West Ham 1 Blackburn 1 Going Down With A Whimper

Eliot said it. This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper, and our team of hollow men are proving him right. Blackburn arrived with a terrible away record, but our dead men, head pieces filled with straw, made them look half decent for four fifths of the game. It was only in the last ten minutes that we came alive.

Grant trained them and picked the side. But between the conception and the creation, between the emotion and the response, fell Avram's shadow. Between the desire and the spasm, between the potency and the existence, between the essence and the now inevitable descent, fell Avram's shadow.

The crowd, gathered on this beach of the tumid Thames, in this hollow valley, this broken jaw of lost kingdoms, groped together and avoided speech. They whispered together, their dry voices quiet and meaningless in this dead land as they watched a team without form, a paralysed force, the empty men.

Hitz gave us hope, a momentary shaft of  sunlight on the broken column but we got no nearer in death's dream kingdom. Those who have crossed with direct eyes, to Death's other kingdom - Lyall, Greenwood, Moore - will remember us not as lost, violent souls, but as the hollow men, the stuffed men, as a fading star.

And so now we are in the twilight kingdom forming prayers to a broken stone. For Blackpool, for Wigan and for Wolves to muster no more than a point apiece and for our hollow men to find heart and courage and conviction and ability and so win two final agonising games. But that aint going to happen. In our hearts, as we lean together, we know that this is the hope only of empty men. For truly,

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Hollow Men ratings:

Green 6; Jacobsen 4, da Costa 5, Gabbidon 5, Bridge 4; Hitz 7, Spector 4, Boa 5, Sears 5, Ba 5, Cole 6 Subs: Collison 6, Piquionne 6, Keane Minus 10!