Forum | Non-Football Related

Terry Westley's U21 West Ham United side beat Hull City in the U21 Premier League Cup final following a tense return leg which saw a late late goal scored in normal time by the home side cancel out the slender 1-0 lead Hammers had held from the first leg at the Boleyn. This tight match was eventually resolved after extra time with a 3-5 penalty shoot out victory, with Raphael Spiegel performing wonders in the Hammers goal to deny Hull's hopes of winning the trophy. The ever maturing Martin Samuelson cooly tucked away the penalty that saw his side win a keenly contested match that has had virtually no press coverage, even our old pals at the Beeb don't mention it! The young players who featured in this match weren't just there to make up the numbers, many will hope to break in to Slaven Billic's first team in the near future and from what was on show, the future is promising. Spiegel, Byram, Page, Rice (Hector-Ingram 100), Henry, Oxford (c), Diangana (Hendrie 68), Makasia, Samuelsen, Browne, Parfitt-Williams (Pike 68). Subs: Howes, Dobson were all in the squad. Spiegel, Byram, Page, Henry, Oxford, Parfitt-Williams and Samuelson could all get in to the first team in the Barclays Premier League, it will be interesting to see how they are integrated, as hope of making the first team or at least the squad is what drives these youngsters on, perhaps the Summer friendlies will present an ideal opportunity for them to be given a run out, the 6ft 5ins tall Spiegel is under contract at West Ham until 2018 so is clearly a part of tSlaven's future plans and is fighting with Darren Randolph and Sam Howes to take Adrian’s number one spot in the future. Well done lads- Ed

Last games at the old lady Boleyn Stadium were supposed to be special events, 'the final countdown' as it were, but today's turgid entertainment that West Ham fans were asked to cough up £20-30 for was an acute embarrassment, this was gnome towers at it's absolute cringing worst! Who on earth oversaw this 'event', it all started so well, with Big Ray's 'sixties London love in' and some great archive footage, in fact media savvy observers were commenting on how well channel 5 had put the programme together, but sneaking suspicions were confirmed by the fact that the German team had NO celebrities involved and they duly humiliated a charity team there to put on a show. By show we mean the sort of thing that the Harlem Globetroppers do on a regular basis, only this time it was entirely for a worthy charity which the bookies had priced accordingly especially accumulatortips.org.uk, but they didn't predict the margin, having assumed as did the England players that this was a 'charity show piece', in fact the BBC had the match listed as an International friendly! But fans who paid handsomely for the privilege of watching a final 'bums on seat' experience at the Boleyn were sold extremely short, and it wasn't just the fans, the players were far from happy, Rio Ferdinand was furious when interviewed jesting that the organiser, an individual, not West Ham football club by the way, should be 'filled in' in a comic reference as to how a fictional character that the England legends' team of the day manager Ray Winstone would have played, and how he would have dealt with such a pernicious charlatan.
For a club that is moving forward ahead of European recognition, this was a shot in the foot event of the highest order, the sort of situation that happens when well meaning people lose the plot! It is very rare that West Ham hierarchy get things wrong, but it proves that every one is human, even owners and CEO's!
Hopefully lessons will have been learned, next time read the small print! - Ed