Beating Kids Around The Head With Club, Allardyce Style!

August 27th, 1973. Ipswich at home. West Ham selected a bright young keeper by the name of Mervyn Day. The result 3-3 which suggests an indifferent night at best for the young debutant. Greenwood's reaction? He praised his young keeper to the heavens and said he was West Ham's keeper for the next 10 years. He was wrong about the ten years but that's not the point. He built a young boy's confidence.

Contrast that with Allardyce. He ballsed up when he picked the team. Potts at centre back. Really? Spence also used in a makeshift defence. Unfair. And unfair on Tomkins too who found himself the meat between that sandwich.

We didn't lose because of the defending, we lost because we started without a defence - a defence used to playing alongside each other.

But Allardyce's reaction? The opposite of Greenwood's. No protection, no encouragement, no grace. They will learn from being booed off the pitch apparently. Bollocks. That booing wasn't directed at the players, it was directed at the team, Allardyce's team, which threw lambs to the slaughter. But Allardyce is never going to accept the blame himself is he? Far easier to bash a kid or two about the head publicly apparently.