I still wear my faithful Umbro shirt with SBOBET jersey sponsorship to this day. One of many betting companies sponsoring Premier League teams, SBOBET have remained our shirt sponsor to this day and done a great job when compared to the disaster of our last sponsor XL Holidays or the TY heart logo that used to adorn Pompey kits!

When so many footballers rely on their confidence to excel the Macon kits of the last three seasons have left me hugely disappointed. Looks-wise they have been decent but their fitting has been atrocious; reminding me so much of the days of baggy Sunday league kits. I’m 5″9′ tall with an average build and the ‘small mens’ is too baggy for me.

I wonder if any of our players – who rely on confidence – have felt the same? We were relegated with our first Macron kit, somewhat under performed in our second but are actually doing well in our third; so who knows? The rumours of our kit supplier being Adidas for next season fills me with hope that we might get the decent kits and training wear you’d expect from such an established sportswear company.

After all, confidence in football isn’t something worth gambling on!

The National Steinbeck Center in his home town of Salinas, California, is well worth a visit if you’re ever in that neck of the woods. It’s full of life-size displays that recreate scenes from his work (check out the massive Salinas Valley Lettuce Carriage from East of Eden!), and exhibits featuring items synonymous with his life; including the actual mobile home, Rocinante, from his novel Travels with Charley and the garden house he used to write in.

Even though Steinbeck passed away in 1968 – just a year before than my other favourite writer, Kerouac – it’s great to know that with every new generation, his work will always ‘touch lives throughout the world’.  A true master!

But then I thought about it a bit and I’m not too worried.

Rodgers made it clear that Carroll wasn’t in his plans, and was willing to let him leave as long as he could get a replacement in. Liverpool’s failed last-minute pursuit of Clint Dempsey has left them short of attacking options, leading many to assume they’ll recall Carroll in January.

In my eyes, Liverpool’s problem is between now and January; not from January onwards. They need a new striker in now – the fact they have to wait until January makes me believe that they’ll just sign a striker they actually want then. Rodgers doesn’t fancy Carroll and that probably won’t change in January – if he has the option to sign a player that he rates then I doubt he’ll panic and recall AC.

Come on you Irons!

• To begin with, you’ll want to pick a place of lodging, and you’ll have no shortage of options. This choice will depend entirely on what type of vacation you are looking for, as well as what your budget looks like. You can stay at a simple inn, a comfortable hotel, go camping outside, or if you prefer, enjoy a truly luxurious resort and spa. In fact, if you plan on visiting for a long time you may even want to split your vacation up between various lodgings. Again, the options are almost limitless in this popular tourism destination.

• Of course, you’ll also want to make sure that you visit some of the finest wineries in the region, as this is the main attraction for most tourists. Really, the choices are almost endless, and the best way to see a nice variety of wineries may be to book a tour that takes you for multiple visits and tastings. Some popular vineyards to try, however, include the Pine Ridge Winery, the Robert Mondavi Winery, and the Joseph Phelps Vineyards – although, again, it is important not to limit yourself due to the impressive number of quality vineyards in the area. Many of the best wines in the area are bottled worldwide, and can be purchased at the nearest Marks & Spencer or at a local wine shop – but it’s always best to try a fine wine at its source!

• Another thing to keep in mind if you are preparing for a trip to the Napa Valley region is its close proximity to San Francisco. While the city will offer quite a different sort of vacation than the Napa Valley, it can also be wonderful to experience. Often thought of as one of the most unique large cities in the United States, San Francisco is home to a beautiful city setting, renowned architecture, and an engaging culture. Furthermore, due to its status as a popular destination and thriving city, San Francisco is now home to a number of enjoyable vacation attractions, from fine dining restaurants to a busy arts and music scene. This city can greatly compliment your Napa Valley vacation experience.

But the problems haven’t been completely eradicated. The opening day loss to Cardiff was the first of too many matches this season where we showed enough quality but still had the fragility to slip up and drop points. I’ve enjoyed this season but after attending the Reading home game I was so annoyed I found myself incapable of blogging my thoughts.

Even the mercurial form of Ricardo Vaz Te couldn’t pull me back in! At the price he was he just has to be considered one of the signings of the season – imagine if we’d had him ALL season!

I also bring up the Reading game because of something we were talking about in the Boleyn before kick off: we have had a tendency to buckle under the pressure and that game summed it up perfectly for me! Sam is making us a stronger unit but even with a lead and playing the other team off the field, it is truly never over until it’s over! Had we been able to see out games we would have won the division easily.

With that in mind I hope one of two things happens in this evening’s first leg. The preferred outcome is that we destroy Cardiff and leave with a multiple-goal lead for the second leg; the second outcome is that we do well tonight, but not well enough.

It sounds crazy and I’m sure only a West Ham could feel this way but, if we can’t score a handful tonight, then I hope it’s still a close game going into the second leg. We’ve often proven incapable of protecting a narrow lead and we if we go in to the home game trying to protect a one or two goal advantage then I can see it being too nervy and too much to ask of the team. If we go into the home game needing goals then I’d feel more confident that Allardyce would put out a do-or-die squad that can do the job!

I’ve got my tickets for the home leg but must settle for watching it in the pub tonight. I’ve roped two old friends into watching the match in Hammersmith and, with a day off tomorrow, I’m hoping for a good enough reason to have a couple of celebratory drinks after the match instead of rushing home. Wherever you’re watching – enjoy it!

Come On You Irons!

But the problems haven’t been completely eradicated. The opening day loss to Cardiff was the first of too many matches this season where we showed enough quality but still had the fragility to slip up and drop points. I’ve enjoyed this season but after attending the Reading home game I was so annoyed I found myself incapable of blogging my thoughts.

Even the mercurial form of Ricardo Vaz Te couldn’t pull me back in! At the price he was he just has to be considered one of the signings of the season – imagine if we’d had him ALL season!

I also bring up the Reading game because of something we were talking about in the Boleyn before kick off: we have had a tendency to buckle under the pressure and that game summed it up perfectly for me! Sam is making us a stronger unit but even with a lead and playing the other team off the field, it is truly never over until it’s over! Had we been able to see out games we would have won the division easily.

With that in mind I hope one of two things happens in this evening’s first leg. The preferred outcome is that we destroy Cardiff and leave with a multiple-goal lead for the second leg; the second outcome is that we do well tonight, but not well enough.

It sounds crazy and I’m sure only a West Ham could feel this way but, if we can’t score a handful tonight, then I hope it’s still a close game going into the second leg. We’ve often proven incapable of protecting a narrow lead and we if we go in to the home game trying to protect a one or two goal advantage then I can see it being too nervy and too much to ask of the team. If we go into the home game needing goals then I’d feel more confident that Allardyce would put out a do-or-die squad that can do the job!

I’ve got my tickets for the home leg but must settle for watching it in the pub tonight. I’ve roped two old friends into watching the match in Hammersmith and, with a day off tomorrow, I’m hoping for a good enough reason to have a couple of celebratory drinks after the match instead of rushing home. Wherever you’re watching – enjoy it!

Come On You Irons!

There is a lot of talk across Twitter of the importance of being positive and this is so true; the Reading match needs to be all about the positive atmosphere! I haven’t looked forward to a game this much all season and I reckon the crowd will be well up for it.

Big Sam appears to be getting sick of the negativity surrounding the club and he’s been resolute in defending his tactics and performances. While I agree that it’s hard to complain when we’re pushing for automatic promotion and have won 11 away games this season, I have felt an increased sense of frustration lately.

We have had so many opportunities to get to the peak of this league and stay there, but our recent run of draws has seriously dented our chance of automatic promotion. The simple truth is this: yes, we have seen some good spells of football – more than over the last two years – but we have also seen far too much hoofing and long ball tactics. Sam openly states he doesn’t understand why he is known as a long ball merchant, but it is there for all to see, I’m afraid. I have seen some shocking games this season, where the team has just constantly pumped long balls forward to an inadequate lone striker.

I thought Sam would bring in a strong mentality and forge a team that would grind out 1-0 wins, which we have on occasion, but our inability to keep the lead till the final whistle has cost us far too many points this season. Sam seems to think 1-0 is a safe result, and on going a goal up he will make his team more defensive, only to concede and drop two points. Were he more adventurous and attacking, we would have been able wrap up games far more efficiently.

The Reading match is a perfect test for Allardyce’s maiden season in charge of us; second spot is in our hands if we want to grasp it. Traditionally, when it’s in our own hands we blow it, but just how much has Sam turned us into a professional club again? I’m really looking forward to finding out!

Finally, for Sam to question our support is a big mistake. It is magnificent and is there for all to see, every week, win or lose! We’ve endured a few years of total on-field crap from our club and we still show up in our thousands. It’s our right to let him know if we don’t think he is doing a good enough job!

The players and manager don’t seem to understand that we cheer them on to the hilt but they need to meet us half way! Any one of us is entitled to let Sam know we don’t like his negative approach to the game. Of course the crowd will grow restless if we are witness to repetitive long balls or seeing players out of position. Don’t get me started on how much we are wasting the goal-scoring talents of Sam Baldock and Nicky Maynard; great strikers they are – not wide players. Sam can talk all day about our strikers misfiring, but the truth is that he isn’t playing to their strengths! It’s infuriating to see poachers like Baldock and Maynard shoved out on the wings; why aren’t we building out tactics around feeding them with crosses?

Christ, I’m sounding too negative now. My point is that it is OK to let the team know they aren’t working hard enough, or let a manager know his tactics are poor, but let’s not let it define us. Let’s remain vocal behind the team and not let the Boleyn descend into a nervous library-like atmosphere.

COYI!

If I found the Watford and Doncaster results frustrating, you can imagine how I feel now! And I’m sure I’m not the only one who is growing a bit disillusioned with our performances…

I like to consider myself a realist when it comes to my football opinions, so I’m not being unrealistic when I say that five draws on the bounce simply isn’t good enough. The last few seasons have seen my support evolve so that my level of emotion varies with our performances. By the end of last season I wasn’t overly upset when we were relegated: it was what we deserved, and we had done nowhere near enough to survive!

Similarly, I have spent most of this season considering us good enough for automatic promotion and genuinely believing that we will achieve it at the first time of asking. The last few weeks have changed my outlook somewhat; an unbeaten run like this can’t be ignored, but our failings are now becoming more of a worry to me.

Big Sam can only blame the ‘rub of the green’ and ‘luck’ so much before it just starts sounding like delusional, arrogant bullwhip, and the Peterborough match is possibly the end of the line for his too-familiar post-match analysis. Fail to win tonight and there really is no one else to blame; blame our misfiring stickers all you want, but if you don’t play to their strengths then you won’t see the best of them. Baldock and Maynard are two fantastic goal scorers – natural predators of the game – but they are being wasted in Big Sam’s team. Anything less than three points tonight and Sam will surely have to better address his team’s failings.

It’s been said a lot and I’ll reiterate it here. I still haven’t given up hope on this season and I don’t want to sound too negative, but if we can beat Peterborough and Reading this week, then I’ll rediscover my confidence in Sam’s reign. There was a point earlier in the season where we looked efficient, well-oiled, hard to beat and nailed-on promotion chasers. Six points this week could re-kick start our dominance in the top two – anything less could mean the lottery of the play-offs.

Various staff have stated this week that two wins from two will put us back in serious contention, which is an exciting thought, but such talk brings back bad memories for me. Remember Avram Grant stating that we only need three wins from our final three matches to stay up? We all knew it was the talk of a desperate man, already out of his depth at our club. Sam is a proper manager who shouldn’t be compared to Avram, but this talk of six from six reeks of a situation that is getting a little bit desperate.

A win tonight is vital – but will be worthless if we don’t follow it up by beating Reading on Saturday; losing a further three points to them could mean we have to start cacking ourselves about the play-offs. But as I said, I’m a realist, and at least the play-offs could mean a rare day out at Wembley…

COME ON YOU IRONS!

Instead we could only manage two 1-1 draws and, although we could have scored a winner in each game, we could quite easily have lost them both!

Without sounding arrogant, last night was the first time that I have started to worry that we might not achieve automatic promotion. I’m not going to over react to this disappointment and suggest that the board need to consider Big Sam’s position, but I do think it’s vital that Big Sam now considers his own approach to the rest of the season.

His team selections are usually quite unpredictable, which isn’t a problem in itself, but the lack of cohesion and effectiveness shown by his selections this starting to become a problem. I love Jack Collison and think he has a food future ahead of him but we just can’t waste a position on the field waiting for him to ‘get over his injury’. If he can’t impact our season in the right way at this point then I would drop him, which would offer him a much-needed break ahead of the run-in or next season.

I like Kevin Nolan as a captain – and I welcome his goal scoring — but is it OK for him to be anonymous for so much of the game? Big Sam needs to let Nolan know that he needs more from his skipper and, even if it isn’t true, should tell him in no uncertain terms that he isn’t guaranteed a spot in the starting 11.

Although we have played decent football that has been a pleasure to watch, we can’t deny that we have been guilty of some long-ball tactics this season. If we are struggling to break a team down we resort to hoofs forward that just doesn’t suit our forward line. On his day Carlton Cole is class but he doesn’t thrive on long, high balls. I think he has excellent control when the ball is played to his chest or feet, but he’s not really the man to flick balls forward with his head.

Combine this with the fact that we don’t run to the byline and cross from wide positions and is it any wonder that Sam Baldock and Nicky Maynard aren’t scoring the goals we know they’re capable of scoring? With two such gifted, nippy goal poachers, why are the hell are we not playing to that and whipping in crosses from wide?

We can dominate for periods of matches all we want but a 20 minute spell of pressure isn’t going to win football games. We need a constant threat of supplying crosses to our forwards to make sure we see teams off and utilise the impressive young strikers we have!

Next up is the trip to Neil Warnock’s Leeds Utd and I’m sure he would bloody love to beat us. Our away form is fine so I’m weirdly confident about that one, but I can’t say the same for the following fixture, when we welcome Middlesbrough to the Boleyn. I can actually see us winning both our next matches against harder opposition. Typical West Ham to lose to Watford and Doncaster and then beat Leeds and Middlesbrough!

I just found out I’m going to that one so I’m really excited but I can see it being a nervy affair. We’ve decided to get seats in the Brooking lower so we should at least be surrounded by the usual, enthusiastically chanting fans that frequent that area. It’s been a while since I sat behind the goals so I’m looking forward to getting back there. It’s also my first pay day from my new job so I might even pay my Dad back for this ticket!

Come On You Irons

Jack Kerouac - Born March 12, 1922

Today marks what would have been the 90th birthday of my all-time hero, Jean Louis Kerouac. Born in 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts, Kerouac wrote some of my favourite books but is best known for On The Road, his tale of a friendship between himself and Neal Cassady and the way they lived their lives for a few years.

I first read On The Road about 10 years ago after reading something about it somewhere. I really didn’t have any clue who Kerouac was or what the book was about, but I was ordering some other book on Amazon so decided to buy an old second hand copy from Amazon too – for about £1.20 – and eagerly anticipated its arrival.

Looking back now, I can’t remember what the other book I ordered was, but I do recall opening my copy of On The Road and starting to read the print on the yellowed, old pages.

Although I went on to love the book, and read all of Kerouac’s works, I actually didn’t think much of it at first. I read it fairly quickly and upon finishing it I wasn’t quite sure how to react to it, all I could do was read it again. Which I did. The second read through had the effect that the book’s own back-cover blurb promised.

I was hooked on this writer’s style and take on events and I was inspired! I had always wanted to be a writer and reading Kerouac’s prose just sent me over the edge! I ordered all the Kerouac books I could afford and set about reading it all! I think Kerouac’s work divides opinion but I couldn’t care less. To me it is perfect and it’s just full of poetic, moving, genuine writing that hits me right in the heart and puts its arm around my shoulder like an old friend and tells me how it’s the simplest things that make life so special and worth living.

I’ve been incredibly lucky to have been in positions to indulge myself in the life of Kerouac, devouring books by him and about him, and traveling to some amazing places. My love of Kerouac has taken me to his hometown and resting place of Lowell, about an hour outside of Boston, and a city that features heavily in his writing and legend, San Francisco. I’m planning a separate blog post on my few visits to North Beach’s The Beat Museum so won’t discuss it here, but it is absolutely brilliant and run by a really cool guy in Jerry Cimino. Check out their awesome new web site HERE.

Jack Kerouac's grave, Lowell, Mass

The Beat Musem entrance, North Beach, San Francisco

Next to Jack Kerouac Alley, North Beach, San Francisco

Last Friday was pretty special as the movie trailer for On The Road was released. It looks like its going to be true to the spirit of the text and live up to the very high expectations placed upon it. What a great way to celebrate the birthday of the man himself, who was very keen on his novel being made into a Hollwood motion picture!