Want to play for West Ham?

Forget supporting West Ham by just buying a match ticket, a chicken balti pie at half time and the odd piece of overpriced merchandising tat from the club shop. The numerous West Ham message boards that exist on the net have spawned a new breed of supporter, someone who is willing to travel and represent the Irons on the football pitch, as well as on the terraces.

West Ham 'internet' Football Club is a supporters team made up of West Ham United season ticket holders, Club members and supporters, who all ‘try’ to play their football the West Ham way. The whole idea behind the team is to provide the chance for Irons fans to play football in the claret and blue shirt of West Ham United.

The Internet Football Association represents the teams of football e-mail discussion groups and message boards across the UK. The Internet prefix to the football comes about because the teams are affiliated to the iFA, but the fixtures are real football matches, played between opposing supporters teams, normally in the mornings before 'the big match'.

Many football supporters in the early 90s kept in touch with other fans via email. These tended to be mainly people in technical or academic employment as email was widely available in those professions. It was in these early days of cyber space, that the Internet Football Association was formed in 1996.

The founder of the iFA was Dave 'Voice of Football' Walmsley, who at the time of Euro 96 wanted to show that football fans could build bridges between their respective clubs. This was after ‘Mr Charisma’ Graham Kelly, the then chief of the FA, was publicly sceptical about the ability of English football supporters to behave themselves during Euro 96. Dave organised an inaugural football tournament called EuroNet 96, which was held in Nottingham, one of the host cities for FIFA European Championships 96.

EuroNet 96 hosted 12 supporters’ teams and this tournament has since morphed into the annual iFA WorldNet tournament, held each summer at the University of Leeds. It has been featured on Sky Sports and UK Radio, and teams from as far away as Nigeria, Greece, Italy and France have come over to take part.

This year WorldNET2008 saw over a thousand fans enjoy two days of football. The winners were Preston North End and their lads were featured on local BBC News.

With the expansion of the web, many supporters who had set up their own internet message boards, started to form their own internet supporters teams. This helped expand the membership of the iFA from 16 to over 100 supporters' teams around the country.

The iFA oversee a National League and a Cup competition throughout the football season, although it is the respective team managers who organise and arrange the fixtures via the manager’s e-mail list.

West Ham United’s internet based supporters team was formed in March 1998 after a message was posted on a West Ham fans e-mail discussion group, asking for players to form a supporter's football team.

We have got a squad of players of all ages, from old blokes to teenage lads. The majority of players post on ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’, ‘In The Brown Stuff’ and ‘West Ham Online’ message boards, while others have joined the squad after reading about the team in articles featured in the West Ham fanzine, ‘Over Land And Sea’.

Nicknamed ‘The Geeks’, we play our fixtures on Saturday mornings and if possible, try to correspond with the real West Ham United's Premiership fixture in the afternoon. Failing that we play a supporters teams from The Championship, League's One and Two, or from Non-League football, who all belong to the expanding internet football community.

We could have three away games that marry up with the real Premiership fixture, ie. WBA, Fulham and Hull City. Am I being far too ambitious trying to arrange the games with WBA and Hull City? It could be a good day out if everyone who wants to play in our fixture can get tickets for the real Premiership fixture afterwards.

West Ham iFc Fixtures arranged so far: -

August
Sat 23rd Welling SC v West Ham iFC
Sat 30th HOME fixture available

September
Sat 6th AFC Wimbledon v West Ham
Sat 13th WBA v West Ham iFC (R)
Sat 20th West Ham iFC v Leyton Orient
Sat 27th Fulham SC v West Ham iFC (R)

October
Sat 4th West Ham iFC v Welling SC
Sat 11th QPR v West Ham iFC
Sun 19th Hull City v West Ham iFC (R)
Sat 25th Kingstonian v West Ham iFC

November
Sat 1st West Ham v AFC Wimbledon
Sat 8th West Ham iFC v Watford iFC
Sat 15th West Ham iFC v QPR
Sat 22nd HOME or AWAY available
Sat 29th Grays v West Ham iFC

December
Sat 6th HOME fixture available
Sat 13th HOME or AWAY available
Sat 20th Leyton Orient v West Ham iFC

(R) Fixture dates are RESERVED.

All West Ham iFc fixtures are subject to cancellation or rescheduling due to SKY TV being a right pain in the arse. IFA fixtures are not just about winning as we play these games to make a day of it. Having said that, the fixtures are competitive and we want West Ham to win, but at the risk of sliding into a syrupy sporting cliché it really is the taking part that counts.

What better way to improve your day out at West Ham? Meet up with some opposition's fans and give them a match in the morning, followed by a quick pint in the pub, before making your way to the ground to watch the real game at 3 o'clock? At the moment it’s either that or just opt to stay down the pub.

Like all of us, we want anything West Ham related to be successful. At the moment we have a squad with a few outstanding players, a few good players, and quite a few Uncle Alberts. In some games last season when the 'outstanding players' were available to play, they helped raised the game of the good players and carry the rest. AT that stage we're more of a match for anyone and on our day, we have pulled off quite a few strokes and had some outstanding results.

Our squad has regular players who keep the shape of the team but we also keep the interest of the other squad players and new players, who may fancy the odd game but can't fully commit due to work or family commitments. Sometimes natural selection rotates the squad and over a season everyone is involved.

As with Sunday Football, iFA fixtures can throw up the odd 'heat of the moment' incidents, but at this level of football you’re expected to be able to exercise a bit of ‘Laura Branigan’. IFA fixtures are played in a competitive but friendly league. It’s the nature of football fans that we all enjoy the banter with each other but any bouts of handbags are given the skunk eye…and if you let it get out of hand, it could lead to your removal from the squad.

A freelance filmmaker made a mini-film of our away trip to play Tranmere Rovers. Our game against the Tranmere Rovers supporters was a one off game, played at Prenton Park, the real home of Tranmere Rovers Fc. I'm quite proud of the film as it captured the laughs that we had up there, and its a great advert for our West Ham lads and the spirit of iFA football.

The 'Match of the Day' film is in two parts on YouTube.

Part One | Part Two


Wherever possible, the iFA encourage supporters teams to forge links with their parent clubs - to the point where teams have featured in club programmes and in the case of some clubs, have been given official recognition along with support of a more material kind. This has taken the form of donations of kit, use of facilities, assistance with transport costs.

Despite numerous appeals to West Ham’s new Icelandic owners, we have yet to receive even an acknowledgement for our efforts. I've written to the Head of Press and PR but have not even received a reply. So we remain self-funding but costs mean that we are constantly on the look out for help. So what if the Club don’t give their supporters' team any assistance or recognition, why should they? After all, what’s in it for them?

For me, West Ham United has always been about its supporters. One of OUR biggest supporters is a Season Ticket holder who been going to West Ham for over 50 years. In his day, he and his mates had a different configuration for the letters iFc, but this ‘Congratulations’ Bacardi Breezer drinking geezer helps us out purely because; as he said to me once, ‘you lot are West Ham’.

Over the last 10 years, West Ham iFc have established a good reputation among the internet football community and we like to think that what we are doing helps promote the name of West Ham United FC and their supporters.

I've tried various recruitment drives on the web, but it's not ideal when you don't know if the person replying can trap a ball further than I can kick it.

Over the years, we’ve had hundreds of lads turn out to play football. All of these players have introduced new players to the team and all done their bit in helping the team survive and see that our fixtures take place. On the whole we do ok but to avoid accusations of quantity over quality, we always remain on the look out for new players to join us.

The Original Internet Irons page is here. Our Facebook group page is here although its about as active as some of the players!

If anyone is interested in joining the squad, then they should just go to our new website and go to the ‘Join Us’ page. There you can add your email address to our Yahoo West Ham iFC News group e-mail list. Once signed up you'll receive all the news on our up and coming fixtures, emailed straight to your inbox, and you can then make yourself available to play for the squad by reply.

It’s as simple as that.