Saturday, March 10 – London & West Ham vs. Doncaster Game
Staying in the West Ham Hotel is a tremendous experience for your room is a suite that overlooks the stadium field. The only bad part is that the rooms double as corporate suites for every home game, meaning that they have to be converted from hotel rooms to suites at 8 a.m. on the day of the game.
So this particular morning, our players and parents had to take their bags out of the room and move them to a secure room at the lobby. Once we got all our bags into the storage room, the boys and parents had a great English breakfast and the older players loaded mini-buses for a morning in London.
Our younger, future Soccer Academy players – Alex Liddle, Mitchell Crispin and Landon Liddle – loaded into taxi cabs for a trip out to West Ham United's Chadwell Heath Training Grounds with their parents and grandparents in tow. Soccer Academy friend Ian Yuill, director of technical training for West Ham United, greeted our youngsters upon their arrival. Ian is a master coach for West Ham United, specializing in technical training, and has been a major part of the development of players like Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole and Frank Lampard.
Our three future players stepped into West Ham United’s 10- and 11-year-old training session and hung out with future English Premier League players. Watching Alex, Mitchell and Landon train and play 4-on-4 with one of the top four youth academies in the world was very telling... the future for the Soccer Academy is incredibly exciting!
By the way, you might not believe the top four rating but check it out – Barcelona FC, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and West Ham are considered the top four youth academy clubs in the world. The profit margin for West Ham United’s Youth Academy is incredible. Over the past 15 years, they have spent just under $18 million pounds for operational costs and produced over $125 million pounds in player transfers with around 10 current first team/reserve players worth a great deal.
After the youth training session at West Ham, the young players and their parents loaded into taxis to meet the rest of the group at the London Eye. While in London on Saturday morning, some of our group went shopping at London’s Nike Town, Harrods’ and Lilly Whites. Other groups used the time to ride in the London Eye and tour Westminster Abbey and other London historical attractions.
At 1:30 p.m., we loaded our bus across the river from the London Eye headed back to see West Ham United’s Championship Division game versus the Doncaster Rovers. We arrived back at the stadium about three minutes before the 2:30 p.m. kickoff time, so a West Ham representative took us through the gate quickly to our seats. The atmosphere in the Upton Park was incredible. As soon as we sat in our seats, the stadium erupted with a goal in the first five minutes of play by West Ham United. The sound was deafening.
One note I am making for future international trips is to research each team’s chants ahead of time. I wish we had cheat sheets containing the traditional songs and chants that the crowd constantly sang. Some of them date back over 100 years (West Ham, for example, was founded in 1895). It was obvious in the opening minutes that we were sitting with some incredibly passionate West Ham supporters. Surrounded by multiple generations of West Ham fans, it was quickly apparent that even the youngest supporters used some very “creative” combinations of four letter words like “kick,” “goal,” “shot,” “dumb” … you know, those combinations … in creative vocal support and criticism.
In the second half, Doncaster brought the game level with a cross into the box and a mis-clearance by West Ham. Doncaster needed a good result on the away game for they are fighting for their spot in the Championship Division. The game ended with the last five minutes being dominated by Doncaster and “America’s favorite” World Cup goalkeeper for England, Robert Green, making 3-4 big saves to keep the 1-1 tie intact for West Ham.
After the game, much of our group stayed by the players’ parking lot for autographs to pass the time until the suites were changed back into hotel rooms. The West Ham players were very gracious (with the exception of Robert Green) and autographed all the cards, jerseysand even Cameron Rohani’s thumb cast.
After the professional players departed, we hung in the “player’s club” for a bit. Around 8 p.m., we were able to move our things back into our rooms and have a nice dinner at Upton Park’s dining room. Afterwards, we met as a group to discuss Sunday’s schedule and training session and passed out team gear and England dri-fit T-shirts.
