The Guardian football writer and lifelong Hammer Jacob Steinberg says Farewell Boleyn
The Guardian football writer and lifelong Hammer Jacob Steinberg says Farewell Boleyn…
It felt a bit emotional against Swansea and I think everyone felt that a little bit. I don’t know whether that got to the players at all. You do feel a bit weird knowing you’re not going be here again on a Saturday.
As loads of people have said, the Boleyn Ground has just been a fixture in everyone’s lives. We knew this was coming, and it’s a great occasion for it to be Manchester United, just as it was in the last FA Cup game as well. There have been some great games against them. It’s been a great fixture over the years, so it is fitting in a way.
I am working against Man United and it’s an honour to be there. Maybe working, it will be a little bit easier to take some of the emotion out of it by working. When we lost to Spurs on the first day of last season, it sort of acted as a balm for the pain. When you break a leg but go on drinking for the next few hours, it’s almost like that; only when you wake up in the morning do you realise what’s happened.
I think I woke up at about 4am Sunday morning going through the Swansea game at home, so it sometimes comes back after a while. It will be very emotional but maybe a little easier to do it that way.
There have been a lot of great memories. The Ipswich game, when we beat them in the play-off semi-finals, that was the most amazing atmosphere I’ve experienced here. When Matthew Etherington scored that goal, I think I was directly behind it when it went in. It was just one of those games, and the Manchester United one reminded me of it a little bit, where you could feel the atmosphere before the game.
I was in the Bobby Moore lower and it was packed 15 minutes before kick-off. You get that in places like Turkey where the stadium is packed hours before the game. I think the fans just got that feeling that they knew they would win that night.
The game against Chelsea under Allardyce where they came back was obviously an amazing atmosphere and it was the first time beating Chelsea for ten years and I think there was a lot of emotion in that after the controversial game against Tottenham at White Hart Lane.
If I had to pick out one brilliant memory it would have been Paolo Di Canio’s lob over Martin Keown in 1999 and West Ham had lost to Arsenal 4-0 the season before. Di Canio basically beat them in his own that day.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of West Ham United
It felt a bit emotional against Swansea and I think everyone felt that a little bit. I don’t know whether that got to the players at all. You do feel a bit weird knowing you’re not going be here again on a Saturday.
As loads of people have said, the Boleyn Ground has just been a fixture in everyone’s lives. We knew this was coming, and it’s a great occasion for it to be Manchester United, just as it was in the last FA Cup game as well. There have been some great games against them. It’s been a great fixture over the years, so it is fitting in a way.
I am working against Man United and it’s an honour to be there. Maybe working, it will be a little bit easier to take some of the emotion out of it by working. When we lost to Spurs on the first day of last season, it sort of acted as a balm for the pain. When you break a leg but go on drinking for the next few hours, it’s almost like that; only when you wake up in the morning do you realise what’s happened.
I think I woke up at about 4am Sunday morning going through the Swansea game at home, so it sometimes comes back after a while. It will be very emotional but maybe a little easier to do it that way.
There have been a lot of great memories. The Ipswich game, when we beat them in the play-off semi-finals, that was the most amazing atmosphere I’ve experienced here. When Matthew Etherington scored that goal, I think I was directly behind it when it went in. It was just one of those games, and the Manchester United one reminded me of it a little bit, where you could feel the atmosphere before the game.
I was in the Bobby Moore lower and it was packed 15 minutes before kick-off. You get that in places like Turkey where the stadium is packed hours before the game. I think the fans just got that feeling that they knew they would win that night.
The game against Chelsea under Allardyce where they came back was obviously an amazing atmosphere and it was the first time beating Chelsea for ten years and I think there was a lot of emotion in that after the controversial game against Tottenham at White Hart Lane.
If I had to pick out one brilliant memory it would have been Paolo Di Canio’s lob over Martin Keown in 1999 and West Ham had lost to Arsenal 4-0 the season before. Di Canio basically beat them in his own that day.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of West Ham United