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Lineker’s smirk disappears as Beeb gamble backfires

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cummings

By Allen Cummings

Now the excitement of Sunday’s game has subsided (I jest of course), it’s perhaps time to consider who were the biggest losers after that less than scintillating draw.

Was it West Ham? Was it Shrewsbury? Was it the BBC, (or the Biased Broadcasting Corporation as I like to call them.

Travelling up on the morning of the game, neither my two sons or myself were exactly confident of a victory. Not with our track record of F.A. Cup banana skins.

We were the Premier League team of course, which should have made us favourites, but we haven’t exactly been setting the world alight this season. Shrewsbury, on the other hand, despite being two divisions below us, were on a roll.

Just three defeats all season, second in the table and looking well placed for automatic promotion. Consequently we knew it could be a difficult day.  With home advantage for The Shrews, plus it being our third game in six days, an upset wasn’t out of the question.

The BBC were clearly willing visitors to New Meadow for just that reason, and that reason alone. They weren’t really interested in anything else. They were looking for a headline! A cup upset at our expense. It didn’t happen of course.

So who went away most disappointed? Our own at a draw and another game we could have done without was tempered by the fact that we didn’t play well. But despite that we’d got a reprieve, and earned another shot on our own patch.

Shrewsbury, on the other hand, must have been disappointed not to have capitalised after having by far the better of the game and the clearer chances. But their compensation came in the shape of a second chance to grab glory, plus an opportunity to top up their bank account.

 So the big losers on the day must surely have been the BBC with their investment gamble completely backfiring. They didn’t get the giant-killing for which they were desperate  and they certainly didn’t get the 90 minutes of value-for-money football with which they might have consoled themselves.

The usually smirking Lineker was left subdued and somewhat silenced which was more than enough to put a smile on my face at least.

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Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!"

Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

0 comments

  • hammers1010 says:

    After a pathetic performance like that I shouldn’t worry about Lineker or anyone else, just concentrate on our team !!

  • hammers1010 says:

    And of course our supporters certainly didn’t get 90 minutes of value for money football, but then again that is par for the course the last few years !!

  • Mary Millingtons Ghost says:

    No, the ‘big losers’ on the day were the loyal fans who spent decent money and time watching the absolute dogsh1t served up by us.

  • Stratford E20 says:

    I agree with Hugh. I’ve hated jug ears since the Tevez saga when I believe that he was the ‘expert’ who gave advice to the committee who made the judgement against us ie Tevez gave us an advantage that season. He obviously forgot the first three quarters of the season when the two argies actually disrupted the squad.

  • Max Willow says:

    I’m afraid that Lineker is neither a geniu or is he stable, unlike some great world leaders!

  • Hammer64 says:

    Not just the BBC. Sky were nearly wetting themselves last night over ‘little’ Bristol City only losing 2-1 to Man C & they have a home game to come. Overlooking the fact that being home or away makes little odds to City. But it makes a good story. Like ‘little’ Leicester winning the PL, when it now turns out they have one of the biggest wage bills in the world (yes so do we and yes they have made better use of their money than us but that’s another story).

    You might be right about Lineker Stratford but there was also a journo from the Telegraph called Henry Winter who was really pleased with himself for giving advice to the doddery old judge & helping to convince him that you can calculate how many points one players is worth to a team ( the clue is in the word ‘team’). Believe it or not that bloke is apparently a ‘respected’ journo. He bragged about his role in the paper. He should have gone away to hide in shame. I am not saying we did not do anything wrong-we did. But the court case was a travesty of justice.

  • Wembley1980 says:

    West Ham fans were the losers usually our worst performances are in the privacy of the stadium but in this case the football public got to see how bad we can be..I was embarrassed it was on tv…also the replay has been dropped for Norwich away to Chelsea, I can’t ever remember a replay of a tv game not being covered by the channel that showed the 1st game.

  • pidge22 says:

    Having the SKY full package I rarely watch BBC sport thank god and have to suffer the awful Lineker & even worse Shearer

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