TWO BECOME ONE

ON-SONG DAVE COLMER EXPLORES WHETHER YOU CAN SUPPORT TWO FOOTBALL TEAMS

- ON-SONG DAVE COLMER

BACK in 1996, the Spice Girls (remember them!) once sang about two becoming one. No idea what they were on about, but it set me thinking - can you actually support two football teams?

My answer to this thought-provoking question in the past would always have been a resounding no. For me, it was always about your love and devotion to just one team. Two is just wrong... but maybe, just maybe...

I have been and always will be West Ham. My blood is claret and blue; therefore, they are number one, numero uno, and, as Chesney once sang, the One and Only.

But suddenly my Claret and Blue blood has been injected with something I never expected and, in fact, always looked at with derision and contempt...

Blue and White! In our family, you could only support one team. Well, maybe four. West Ham, West Ham reserves, any West Ham youth team (that counts as one team) and England (for whom West Ham won the World Cup in '66, obviously). Nowadays five, as the ladies have been added.

West Ham don't win many trophies but if they do, or if they lose a final, our family are there. One Grandad at the White Horse Cup Final in 1923 to see us lose 2-0 to Bolton Wanderers, the other Grandad, and Dad, at the '64 3-2 win against Preston North End and '65 European Cup Winners' Cup 2-0 victory over 1860 Munich.

Dad, Mum, sister and me in '75 for the Alan Taylor-inspired 2-0 victory over Fulham and Dad, sister and me when Sir Trevor headed home against the mighty, at the time, and heavily fancied Arsenal in 1980.