Why West Ham Fans Were Right To Boo Scott Parker

Poor Scotty was hurt and bemused. He couldn't understand why West Ham fans booed him last Monday night, claiming he didn't expect it and didn't deserve it. Well I beg to differ.

Long standing friends and enemies of this blog will know I was never a fan of Parker as a player and called his selection as Player of the Year, when we finished bottom of the table, a joke. I  maintained throughout his time at Upton Park that Parker was part of the problem, not part of the solution, and it was no great surprise when Allardyce shrugged off his departure, preparing the ground by moving Noble to the holding role even whilst Parker was in the team.

But you don't boo a former player based on his ability, you boo him when you feel he has betrayed you, and all those who Parker made look like mugs were justifiably aggrieved when he shipped up in a Spurs shirt expecting Tevez like adulation. No way Scotte!

Of course, turning out for Spurs is a wind up in itself, but what probably rankled most for West Ham fans was the way that Parker refused to contemplate any other team, backing Sullivan and Gold into a corner and forcing the club to accept a derisory offer of just £6m. Suddenly, belatedly, two and two added up to four, and West Ham fans understood that Parker had taken them for mugs all along.

The man who many were injudiciously terming a West Ham legend had tried to engineer a move 12 months before, but Levy didn't fancy him because of his age and salary demands, and wheeler dealer 'Arry got excited about a cut price Van der Vaart instead. So Scotty was left high and dry on transfer deadline day and was forced to hang around at Upton Park. But no matter, he negotiated an absurdly inflated contract by way of compensation, a contract that ensured a massive salary well into his footballing dotage.

And what did West Ham get in return? The sort of headless chicken performance that saw him give us a leg up with a penalty on Monday. The challenge was absurd: an off the ground lunge inside the penalty box right in front of the referee. And Scotty looked amazed when the penalty was given!

We were duly relegated with Scotty charging all over the pitch with his heart on his sleeve but no brain in his head. Until the climax of the season, when with the European Championships beckoning, Scotty pulled up lame and sat out crucial games, missing our narrow defeat at Manchester City in order to watch his future employers at Stamford Bridge, sat alongside Jamie Redknapp no less!

Amazingly, even then, West Ham fans defended him. In fact, they were still protesting his love for the club even as he defected to Spurs. Fools!

Well on Monday, the fools bit back and booed the man who had betrayed them more than Judas Defoe. The poison dwarf was never loved at the Boleyn, what hurt West Ham fans most about Parker was that they had put Scotty on a pedestal and he promptly pissed all over them from a great height.

I'm not a big fan of booing but in Parker's case, I fully understand where the fans were coming from. What did the club get in return for the huge wages paid to Parker? A narrow escape from relegation followed by the drop the following season. But Parker got his Player of the Year gong and his move to his father's beloved Spurs regardless. And he's surprised the West Ham fans now feel resentful? Like I always said, he's not the brainiest of footballers!