West Ham Fans

I once bought hockey trainers instead of football ones because they had amazing grips at the bottom... Alas they didn't support the ankle quite as well!

Aycliffe me old mate, here is an excerpt of the article read it carefully as I think you will find that with 50 injuries and repetitive soft tissue ones, there must have been a reason for these problems so it just cannot be written off as speculation: A TEAM of sports scientists claim to have got to the bottom of West Ham's crippling injury crisis. Four experts from Roehampton University's Sports Performance Assessment and Rehabilitation Centre (SPARC) spent a week with the Irons last month to try and work out why the club's players suffered more than 50 injuries last season. During their time with the Hammers, SPARC director and physiologist Jackie Dabinett and her team interviewed players, management and staff, conducted medical tests and investigated everything from diets to the state of the club's training pitches. advertisement Afterwards Dabinett, who spent a decade working at the Football Association Human Performance Centre at Lilleshall, presented the team's findings to the board, making a host of recommendations to help clear the club's treatment room. "We did a full audit of all sport science and sports medicine practices at the club as well as the training and match facilities," she said. "We interviewed 15 players and all of the coaching staff from the groundsman to the manager. "We also did some on the spot checks of, for example, players' urine concentration prior to training on one of the days. "A presentation of the main findings was made to the board on the Friday of the week that we were there and a full report was sent to the club last Friday.

Blimey Del - no-one has seen the report yet, and you're back on the old bandwagon!! All the article spoke of was the mechanism of the audit, all standard practice. IF Jackie comes back to us and says "yep, the training pitch is too uneven" is it Curb's fault or the groundskeeper that has been there for 23 years ! Until the report is published (if it ever is!) this is all idle speculation. You and your Barcelona method too.... if it's so good why don't all the top prem teams use it? Why are Charlton mid table in the Fizzy, with a depleted squad? Curbs isn't going old mate, and he isn't to blame for the injuries. Accept it and move on....

I do know from my source Soggy since Jackie and her team went through everything, the club have been hit for 6 and Curbs before the season end cut back on training and wrapped his players in cotton wool. If there was no blame and no criticism, the report would have been openly published. Instead it is under wraps and the club have closed ranks.

There's more.... here's an excerpt from the paper on the last weekend of the season listing Addicks first team injuries.... Hmmm, we were SO much better with Alan.... "Charlton will be without Darren Ambrose and Zheng Zhi and have fitness doubts over fellow midfielders Lloyd Sam and Jerome Thomas ahead of the clash with Coventry. Midfielder Ambrose could miss the start of pre-season after undergoing a groin operation this week, and China international Zheng is also sidelined with a groin problem. Widemen Sam (thigh) and Thomas (hamstring) are struggling and will not be risked unless they are 100%. Strike trio Svetoslav Todorov, Izale McLeod and Chris Dickson remain long-term absentees with knee injuries, and full-back Yassin Moutaouakil is suspended."

Del I have no doubt that there are vast areas of improvement in how we treat injuries, our training pitch and many other things we do in the day to day running of our team. The point I am coming from is can it all put put down to Curbs or are these long standing issues. Was last season a freak or are Curbs training methods really that bad. I honestly don't know and remain to be convinced either way but injuries are not a new thing at West Ham. How often did we hear Old Harry tell us he was down to the "bare bones" From an interview I heard with Curbs recently he was very much part part of getting this team in to look at everything we do. Like I say remain open minded but as this moment do not feel cheated, if anything pleased that they seem to be doing something about the problem.

"Down to the bare bones" was a classic Arry saying but in those days we had a much smaller squad so it's all relative. Naturally Curbs is going to publicaly endorse the investigation... it's called going with the flow, but the facts are Pards never had the same injury problems because he adopted the Barcelona training module and brought in top sports scientists to implement it whereas Curbs brought in his "yes men" who hopefully have now been found out. Naturally anything that is done to improve standards and prevent injuries is very welcomed, I just feel cheated that having paid £850 X 2 for season tickets I never saw our best side due to the biggest casualty list in history of football. I am sure that I am not on my own in feeling like this especially if as I suspect these injuries were caused by an "own goal". Trust me if it was down to sheer bad luck or if our back-room team were blameless the report would have been published for public consumption rather than kept under wraps.

The big question is, if there is no criticism, why hasn't it been published?

Just follow this link: http://www.echo-news.co.uk/sport/westham/display.var.2283250.0.boffins_p...

Don't think there's quite enough in that report to nail Curbs yet, Del. I was interested to note that Jackie Dabinett, who is heading up the investigation, is quoted as saying: "We also did some on the spot checks of, for example, players' urine concentration prior to training on one of the days." Taking the piss, or what?

You see! And they gave it to the fans to drink, just like I said!