"Now then, this is a test, isn't it?"
"Yes boss, it's a real test."
So went the famous exchange recorded between England coach Graham Taylor and his assistant Phil Neal in Oslo in 1993, as the inventors of soccer went 2-0 down to Norway and the dream of the World Cup in America began to disappear over the horizon.
A similar conversation might be heard at Upton Park between West Ham coach Alan Curbishley and his American defender Jonathan Spector as they contemplate a relegation nobody foresaw last summer.
The claret and blue had come within a Steven Gerrard piledriver of winning the FA Cup last time around, and following a close season restocking that included the American international, a top 10 finish and European qualification was widely expected to follow.
Now, with the games and chances for rescuing themselves down to single figures, West Ham are teetering on the abyss, dead last in the league and trapped in a seemingly inescapable vortex towards demotion to the Championship.
"The results are not going our way - that is for certain," Spector deadpanned to YA. "We have not been able to win games we should be winning. To be honest, I wish I knew why. If we could put our finger on it, we could put it right."
The Hammers' amazing collapse has been among the biggest surprises of the Premiership's 2006-07 edition, a sudden deterioration felt painfully by the club's famously close knit support from London's East End, the spiritual heart of the capital.
"This is still a great club," Spector affirmed. "I am not happy with the results - that goes without saying, but I am still happy here because the club has a great fan base, a good training facility, good stadium and good support."
But this league campaign has turned from testing experience to ordeal, resembling a man losing his footing slightly at the top of the stairs before gathering momentum as he tumbles towards a heap at the bottom. With the whole West Ham operation under the spotlight, Spector and his colleagues have kept a club-imposed wall of silence instead of a wall of sound, until now.
The theories have been myriad, and barely a day has passed without another press rumor of angst at the Boleyn Ground, the stadium at Upton Park, named after the family of the unfortunate Anne Boleyn, who married King Henry VIII and ended up decapitated.
"There are several causes, but there has also been a lot of speculation in the media and a lot of stories written that just were not true at all," the thrice capped US international insisted. "I even saw myself quoted in a newspaper saying things I never said."
What is for sure, though, is that the Hammers have suffered from a disjointed playing roster and too many big guns firing blanks. Key players, particularly Dean Ashton, have been lost through injury, while the remaining squad, despite boasting a dozen internationals, has failed to click as a unit.
"If you look at the injuries and the players coming in, we really haven't had a settled side all season," Spector confirmed. "With players filling in at different positions here and there it has been difficult for all the players to gel together."
Add the persistent rumors of player discord, and of certain young men contenting themselves with fat paychecks and the latest sports cars, and you have a house built on shaky foundations.
Further cracks appeared when the takeover vulture of Kia Joorabchian briefly circled, carrying the shock signatures of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano, and unnerving an already under-pressure coach, Alan Pardew, who was fired in December after 13 losses in 19 games.
"If you are a player and a new manager comes in, your job is not safe all of a sudden. To be honest, it never is," said Spector. "When new owners come in, that is the situation for the manager."
"They may have had different intentions for the club, but I had no idea it was going to happen, so I can't speculate on that."
"You could say the Argentineans coming unsettled the club and the takeover unsettled the club," he says, looking back at the run of seven consecutive defeats that began in September and the arrival of Icelandic chairman Eggert Magnusson in November, "but as players we can only concentrate on what we are paid to do and we cannot really use those outside excuses."
"Clearly, I don't have a say in what happens in the boardroom, but that is the way it goes."
Replacement Alan Curbishley has fared little better than his predecessor, currently on a run of six straight defeats with one sole league win in 12. He is allegedly struggling to hold together a fractious dressing room, but he is at least a familiar face to Spector, who played under him on loan to Charlton last season.
"He has always been happy with me, as long as I work hard and put in my lot," said the Yank. "He doesn't expect me to be a player I am not, only to do what I do well, so as a manager you can't really ask for much more."
"His job is difficult because he has [34] players in the squad, so you can't keep every single one happy. Coming in midseason as well with a team in the relegation zone is not easy, but personally I find him an amiable person and someone I can easily talk to."
On Sunday, Spector could only watch in agony from the bench as his team put on another calamitous show, squandering a two-goal advantage before retaking the lead with six minutes remaining, only to then let Tottenham equalize and steal an improbable win in the 94th minute.
"We have beaten both Arsenal and Manchester United at home, so we have shown that we can beat the bigger teams, but for some reason we haven't been able to do it against the clubs that we should be beating," he sighs.
The omens are frankly bleak for a Hammers turnaround with 20 points from 29 games thus far, when 42 points failed to save them from the trapdoor in 2003.
"You would much rather play in the Premiership, but sometimes it doesn't always go your way," Spector admits. "This will certainly have been an experience I will have learned from, whether we stay up or go down, but I would much rather stay up."
"A number of these guys brought the club up from the Championship, know what it is like to be in that situation and don't want to have to go through that all over again."
The blond defender from Brian McBride's home town of Arlington Heights, Illinois seems as calmly determined as ever, despite another ominous challenge to his confidence.
After a handful of games for his first club Manchester United in 2004/05, last season Spector was in and out of a Charlton team who endured a rocky campaign, albeit one without real relegation worries, then suffered the agony of missing out on the World Cup with a dislocated shoulder.
But he has already equalled his tally of Premier League appearances from last season, and having just turned 21, can surely expect to fulfil his World Cup dreams with the US.
While conscious of the fact he has many more years of soccer ahead of him and that what does not destroy you makes you stronger, this versatile American is for now only focused on the survival job in hand, however Houdini-esque it may seem at this late stage.
"I am not really looking at six months from now or a year or two years from now," he stated. "I don't really worry about the future as I can only control what is happening right now and do whatever I can to help the team stay up."
Upton Park might have an air of despondency pervading it at the moment, but it has suffered worse days, such as when a Nazi flying bomb landed on the field in 1944. Like the stadium and the grand old club, you can be sure that Spector will survive this exacting test and live to fight another day.
"I wouldn't say this is not working out for me at all," he says with certainty. "It has just been a difficult season, but I am still happy to be at West Ham United." |
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