Curbishley, the Master of Mediocrity

Curbishley is a master for mediocrity. It is like having a batsman in cricket, as Tavare used to be, who can "hold up an end" whilst others score the runs around him. Tavare was never going to be a Botham, never going to be a winner on his own, but still had his value. But like Tavare, Curbishley doesn't have what it takes to be a winner or to get the crowd excited. To stick with cricket terminology, he doesn't "go for his shots". He is a nudger and a nurdler, a grafter who scores by saying, "you'll not get me out and if I stick around, you'll chuck down enough bad balls for me to accumulate a decent score." That's all very well if that is what you want, but a team of Tavares would be awfully boring to watch, just like Curbishley's teams. The trouble with West Ham teams in the past has been that all the players, even the defenders, have had the Botham attitude. Every team, ideally, has a Tavare, and I give Curbishley credit for instilling discipline into the defenders, Neill apart. But we want to see flair, we want to see our team pouring forward, we want to see invention, creativity, risk taking, we want to see exciting, attacking football. Tavare was never going to go for his shots in cricket and nor will Curbishley in football. Yes he was ideal for Charlton where expectations were lower, but he is wrong for West Ham. I'm not saying we expect to win things, what I'm saying is that we expect to be entertained when not winning things. George Graham might have been acceptable because he might have won trophies whilst abandoning our values, but Curbishley is the worst of both worlds; he will nurdle us to mid table obscurity and I would rather finish 14th by playing our shots than 10th by nudging and nurdling all season! One thing is for certain, Curbishley isn't going to change his mentality after all these "successful" years so if we want flair we need a new manager.

Arise Sir Satan of Baghdad

Interesting Honours List. Salman Rushdie? I'm sure Muslims around the world will appreciate that one! As if Iraq isn't provocation enough!

Maybe whoever nominated him has a poor memory - possibly because he's smoked too much of the stuff that led to Sir Beefy being suspended from test matches!

Will Sherri get his gong in a dentist's chair? Or has he bedded one of the judges?

Oleg Gordievsky? Well there's a poke in the eye for Putin. As if he needed one!

And David Starkey? Who says manners count for nothing in modern day Britain?

Poor old Becks - you would have thought playing away with Rebecca Loos would have been disgraceful enough to secure his knighthood. I'm sure when down on her knees Becca would have said to Golden Balls "Arise sir David" if her mouth hadn't been full at the time!

If Barrymore was dead, he'd be turning in his grave; for the time being, he's just twitching in somebody's anus.