twins on the pitch at the same time. 

West Ham Ladies with one eye on WSL1 have signed three players from America who debuted against Coventry, Ellie Zoepfl, Zoe Swift and Carla Salcedo, plus London Bees’  Andria Georgiou who impressed on her debut against QPR Ladies. Manager Greg de Carnys has given himself a selection headache with the amount of quality players he now has at his disposal. West Ham Ladies have incredibly fielded 33 different players already this season in just 15 matches in the pursuit of moulding a team capable of challenging in the top flight next year and will maybe looking at the performance on Sunday rather than the result.

Avit prediction 2-2

Don't Look Now.... West Ham Ladies Hit Swindon for 5

What a difference a week makes. Only seven days previous West Ham Ladies had been consigned to their sixth defeat in a row by the unrelenting Lewes Ladies in the unrelenting south coast drizzle, in the process only managing two shots on target, yet on Sunday in the autumn sunshine at their new temporary home Rush Green, managed to produce an entertaining display of free flowing, high scoring football against bottom club Swindon Ladies.
  And they earned it. Swindon made them work hard for the victory. There were no glaring defensive errors made by the visitors to hand goals on a silver platter.
Each goal was unique in it's own way.

The first a result of Molly Peters' bravery. The second a first time long ball (yes a long ball. I couldn't believe it either) to Molly Peters who finished from a very acute angle. The third an instinctive first time shot under pressure from Paige Anderson-James.

 The fourth a twenty five yard thunderbolt/exocet/rocket (or all three) from Paige again, which on further viewings gets better and better and more unbelievable. The fifth and final goal a composed finish from sixteen year old Kelly Wealthall, taking the ball around the keeper before cooly placing it in the net. Kelly is such an exciting prospect, great positional awareness, a tough tackler and knows where the goal is. She is definitely one to watch.
  What made the victory even sweeter, was that there was a crowd to witness it. To applaud it. To appreciate it. About 100 spectators (101 if you include West Ham keeper Cherie Rowlands)  cheered every good play, oohed and ahhed every near miss and  punched the air with a hooray at every goal. There's no sound quite like the sound of cheers. Especially if they are aimed in your direction. You could see the joy spreading through the team after a year of disappointment after disappointment.
David Sullivan also attended to cast an eye over his investment and to support the Ladies. Bafflingly he'd come dressed head to foot in Swindon's colours. Someone whispered to me, 'Don't look now.'
I didn't know whether he was telling me not to stare, or that he was referring to the villain in the movie. I wish (or is it wished?) Mr Sullivan would come to every match as he is the Ladies talisman with a 100% witness win rate.
It was a pleasure to watch the players being able to express themselves as an attacking force, freed from the chains of the tedious sideways passing possession nonsense previously chosen as the main tactic. It would great if the Ladies could impose their attacking flair onto Charlton Ladies on Wednesday night, throwing caution to the wind (maybe hanging onto a bit of caution i.e. chaperone ex-West Ham, goal machine Charlotte Gurr ) and giving it a right go, rendering Mr Watts bell utterly redundant.
 It's getting like the Stepford Wives. West Ham Ladies have WSL1 in their sights. It is coming around quicker than this year's Christmas. Is the team gradually being replaced? Is it the Ship of Theseus? or Trigger's broom even?

This week's new signing/wife was Rosie Kmita. I thought it was Molly. They look the same. They are twins ...but they even play the same fast tenacious game with a smile and  a swagger. It would be interesting to see them play together, their pace would frighten the life out of the opposition, and at the same time give the crowd an opportunity to play a life size game of 'Spot the Difference.'

Next stop... Into the Valley

COYLI

West Ham Ladies and the WSL1

Does anyone remember those old ‘Good News Bad News’ jokes?

West Ham United Ladies General Manager Karen Ray (as she likes to be referred to): Ladies… I’ve got some good news…. and I’ve got some bad news. What do you want first?

West Ham United Ladies: (in unison) WHAT’S THE BAD NEWS?

West Ham United Ladies General Manager Karen Ray: We don’t have a clue about tactics or formations and we haven’t got a Scooby about what our best team is. The likelihood is that we will finish second bottom of the league by the grace of Swindon who are so (hang on the O to emphasise) so (and again) bad.

West Ham United Ladies: (in unison) OH!  SO WHAT’S THE GOOD NEWS THEN?

West Ham United Ladies General Manager Karen Ray: We’re going to be playing in the WSL1 next season.

Bizarrely, that is a genuine possibility and not a joke. The news this week coming from the FA is there is going to be a restructure of the Women’s League designed to create a top tier Super League comprising of the fourteen teams with the most moolah and the ability to comply implicitly with the FA’s rules, regulations and stipulations. Apparently in November the teams already in WSL1 and 2 can apply for a ‘licence’ to play in the Creme deal Creme league, and if there are any spaces left other clubs from the soon to be ‘cardigans for goalposts’ leagues they can apply March 2018, leaving just the close season to go from Am to Pro.

West Ham Ladies have announced their intentions to go for one of those vacant slots, and if successful, they will kick off next season in WSL1. A scary but exciting prospect for the club, manager/s and players alike…. or maybe just for the club.

West Ham United Ladies General Manager Karen Ray’s much vaunted ‘Five year rags to riches vision’ to ascend to the dizzy heights of the WSL1  looks like having four years knocked off it in one fell swoop.

The formation of the new WSL1 league requires teams to commit to having full-time professional playing staff delivering a minimum of 16 hours of daytime contact per week, as well as an elite performance environment including strength and conditioning, performance preparation, medical and player welfare. 

The new proposals throw up more questions than answers.

16 hours doesn’t seem very much for a full-time occupation. Do the 16hours include match days?

If you have an away fixture at say Manchester City ( hells bells) the 16 hours would almost all be consumed in one day. Some of our Ladies have good careers….. is there a way that they could do both?

Allegedly there have been some enquiries from some WSL players already with a view to signing for West Ham. Where does that leave the players that have ‘bought into’ the five year plan?

And what happens if West Ham are not granted a licence or there are no spaces to be had? With the reshuffle of the leagues…. instead of going up two divisions, they could find themselves in the division below.

So where does that leave the coaches and playing staff? 

No matter how much the club spin and sugar coat the facts, the fact is it has taken West Ham United (proper) a year in charge to win one solitary single league match, and as a West Ham Ladies fan, that has been pretty hard to endure. 

Whoever is in charge of team selection (it’s either team manager Greg de Carnys or West Ham United Ladies General Manager Karen Ray or both) doesn’t seem to know their best team. The line up is shuffled more times than a deck in Vegas, and players disappear unannounced more times than Debbie Mcgee during a matinee seaside spectacular, and others are signed in a kind of Supermarket Sweep panic buy kind of fashion.

Their latest arrival though was like a breath of fresh air. She’d been out of football for two years and on Thursday she attended her first training session. Shirvae Edwards. When her name was mentioned it was music to my ears (Burn/Deep Purple). I was ecstatic with the news. I had often encouraged her on social media to get her footy boots back on, now finally she had and I couldn’t wait to see her silky skills back on a pitch.

Shirvae Edwards

Surprisingly I didn’t have to wait long. Just three days later Shirvae was in the starting line up. Understandably she wasn’t match fit and lasted the pre planned 30 minutes before making way for promising young talent Kelly Wealthall. In those 30 minutes though we saw glimpses of Shirvae’s natural ability with her deft touches and intelligent flicks, but she had no support. She had been given solitary confinement in the Lewes half of the pitch whilst her team mates were busy parking the bus up the other end. Maybe … just maybe .. it would've been a more astute decision to give her the final 30 minutes enabling her to shine against a tiring defence on a wet heavy pitch. 

But what do I know….

                                                       

The game was lost by giving the ball away too often and not learning from last season’s fixture where Lewes goals came mainly from dead ball situations. West Ham Ladies are capable of playing attractive football, but they need to be imposing it on opponents further up the pitch.

And so to this Sunday’s home fixture against Swindon Ladies. Swindon ladies have been poor this season, they have zero points and are shipping goals like nobody’s business. I expect West Ham Ladies’ strikers to shine, throw caution to the wind and to win well. If they don’t…. I expect to hear more Kiplingesque (Rudyard not the cake bloke) motivational battlecries or ‘we woz robbed’ excuses churned out by the media propaganda machine.

COYLI

Post Script: I was surprised that the players had to make their own travel arrangements to Lewes and that they didn't have a club photographer in tow........ just an observation.

Disclaimer: These views are my own and not of the club. (No shit! I hear you cry)