West Ham’s quest for bubble-blowing celebrations on the continent

On Monday afternoon, whoever is in charge of West Ham’s social media disgraces posted a photo of the team and backroom staff preparing to embark on their “flight to the final destination on our road to glory”. In it, posing all the way up the steps to their plane in the traditional style of a team heading off to do battle on foreign soil, stood 26 happy Hammers, with their manager David Moyes at the bottom, front and centre, flanked by his backroom staff. No longer part of the team, although he could almost certainly do a job if required, even Mark Noble was there, ostensibly in his role as sporting director, but no doubt brought along to ensure that whatever the outcome of Wednesday’s Tin Pot final between West Ham and Fiorentina, at least one of the dressing-rooms in Prague’s Fortuna Arena will be left spick and span with a floor clean enough to eat your pie, mash and jellied eels from.

Whether or not the fastidiously tidy and considerate Noble will be mopping up champagne or salty tears of pain remains to be seen, at an extremely open final the bookies cannot call. The last time West Ham won a trophy worth shouting about was 43 years ago, when they beat Arsenal in the FA Cup final thanks to a rare Trevor Brooking goal off his bonce. While Brooking didn’t mention it at the time or at any point in the subsequent four decades, it was quite a strange turn of events because he didn’t score with many headers, you know?

It could mark the final appearance in a West Ham shirt for skipper Declan Rice, a young man so charming and likable even our erstwhile Irish cousin couldn’t help but forgive him for swapping his allegiances to “them”, despite all the blarney, knobbly stick-waving and shamrock-kissing of his Republic O’Ireland