Premier League Weekend Review: We're happy Hammers... but experience says it's not likely to last

Great days... but even Moore and Hurst never put Hammers in the top six

West Ham have a new, vibrant team playing in the great traditions of the club. Ralph Ellis, who watched them in the days of Moore, Hurst and Peters, remembers how those traditions never actually produced great results . . . 

I was in the press room at The Hawthorns on Saturday as West Ham were beating Manchester City. Most of the other journos know I've been a lifelong Hammers fan, and couldn't understand why I wasn't more excited.

That's how it goes. What's the phrase John Cleese came up with about "it's the hope that gets you"? After all these years I tend to sit watching my team when they are leading, and just patiently wait for the goal against that's bound to come.

As for getting into the Champions League places, where Sam Allardyce is proudly sitting this morning while explaining to everybody about his brilliant tactics - well experience says it won't last. Not even the man who managed to get two pounds matched at 420.0419/1 at the start of the season for a top four finish can seriously believe he'll be collecting his jackpot come May.

I was a West Ham fan in the 1960s, you see. It was a golden era, the time of Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters. It was the side that won the FA Cup in 1964, the European Cup Winners Cup a year later, and of course the World Cup in 1966. I started every year with the boyhood belief that this would be the season when we'd capture the First Division title.

I was at Upton Park for great games, goals and memories. There was Hurst scoring six in an 8-0 demolition of Sunderland, Moore picking up the whistle and stopping play after accidentally bumping into the ref and knocking him out, Peters gliding into the near post for wonderful headers.

But as for results? Well throughout the Sixties the highest I saw West Ham finish was eighth, some 23 points behind Don Revie's "dirty Leeds" champions in 1969. The football was wonderful and began the legend of attacking flair that we Hammers fans still cling to, but for all the talent at his disposal that was one of only three times in the decade that Ron Greenwood made it into the top half of the table.

Hammers, matched as high as 4.57/2 for a top ten finish this season, are now in to 1.75/7.  And I'd like to think that Big Sam's more pragmatic approach to tactics might justify that odds on price. The win over City was more than deserved, and signing Alex Song from Barcelona looks a stroke of genius - all the more so because it is giving Mark Noble more chance to influence the game.

But enjoy it while it lasts, because there is always something to go wrong, isn't there? It looks as if goal machine Diafra Sakho could be out for a month with a shoulder injury, and surely the intensity of performance in two glamour home games against Liverpool and City won't be matched when it gets back to the nitty gritty of the away game at struggling Stoke that's coming up.

In the long term the move to the Olympic Stadium could make West Ham a club of genuine stature. The fan base is already big enough to match Arsenal or Spurs, and the legends of Moore and Hurst can bring an international appeal to boost the commercial standing. Breaking into the elite is not impossible.

This season? Well reality is probably still waiting around the corner, just as it was when I was growing up. 

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