The 2 photos highlight just how quickly the ground fills up. The first is taken 25 mins before kick off and the other seconds before kick off.
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The game was at 8pm and I wanted to get there before dark so rolled in around 4pm parked and walked the short distance to Salford Keys and spent some more time in the War Museum. Was dark after I got out so I played around with Carole's Christmas present taking night pics which you can see a few of in the previous post.
I had emailed Gary from the Northern Hammers earlier and he phoned and we arranged to meet up for a feed of fish & chips and a pint at the Harry Ramsden's 'restaurant' near Old Trafford. Gary is a really nice bloke who would do anything for you (and regularly does for travelling hammers - you should hear some of his tales about the Norwegian Hammers who go berserk on the cheap beer in England compared to what they pay at home). Gary also does a lot for charity. One example, in November to coincide with Remembrance Day all of the premier league clubs played in special poppy shirts and the British Legion auctioned them off. Gary bought Carlton Cole's signed jersey for £503 and promptly donated it to the former West Ham club chaplain who is involved with an African Ghanaian children's charity so that he could auction it again to raise money. I heard about this and since Carlton Cole is Carole's favourite player, I asked her if she would like the jersey on the off chance I could get it for a reasonable price. We bid £201 thinking we would just be bidding it up a bit but we ended up getting it for £165. I later managed to get Carlton to sign the match program from the poppy match to go with it and I will get them framed together. Anyway as I say Gary's a nice bloke and it was great to catch up again.
The match was a replay following the awesome and dreadfully unlucky 2-2 draw in London where Man United scored a wonder goal in injury time to force the replay :( and since then we had been beset with injuries so tonight is going to be tough going against the Mancs on their own patch. We have only one fit & eligible striker and we also played 3 'kids' preferring to rest some players on the bench for the important game against Queens Park Rangers the following Saturday. We played very well although lacked any real quality in the final 3rd (meaning we couldn't score to save our lives - we had some great chances but fluffed them all). The Mancs scored early but were generally ordinary failing to deal with a depleted and young West Ham team. We had a clear penalty turned down by the ref and the ball went up the other end where virtually the identical thing happened and the ref pointed to the spot! We all pissed ourselves laughing when Rooney blasted over the bar. This was one of the best atmosphere's of any game I had been to, no thanks to the home fans who were mostly silent (we sang at them "is this a library?"). No this was all down to the sparkling wit and sense of humour of the traveling West Ham fans who sang virtually non stop. You're only here for the West Ham. 1-0 and you still don't sing. He's just a Dutch Jimmy Saville (directed at Robin Van Persie who was accused of rape in 2005). You let your brother down (dircted at Ryan Giggs who slept with his brother's wife in secret for 8 years) and all the regular songs. We were unlucky not to force extra time with an equaliser and were knocked out of this season's FA Cup but the night was a great experience and very enjoyable.
Was nearly 1.30am when I got back to Cumbria.
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