The Great Escape…we owe so much to this guy
By CandH’s top blogger Allen Cummings
Under normal circumstances when David Moyes withdrew Mark Noble from the action in the 87th minute of Sunday’s final game against Aston Villa, it would have been seen as a deliberate move by the manager to afford his skipper a personal show of appreciation from what would have been a packed London Stadium.
It was the perfect opportunity in the last game of the season for West Ham fans to show just how much they valued the job the captain had done over the last five weeks of intense football.
Sadly there wasn’t a fan in sight inside the ground to respond but that shouldn’t be allowed to detract from Nobes’ achievement, or from the debt we owe him.
While Villa captain Jack Grealish may have attracted most of the headlines, David Moyes will know his skipper has been every bit as influential for the Hammers in this club’s survival. But he’s done it without the fanfare – which is very much the Mark Noble way.
When Project Restart kicked off, there were some who thought Noble might only be playing a ‘bit part’ in games, with Tomas Soucek and Declan Rice as the preferred pairing in the middle of the park.
But Moyes knew the true value of his skipper, both on and off the pitch, and was determined to use him in both, an opinion, incidentally, shared by Terry Westley on Claretandhugh a few weeks ago. As Moyes said after the match on Sunday: “We needed the group, we needed the team spirit behind the scenes as well, and we needed them all put together.”
In other words we needed Mark Noble involved. While it was obvious to Moyes the legs of Soucek and Rice were vital – the experience and influence of Nobes’ out there on the park was just as important. Consequently together with his coaching staff he created a new role for the captain. It couldn’t have worked better!
It’s ironic that amongst those final frantic games Mark achieved what is almost unheard of these days, a player completing 500 appearances for one club, a throwback, for those of us with long memories, to a certain Billy Bonds, a captain who lead by example, was fiercely competitive and played with his heart on his sleeve.
Like Bonzo, Noble is a dedicated family man, and off the field and a great ambassador for the club -a manager’s dream in other words – never attracting unsavoury headlines, never courting personal publicity. Just doing his job with least fuss but most effect!
Typical of Nobes was his comments following that 500th game. “To be honest it made me a little bit emotional reading what ex-pros and the Chairmen said about me. It was nice getting survival…but I’m even more proud of the players for the way they’ve come back after lockdown.”
Whatever the future might hold for Mark Noble – West Ham as a club, and we as Hammers’ supporters, owe the captain a huge slice of gratitude!