Daily WHUFC News - 2nd May 2012

Academy Members get Play-Off chance
WHUFC.com
Tickets for the home Play-Off game with Cardiff are on sale to Academy
Members
01.05.2012

Academy Members have been moving in their thousands to snap up their tickets
for the home Play-Off semi-final with Cardiff City on Monday 7 May.
Tickets went on sale to Season Ticket holders and Bondholders immediately
after Saturday's visit of Hull City and there has been a rush of fans
looking to secure their seats for the 4.30pm kick-off. Tickets for Season
Ticket holders are priced at just £15 for Adult tickets and £5 for under-16s
- part of the Board's commitment to make football affordable for all.

Academy Members tickets are now on sale too, priced at £25 Adults and £15
Youth Academy members before a 24-hour selling window to anyone who attended
the sold-out game with Hull City opens from 9am on Wednesday 2 May. Any
remaining tickets will then go on general sale from 9am on Thursday 3 May.
For full pricing details and dates, click here. For full details of the
methods available for the purchase of tickets for this fixture, click here.
Away leg - Please note that tickets for the away game on Thursday have now
SOLD OUT.

However, anyone who was previously unsuccessful with 7, 6, 5, 4 or 3
priority points has now been sent a travel voucher to be exchanged at
Cardiff West services between 6 and 6.30pm on Thursday evening.

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Cardiff underdogs against West Ham says Malky Mackay
BBC.co.uk
CHAMPIONSHIP PLAY-OFF SEMI-FINAL FIRST LEG: CARDIFF V WEST HAM
Venue: Cardiff City Stadium Date: Thursday, 3 May Kick-off: 1945 BST

Coverage: Live on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and highlights on Match
of the Day Wales (BBC Two Wales 2320 BST)

Cardiff City manager Malky Mackay believes that West Ham United will be
expected to beat them in the Championship play-off semi-finals. The
Bluebirds host the Hammers at the Cardiff City Stadium on Thursday 3 May,
with the return on Bank Holiday Monday. "I would think the we are
[underdogs], in terms of the expectation on a club the size of West Ham,"
Mackay said. "It's a former club of mine and I know the pressure at that
football club to do well and to impress."

West Ham were the bookmakers' favourites to win the division at the start of
the season, but instead Reading took the title and will be joined in the
Premier League next season by runners-up Southampton. "I think that
financially there was such a big gulf between themselves [West Ham] and a
lot of teams in the division, and the spending power they had even in
January," Mackay said. "I think there's an expectation level on West Ham so
automatically with that we would be underdogs in that game. "You're talking
about a team that for a vast part of the season were in second place - they
might have been in first place at some points. "So no matter what, there is
that disappointment that they never got [an automatic promotion place]."

West Ham finished two points behind Southampton in the race for an automatic
promotion spot, while Cardiff kept their hopes alive after Saturday's 2-1
win at Crystal Palace secured sixth place and the final spot in the
play-offs. "Going into last Saturday the odds were stacked against them, so
I'm not sure it was too much of a surprise," Mackay added. "Southampton were
at home to Coventry, who had already been relegated, and they have a
fantastic home record." Should Cardiff win through against West Ham, they
will face either Birmingham or Blackpool in the play-off final at Wembley.

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Don't bring Harry... Redknapp
KUMB.com
Filed: Tuesday, 1st May 2012
By: Terry Land

I was standing in the away end at the Valley, Charlton, and it was simply
hosing it down as West Ham attempted to hold onto a 2-1 lead with a bit over
a quarter-of-an-hour on the clock.

Despite an arthritic knee and what pace he ever possessed forever gone
former Hammers hero Julian Dicks had been asked to play in an unfamiliar
wingback role and was taking a chasing from Addicks right-back Danny Mills.
Worse still Charlton boss Alan Curbishley, along with everybody else in the
stadium, spotted Dicks' distress and doubled up on him by bringing on
substitute winger John Robinson.

When I say "everybody" I mean all bar the West Ham manager. Despite having
the useful French wide player Marc Keller on the bench he failed to act –
Mills banged one in and Andy Hunt and Neil Redfearn grabbed a late one each
to give our South London cousins a 4-2 victory. I walked back to the car in
Anchor and Hope Lane unable to believe any manager worth his name could have
been so tactically inept. Soaked to the bone, angry and confused – that
Saturday in October 1998 was the day I stopped believing in Harry Redknapp.

My journey with the man began almost 30 years earlier with a match at Upton
Park against Stoke City. Seated with Dad in the recently opened East Stand
two memories from my first ever visit to the Boleyn Ground remain. A dull
0-0 draw closed with a woman running onto the pitch to attack the referee.
Off the pitch my spectator experience, as it would no doubt be called today,
was enhanced by the mainly good-natured but relentless barracking of West
Ham's spindly right-winger.

"Oi Redknapp! Stick yer tongue out – you'll look like a zip", they chortled,
"How about starching that number seven on yer shirt – give yer some
backbone", they laughed. For me, versed only in primary school banter it was
inexplicable how fans might not treat players as heroes. But even at
nine-years-old the truth was as obvious to me as it was them. Harry was
chicken.

Redknapp hung around the club for a couple of years more before coming to
the same conclusion as all his "admirers" and leaving for Division Three
side Bournemouth. His return came from the same club – this time in a
coaching capacity and following a spell in the United States – as understudy
to manager Billy Bonds while the club languished in the second tier.
Following an initial struggle Harry's presence revived the side as they
played with energy and enjoyment, gained promotion and consolidated their
position with a 13th place finish in the new Premier League. Bonds
jumped/was pushed, Harry took over and the club established itself as a
mid-table side over the next few seasons.

Even if there were obvious faults to be rectified (our away form and
propensity to fall apart under pressure, for instance) Redknapp appeared to
be doing a good job. His buys were astute and our home form remained solid.
But Harry's profile in the media seemed to bear an inverse relationship with
his ability to manage the club. Journalists loved the crafty Cockney
rent-a-quote even if in person he could be extremely brusque and quick to
anger.

Along with the fame came a biography and a telling insight into the man –
but not in a good way. Ghosted by Derek McGovern it was little more than a
series of justifications for a host of allegations many of which were never
made in the first place. It was also rather, shall we say, slippery with the
facts. Despite claiming to have made "no money out of football" and leaving
Bournemouth £2.5million in debt he arrived at West Ham living out of
Sandbanks on Poole Harbour, one of the most expensive pieces of real estate
in the country.

Fortunately the book also went a long way to confirming personality traits I
would argue define his subsequent career. As yellow as he may have been on
the pitch, H is ruthless on an interpersonal level and extremely difficult
to deal with. Examples from the book include spats with friends Barry Fry
and Peter Storrie. Even Sir Clive Woodward, author of the England rugby
side's 2003 World Cup win, found him impossible to deal with while
attempting a role as Performance Director while both were at Southampton.

Club Chairman at the time Terry Brown claims in Brian Belton's biography
Brown Out Harry was tactically illiterate and he relied heavily on first
Frank Burrows then brother-in-law Frank Lampard. As somebody who went to a
lot of away games over that period I'd echo those sentiments. Time upon time
we would travel with a 3-5-2 formation – used ostensibly to accommodate a
playmaker such as Eyal Berkovic or Joe Cole only for it to quickly become
5-3-2 with three static centre-halves as soon as we came under pressure.
After yet another heavy defeat Harry would brush off questions about the
performance with claims such as, "These lads wouldn't know how to defend"
and expect nobody to question why he had first bought then selected them.
Perhaps his behaviour when "accused" of "wheeling and dealing" by a Sky
reporter gives us a clue?

As a motivator Harry employed a pretty simple technique. Build a large squad
before dividing it into pariahs and teacher's pets. Given his force of
personality nobody would want to be on the wrong end of a Redknapp
tongue-lashing. For the huge majority of players there's nothing worse than
being dropped and I've heard several top flight managers observe the only
way to motivate them is with the threat of not playing. Multiply that by the
knowledge falling out with your boss would ensure you'd never be picked and
it's a pretty useful if ruthless technique. A case in point was the
previously mentioned Keller – who never enjoyed a run in the team despite
some very good one-off performances. Jermain Defoe would no doubt sympathise
too.

Perhaps Harry's vague association with truthfulness was a concern for the FA
regarding the England manager's appointment. When appointed West Ham boss
following Redknapp's sacking, relative unknown Glenn Roeder was asked which
attribute he could bring to his new job. "Honesty" was the immediate reply,
a declaration that in true Harry style led to a series of putdowns in the
press. In truth, it was easy to see Roeder's point, after a nasty training
ground fight between Berkovic and John Hartson denied by Redknapp but filmed
by Sky a case in point.

From my vantage I was interested to witness a TV appearance where Redknapp
claimed a whole series of events during a game against Bradford that simply
never happened. A former colleague of mine worked for the Newham Recorder
and shared a good relationship with H. Post-presser the cub would be
summoned to Harry's office to be told. "What I said out there was a load of
bollocks, this is what's really going on…" An indication perhaps, the man is
less the cheerful duffer the press would have us believe but more ruthless
operator.

It surely can't be coincidence that every club H has departed have been left
in severe financial distress. I'm going to have to be very careful what I
say here, especially as a recent court case brought by HMRC absolved
Redknapp of any tax misdeeds. Suffice to say, the more money H spent at West
Ham the less value we seemed to receive from it. Great signings such as
Trevor Sinclair from QPR declined and were outweighed by washed-up rubbish
like Titi Camara and Gary Charles. As time went by players appeared to be
bought to serve not the team but agents.

As an inveterate gambler Harry didn't seem able to develop from a punt to
purchasing solid players. In Tom Bower's tome "Broken Dreams" Brown is said
to become increasingly frustrated with his signings and offers Redknapp a
proportion of any money gained above £15million if he would stop buying
players. All of which begs the question who was signing the cheques?
Scriptwriter and director Tony Grounds is a good mate and pre-match drinking
buddy (not that I drink that much) I met through football and would no doubt
say his Channel Four film All In The Game about a corrupt football manager
had nothing to do with our West Ham. I'd merely invite people to watch it
and make up their own mind.

One of Harry's proudest boasts concerns the players he "brought through" at
West Ham. Happy to claim credit for the development of Rio Ferdinand, Frank
Lampard jnr, Joe Cole and Michael Carrick – even Defoe – who played exactly
13 minutes for Redknapp – the sad truth is those players were moulded into
what they were by the West Ham Academy Director Tony Carr and with the
possible exception of Lampard all needed a different manager to develop.

All these things and more are known by FA committee member Trevor Brooking
who was a non-executive director of the club for much of Redknapp's tenure.
So it's hardly likely he would have been an advocate when it came to the
Three Lions job. Privately Harry will be fuming. But I rather wonder if
there isn't a tiny part of him that's glad.

For the truth is, stripped of the day-to-day involvement of a football club
Redknapp may well have been exposed at the top level – especially as to
misquote Enoch Powell, "All managerial careers end in failure." His
honeymoon period would undoubtedly have been longer than Roy Hodgson – the
man who got the job – but by God Harry wouldn't want to lose the people
who've been his best ally all these years – the press.

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Pards v Big Sam
KUMB.com
Filed: Tuesday, 1st May 2012
By: Staff Writer

West Ham are back in the Championship play-offs for the first time in seven
years. But how does the class of 2012 compare to the Final-winning side of
2006?
In order to decide who's the best team, we've taken the 2004/05 play-off
Final starting XI and pitched them against a 4-4-2 formation selected from
Sam Allardyce's current batch of players.

Goalkeepers

Jimmy Walker (8) v Rob Green (10)

Jimmy 'Wacka' Walker had been second choice behind Stephen Bywater for much
of the 2004/05 campaign. Prior to the beginning of April 2005 the former
(and current) Walsall goalkeeper had barely featured for the first team but
he was an ever-present thereafter until being stretchered off in the
play-off Final against Preston. Rob Green has been simply irreplaceable
since being signed as Shaka Hislop's replacement in August 2006 and has
barely missed a first team game since, whilst receiving a handful of caps
for England including his ill-fated appearance in the 2010 World Cup Finals.
Although responsible for Walkers' World, the best reason to buy a match day
programme in recent years, there's little comparison between the two and
therefore Green wins the content of the 'keepers.


Full Backs

Tomas Repka (9) v Guy Demel (7)

Tomas Repka was Marmite to West Ham supporters. Whilst drawing unwavering
support from some supporters there were just as many who felt the former
Czech international, who was sent off on his debut was an utter liability.
Despite that, the former Fiorentina star went on to make almost 200
appearances under four different managers. Guy Demel signed from Hamburg at
the start of the current season and managed less than 90 minutes on the
field until finally recovering from a string of mystifying injuries to
effectively replace Joey O'Brien at right back - although the place is still
very much up for grabs. Repka's four-and-a-half years at the club tips the
scales in his favour here.

Chris Powell (8) v George McCartney (8)

Sprightly full-back Powell was 35 when he signed for West Ham in September
2004 - initially on loan before signing a permanent deal in December.
However he was to prove a vital cog in the defence that led Alan Pardew's
side back to the Premier League, with his experience being crucial alongside
the young central defensive pairing of 'Anton and Elliott'. George McCartney
has returned to east London on loan having been sold to Sunderland for
£6million three years ago and at times it's as if he's never been away,
although he now faces a fight for the left back spot with Matt Taylor who
has replaced him in recent weeks. There's little between the two so this one
goes down as an honourable draw.


Central Defence

Anton Ferdinand (9) v James Tomkins (10)

Anton Ferdinand took somewhat longer to emerge from the Academy than brother
Rio but became a man during the 2004/05 season, the first in which he
managed in excess of 30 first team appearances. After this and his first
season in the Premier League, an England call-up didn't look a million miles
away although his career appears to have stalled since. James Tomkins is
another in a long line of defenders to emerge from Tony Carr's Academy and
has been absolutely integral to West Ham's fortunes this season, making no
less than 44 appearances already whilst grabbing four goals to boot. At
similar stages of their careers in the respective seasons, Hammer of the
Year runner-up JT just about gets the nod here.

Elliott Ward (8) v Winston Reid (8)

Like both Ferdinands and Tomkins, Ward - now playing in the Premier League
for Norwich having spent time with Coventry and five more Championship clubs
on loan - emerged from under the wing of Tony Carr at Chadwell Heath. But it
was only an injury to Malky Mackay that thrust him into the spotlight and
Alan Pardew's first team plans in March 2005. After making his league debut
at Reading, Ward was a permanent fixture in the first team for the remainder
of the campaign. New Zealander Reid struggled in his first season at the
club but has enjoyed a solid campaign in 2011/12 despite being third-choice
behind Tomkins and Abdoulaye Faye for much of it. Too close to call.


Central Midfield

Nigel Reo-Coker (9) v Mark Noble (10)

A year before he became the youngest player to captain an FA Cup Final side
- and fell out, spectacularly, with his own supporters - Nigel Reo-Coker was
at the heart of West Ham's promotion-winning team. A natural ball-winner
with great inner belief, the former Wimbledon player was one of the first
names of Alan Pardew's team sheet. Much the same could be said about Mark
Noble - who was making his breakthrough in the first team back in 2004/05 -
this season. He too has become a key player in Sam Allardyce's side and was
voted Hammer of the Year for the first time this week. Noble, a born and
bred Hammer just about edges this one.

Hayden Mullins (8) v Kevin Nolan (8)

Hayden Mullins - who has just sealed another return to the Premier League
with Reading - was Alan Pardew's utility man, having played right across the
back line during his spell in east London. However it was as a defensive
midfielder that he was most regularly employed and where he was most
effective since being signed from Crystal Palace. Kevin Nolan, like Repka
before him has split opinion this season with a hefty price tag and wage
bill weighing heavy on his shoulders with some feeling his contribution
should have been greater. Once again there's little between the two in terms
of their contribution to their respective seasons.


Wingers

Shaun Newton (7) v Gary O'Neil (8)

Newton was famously signed for just £10,000 when joining West Ham from
Wolves with just two months of the 2004/05 campaign remaining (although
Wolves did receive an additional £115,000 upon United's promotion). He was
brought in as a right-sided player who could cover at both right back and in
midfield - long before he was disgraced by being caught by a random drugs
test. O'Neil has struggled to recover from a career-threatening injury but
has been excellent in recent weeks and would have been a shoo-in for the
play-offs had he not taken a heavy knock against Hull last weekend. The
former 'Boro man is our selection here.

Matthew Etherington (10) v Matt Taylor (8)

Brought in from Tottenham as a make-weight in the deal that saw Jermain
Defoe go the other way, Etherington was perhaps the key player in Pardew's
class of 2005. His pace on the left flank was a crucial part of the way
Pardew's team played and he was a virtual ever present in the promotion
season. Matt Taylor has flattered to deceive at times and is often
anonymous, although has proved that he can do the business if in the right
frame of mind. Two very different players, whilst Taylor lacks Etherington's
pace he can also fill in ably at left-back - however Etherington is the
clear winner in terms of a midfield berth.


Strikers

Marlon Harewood (9) v Ricardo Vaz Te (9)

Marvellous Marlon Harewood became a firm fans favourite after signing from
Nottingham Forest. The softly-spoken striker reminded many of Paulo
Wanchope, another who looked deadly at times - yet Sunday league standard at
others. Still, 22 goals in the promotion season cannot be sniffed at and he
was one who made the switch to Premier League football the following season
with ease. Similarly, Vaz Te has been excellent at times since signing from
Barnsley in January but also has the tendency to go missing occasionally;
you can usually tell what sort of game he's going to have within the opening
ten minutes. Both excel at this level and there is little, if anything
between them.

Bobby Zamora (8) v Carlton Cole (8)

Bobby Zamora, who joined West Ham from Tottenham in February 2004 may have
only scored 13 goals in the 2004/05 season but four of those came in the
play-offs, with three goals in the two semi-finals and, of course, the one
that made all the difference in the final. Like strike partner Harewood he
also went on to enjoy a good Premiership campaign the following year.
Carlton Cole is a little like Zamora in reverse, having proved himself at
the highest level - with both having also earned a call-up to the national
team. The current campaign's leading goalscorer with 14, Cole can frustrate
and delight in equal levels but is always one of those mentioned by
opposition managers as a player to fear. There's nothing between these two
either.

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