Relegation Rants Are West Ham's Songs of Experience

If anything's going to bounce up and down, can it be boobs rather than West Ham
By Russell Brand

Any follower of a club perpetually threatened by relegation will recognise a chilling moment that occurs as the season reaches its close, a stark moment of clarity, too visually shrill to acknowledge but unignorable in its primary coloured boldness. As cruel as the blossoming beauty of an adolescent daughter to the eye of her menopausal mother - indecent, vicious nature with her calamitous, indifferent tricks.

The moment of which I speak but fear almost too greatly to name is one I myself endured this Tuesday night watching West Ham against Liverpool. After Liverpool's second goal and the lacklustre response of the crestfallen Hammers the dreaded thought, clammy and uninvited, slithered through my fragile mind like the gleeful boot of a greasy bullyboy sullying a perfect carpet of fresh lain snow. . . "Oh well, I suppose if we do go down at least we'll get to see 'em win some matches".

I tried to strangle the fledgling notion before it fled my brain box. But it were done and could not be undone. I'd countenanced relegation. Once you stare relegation in the face can your eyes ever be averted again? West Ham's owner Eggert Magnusson also drooled the loathsome murmur: "If we do go down we have sufficient resources to bounce back up." I don't want to bounce back up; I don't want to bounce down. This is not a time for bouncing. When has bouncing ever been the solution? Be it with cheques or bombs it always leads to heartache. A curse on all bouncing. Except boobs, I suppose, but they're the only exception.

It were a queer night all round - "We are West Ham's Claret 'n' Blue army" came the cry from the Centenary for periods of up to 10 minutes. Not Alan Curbishley's army, and not just because it doesn't scan well. At one point Alan Pardew's name was evoked. This for me was a stomach-churning chant, not because I don't cherish his memory but because it's too late, he's gone and can't be brought back by voodoo yelps.

The incantations became ever more intense till all were drunk in grim gallows revelry. Evangelical heads tossed back, the clap relentless as if willing West Ham to score and yet somehow delighting in failure like the embrace of death, a reaper's kiss. "We're losing, we're going down and we don't fucking care."

This impotent defiance, no longer about the game, but about defeat and death, heaven and hell. "You can beat us on the pitch but you can never break our spirits." My mate Jack turned to me and said "I don't like losing" but while there was little heroism from the team there was heroism from the terrace in this curiously English attitude of celebrating catastrophe, this petit Dunkirk almost more invigorating than victory.

So now Matthew Upson steps into the breach: can he offer salvation or will he get devoured by a pack of stray dogs on the trip to Villa, uncomfortably close to his former home? Lucas Neill lasted about 10 seconds before hurling himself on his sword - I suppose I should be grateful that during the celebratory, player purchase press shot while holding aloft his claret and blue shirt, flanked by Magnusson and Curbishley (still too early for Curbs) Upson's arm didn't fall off.

The transfer has reportedly left Steve Bruce suicidal, which must be a peculiar sight. One wonders what method he might employ, perhaps he'll try and batter a hole in an artery with furious fists or hurl himself off a pile of David Sullivan's porno mags.

Javier Mascherano has cleared off to Liverpool, doubtless to immediately become incontrovertibly brilliant, but Kepa Blanco has come and he has scored, and by jingo I'm in the mood for a bout of cockeyed optimism so I'm prepared to nominate him saviour. But is that what people want? Perhaps such as we, nurtured on a diet of glorious defeat, ought to reject redemption and deliverance and let the icy caress of death lull us into a Championship slumber, because, for West Ham, all dreams must fade and die.

Guardian column