22/01/2011

Today was an admin day; reserved solely for sorting out travel plans, booking daily excursions and doing our washing. We also found out from the locals that Hoi An translates as a “peaceful meeting place”.

We walked to the old town for a look around before going to see what time the coaches left for Nha Trang as rumours had spread that you needed to book way in advance and this was a concern, as we had to be somewhere to watch the second leg of the Carling Cup semi-final against Birmingham. The topic of conversation was West Ham’s bid to take occupancy of the Olympic Stadium after London 2012. Both could see the potential opportunities for the club to expand, although there was no denying it, what essentially would be a retail park would be no match for the buzz of the Boleyn Ground.

A few weeks before leaving for Asia I was there for the Wigan game, and sipping my pint in The Queens I noticed how sad it would be too see one of the last real traditional parts of the East End go. I mean the area changed a long time ago, but one Saturday every other week for 10 months of the year, the old East End returns here to this otherwise normal street in the Borough of Newham. With its fierce yet communal atmosphere, you can almost smell the old sprit of of the blitz – whether or not that was all bollocks or not, is irrelevant. A move to a Stratford would see this lost forever.

I don’t claim to be the biggest fan, and I can remember the pivotal moment when I lost faith in the Premier League. It was shortly after England’s heroic performance in the 2007 rugby world cup, and despite having a weakened team from when they won it 4 years earlier, they showed true determination in getting to the final. In fact all the teams did, and for the duration of the tournament I witnessed blokes taking hits that would probably kill me or you, and getting up straight away, dusting themselves off and carrying on. So when I turned on Match of the Day on the first day of the following season, I was that bit more put off by the diving and dissent.

Of course, not all the players were like that. Mark Noble and Scott Parker were the remaining few I could rely on to restore my faith in the beautiful game. But coming to Upton Park is always special and win or lose it’s a great day out, I just don’t think you would find the same character while having pre-drinks in a Walkabout or a quick bite in Nando’s before kick off.

We collected our washing from downstairs and while neatly folding them back into our bags we analysed which item of clothing would make our team selection for the World Cup. The main talking points around this, were as follows;

1. Ben’s blue T-shirt which had picked up a hole in it from when he lent it to a friend was forced into retirement, which ran parallels with the career of Dean Ashton who effectively sustained a career-ending injury himself whilst on England duty.
2. My Ted Baker jumper that had been handed down to me from both my brothers was like Teddy Sheringham when he was at Man United; rather old with many thinking he was past his peak, he still ended up playing a pivotal part in the historic treble winning season. It had ended up on the scrap heap many times, often being saved from the bag to the charity shop at the last minute, but here it was on this epic trip holding its place as my smart-casual option.
3. The shirt my Dad got me for Christmas was goalkeeper Ben Roberts. With only a handful of appearances, he was now fortunate enough to be on this trip, just as Roberts was when he found himself playing in goal for Middleborough in the 1997 FA Cup final despite only ever making 16 appearances in 7 seasons previous.
4. This was certainly the swansong for my white vintage adidas T-shirt, also a handy down from an older brother, but he’d had a fantastic career as a journey man getting appearances for my other brother Luke and my Dad. Despite being my most capped player this trip, I can confirm he will be retired at the end. He was my Van Der Sar of the 2010/11 season.

After an explore of the town (I was really loving this town as place to get comfortably lost in), we headed back to Sun Bar after meeting another one of the promoters. We said we would only go if Bin would be there to which he confirmed “Bin’s there, Bin’s there”. We were sold. Watching the Ernie-esq fella (you remember Ernie the guy we met on the way to Laos who was suspected of being a DEA officer but was nothing but an overfriendly gay dude who didn’t know it yet) dance to Jay-Z and Sean Paul, Ben noted that “these American and Canadians probably listen to this music on their iPods. To them, it’s so much more than just cheesy club music. They actually enjoy it”. Its true, but then and I reminded him that it may not be exclusive to our North American friends, as one of our good mates from University had the Baywatch Theme and Summer of ’69 on his most played list.