on Amazon now!
⚒️ I started writing this book May 15, 2011, and put it aside. Then, on May 24, 2026, I picked it up from the near ashes and resurrected it — because it’s what we do.
The plastic, fake supporters will run away. The greedy, selfish players will scatter. This shapes us down to the core of who we really are. Only the lunatics and True Hammers remain in times like this. And, frankly, I may be both.
This is that book. 🛡️ The one where my West Ham shirt was under my body armour in Afghanistan, and when the shrapnel hit, I didn’t think about medals. I wondered if the badge survived.
A Yank adopted by Plaistow lads who judged me only on whether I’d buy a round and sing. Relegation on a flickering 18-inch screen, Italian soldiers’ hands on my shoulders. A 27,000-mile road trip collecting wounded warriors’ stories, with West Ham matches as the punctuation between grief and hope. 🚐✨ A rage tent. A Prague tunnel. The night Bowen lifted a European trophy. 🏆
My wife Lauren — crowd-suspicious anthropologist turned accidental Hammer — chronicles how she ended up belting “Bubbles” on a bench in Old Town Square. 🎶🕯️
For everyone who’s ever loved something that breaks their heart exactly when they need it broken. For veterans who carried a club across oceans. For the lunatics who shield a flame in the pissing rain. 💔🙌
📘 Relegated: A Journey in Claret & Blue is OUT NOW. Link in comments.
Up the Hammers. Always. ⚒️⚒️⚒️
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