Who’s your favourite Hammers Old boy?

Let’s for a moment take a break from the relentless pace and infinite twists of our battle to regain our Premier League status and indulge in a bit of nostalgia.

We all have that ex-player that we really felt represented us, who we identified with and inspired us; for older fans it may have been legends such as Sir Trevor Brooking, Alan Devonshire or even the truly legendary World Cup winning skipper himself ‘Sir’ Bobby Moore.

As I’m only 25 years young my heroes are of a more modern era and two come to mind that I will always love, cherish and admire: Paolo Di Canio and Carlos Tevez. In my time watching those claret and blue boys the aforementioned are the greatest of all the players I’ve had the pleasure of watching.

I was lucky enough to have a season ticket the season Tevez arrived in East London and I’ll never forget his debut against Aston Villa; Green Street all done up in Argentina blue and white, the Boleyn crowd holding its breath the moment Jeremy Nicholas announced Tevez was to enter the fray with the score intriguingly poised at 1-1.

But not even the loveable Argentine rogue can displace my and what I suspect is many of yours favourite old boy…Paolo Di Canio.

Di Canio represented all that was West Ham United during his four years at the club; he was stylish, charismatic, and unpredictable he played with a swagger that was the indicative hallmark of the Hammers side he skippered.

Di Canio wasn’t just a great player; he was a one off, a maverick, he dared to say what others simply wouldn’t. Who could forget his legendary diatribe on penalty decisions in Man Utd’s backyard: ‘To get a penalty at Old Trafford, Jaap Stam needs to take out a machine gun and riddle you with bullets and even then there will be much debate over whether you were shot in the penalty box or just outside.’ The man spoke for his generation.

Now whilst I could regale you with tales of wonder goals from Di Canio’s back catalogue: that bicycle volley against Wimbledon for example (which not only won the goal of season back in 2000 but a full nine years later was voted Premier League goal of the decade.) I would rather focus on what Di Canio represented to the fans, I, a fledgling Hammer at time, and I think the same goes for all of us regardless of age, colour or creed saw Paolo leading us to some sort glorious utopia…he was the man who would end the agonising wait to see a Hammers captain lift some silverware for the first time since Billy Bonds under the twin turrets at Wembley…our very own revolutionist in the claret and blue no.10.

Alas it didn’t quite come to fruition as our dreams seldom do; but the romance of Di Canio remained.

My favourite Di Canio moment though has to be the winner at Old Trafford in that FA cup tie…it completely summed up what we all loved about him, whilst Barthez represented the establishment telling him with his arm raised aloft to stop and submit to the all-conquering force that was Manchester United, the rebel that was Di Canio was never going to heed to the whims of Old Trafford and football’s established hierarchy. And with a nonchalant flick of his right boot he struck a blow for United that reverberated around the world.

This was the stuff of legend.

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