West Ham go to Manchester City this evening for an FA Cup replay. Nothing remarkable in that you might think except when you see who the winners will play, away, in the next round: Sheffield United.
Those with longish memories will recall the rather unsavoury set of circumstances that allowed West Ham to stay in the Premiership last season only for the Blades to be relegated. In August 2006 West Ham signed Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano. It soon emerged that the club had acted improperly in signing these two Argentineans and after a long drawn out process, in April 2007, the club was found guilty of acting improperly and withholding vital documentation over the duo’s ownership. West Ham were fined £5.5m.
There are many (and I am one of them) who believe that West Ham got away lightly. The penalty on them should have been docked points for breaching the rules. Fortunately, for them, the club had changed both ownership and management in the meantime and the tribunal let them off the hook. Of course the question will remain, did West Ham benefit from this dubious piece of transfer skulduggery? The answer is empathically yes, especially the contribution of Tevez, who scored several goals and contributed plenty of assists. He was after all the Hammers Player of the Year.
Sheffield United did their best to keep up the case of injustice in the courts but without significant support from any of the footballing bodies they were doomed to failure. (The almost complete lack of accountability of most sports authorities will be revisited at some future point)
So should West Ham win at Eastlands tonight and turn up at Bramall Lane in a couple pf weeks time, expect a decent atmosphere because there is some unfinished business between these two clubs. Up the Iron (for tonight at least)!
