The fascination of the horrible

Supporting West Ham this season has been so full of drama and surprise, it’s been like living in the Book of Revelation. A brief summary. Last season the newly promoted team of Young Turks put together by our decent manager Alan Pardew feared no one. We finished a vertiginous ninth in the Premiership and got to within a whisker of winning the FA Cup final. It was a wonderful, unbelievable season. Even the doubting Thomases among us (given our history of glorious failure, that’s most of us) succumbed to cautious optimism for the future.

This season it’s been like watching a car crash in slow motion. Wealth and unaccustomed success, it turns out, has ruined our team of young millionaires. First, laid-back centre half Anton Ferdinand is charged with violent disorder, of all places, outside Faces nightclub in Ilford High Road. Next he tells the manager he wants a couple of days off training to visit his sick grandma on the Isle of Wight, then he flies out to South Carolina for a 22nd birthday booze-up at the Knock Knock Club.

As the season develops, a culture of gambling on the team coach when travelling to away games takes hold. Pots of £50,000 are not unusual. Matthew Etherington and goalkeeper Roy Carroll seek professional help for their gambling addiction. Rumours begin to circulate about the decent manager’s suddenly hectic love life. An unusual business deal worth £33 million brings two Argentinian internationals to the club. One of these, Carlos Tevez, is South American Footballer of the Year. Hopes soar. The decent manager refuses to play him. A clique of sullen players fall out with the decent manager and refuse to play. A consortium of property developers offers to buy the club.