27th October 2010 - League Cup 4th Round
West Ham United 3 vs 1 Stoke City (AET)
With the whole doing the 92 idea building up a head of steam I had some catching up to do with Rich, starting with Upton Park...with my ex-girlfriend's family.
With Rich being a season ticket holder at Arsenal, travelling home and away, I had a lot of Premier League grounds as well as some in the Championship and lower down to catch up on.
It meant having to ditch Rich and tag along with supporters of other clubs to get grounds ticked off, starting with going to Upton Park with the West Ham supporting family of my ex girlfriend. This was an odd one for me, but I saw an opportunity and I took it.
It had been over a year since my ex Hannah and I broke up, but I was still on fairly good terms with her family at the time and tried to maintain that relationship with them despite my relationship with Hannah hitting the preverbial fan.
So when I mentioned to Hannah's younger brother, Jake, about my ground hopping he asked if I wanted to go along with the rest of the Inwood clan - younger brother Zach, mum Anita and dad Del - to Upton Park for a League Cup tie against Stoke City. I thought...why not?
Going straight from work I met up with the Inwood family on the C2C line from Shoebury to Fenchurch Street and we made our way to the Boleyn Ground for my second ground hop in as many days having been at Portman Road with Rich the night before.
As I said, I had a good relationship with the Inwood family so despite this sounding potentially terribly awkward there was no atmosphere and we made good time, getting to the ground pretty early.
We had a quick nose around the club shop, which included me being forced into having a photo in front of the massive West Ham crest near the exit, before eventually heading into the ground to find our seats.
Anita had booked the tickets a couple of rows form the front, to the right of the dugouts which is apparently where they normal situate themselves at West Ham games. I've never been a big fan of being that close to a pitch but being practically on the half way line the view wasn't so bad.
The ground itself was nothing spectacular and the sparse crowd meant the atmosphere wasn't fantastic either.
This was made worse when Stoke took the lead early on through Kenwyne Jones who scored after just six minutes, and as the game went on it looked like Tony Pulis' side were going to coast into the next round.
But after failing to take their chances, West Ham made them pay and found an equaliser late on when Scott Parker leveled six minutes from time to send the game into an extra half an hour - making sure I got my £10's worth.
My hopes for a penalty shoot out though were dashed thanks to a goal a piece from Manuel da Costa and Victor Obinna that saw the Hammers through safely into round five before we made our way home.
Now Upton Park to Southend doesn't sound that long of a journey, but it is when you decide to walk from West Ham's ground to Barking station which was Del's idea, but no harm in an unexpected work out.
All in all it had been a worthwhile evening and one caught up on Rich with three more to come.
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