Clive signs for West Ham

**Schumi** · 19/02/2003, 1:31 PM

Clive has signed a three month deal with west Ham until the end of the English season according to soccercentral.

**pete** · 19/02/2003, 3:11 PM

Could be a gamble for Delaney. Will he have international clearance problems if he tries to get back to the eL when the 3 months up?

Given how badly the West Ham defense seems to be coached (Breen at Old Trafford v Breen in Scotland) might be hard for Delaney to learn anything.

**Schumi** · 19/02/2003, 3:29 PM

Originally posted by pete
Given how badly the West Ham defense seems to be coached (Breen at Old Trafford v Breen in Scotland) might be hard for Delaney to learn anything.

Yeah but if they've any sense, he'll be into their 1st team ahead of Breen

**UCD_4_Life** · 19/02/2003, 5:59 PM

Apparently he's going over to play in the reserves for the rest of the season. So other than playing against the likes of Kanoute and Di Canio in training he won't gain anything that he wouldn't gain over here. Except money.

**UCD_4_Life** · 19/02/2003, 6:09 PM

Also the deal has attracted little attention in England, not even on the hammers official website. Only Planet Football have anything on it. http://www.planetfootball.com/articl...d+Hammers+deal

**CollegeTillIDie** · 19/02/2003, 10:33 PM

Lads

Good luck to Clive at Upton Park. He has his work cut out for him.Their defence is so poor maybe he can teach them how to defend. It might still be too late to keep them in the Premier . He may be able to prevent them getting relegated to Division 2 at the end of next season.

College Till I Die

P.S. Schumi may be interested to know the following:-
The Ladies made it a Double whammy over U.L. today by beating the Shannonsiders 3-1 to claim the Premier Division title of the Third Level COlleges league run by the W.S.C.A.I. for the first time since 1998. The Scorers were scholarship students Niamh Connolly and Rachel Jenkins and PhD student Katie Liston.
The Ladies won the Indoor Inter-varsities two weekends ago and enter the Outdoor Intervarsities in Belfast next month. Come on the College (part 1)

The Lads got the day off to a great start in the COllingwood by defeating U.L. 1-0 in their final group game to clinch a semi-final tie against Queen's University tomorrow. They should beat that shower with any luck and make the final in Friday. The first two group games resulted in victories over St Pat's Drumcondra( 5-1) and D.C.U. ( also 5-1 over the dyslexics lol) Come on the COllege (part 2)

**Schumi** · 20/02/2003, 10:09 AM

We beat Pats (!) 5-0. The FAI website has bits on the competition here , here and here although they do seem to be taking Queens for granted a bit!

**pineapple stu** · 20/02/2003, 12:34 PM

I see one Oran Weldrick scored for UL in one of their games - remember him?!?!

And schumi - on the "pedants are us" bit, shouldn't that be Pat[SIZE=4]'[/SIZE]s?

Sorry!

**pineapple stu** · 20/02/2003, 12:53 PM

Just on the West Ham site there - no mention of Clive alright, but their third choice keeper is David Forde, who was playing for Galway a cuople of years back. I remember a few Galway fans were delighted when he left 'cos he was that dodgy!

Clive's got his work cut out in that defence alright!

@ndy · 21/02/2003, 12:02 PM

C'mon now lads, Dec is dead right, it's excellent for Clive. I mean, it's a small move to a big club, but he's playing for a premiership club and that's the way it should be viewed. Only time will tell what happens over there, but i also wish him the very very best of luck.

At the end of the day, he was one of the best defenders in the el, and is one of the best Irish central defenders around at the moment.

I don't think anyone can argue reasonably that a move to a premiership club, (even on a 3 month trial to play in the reserves of a club who seem all over the place at the moment) is not as good as a move to a top irish club.

He will gain loads of experience, and i'll tell u what, if that defence keeps on playing so badly...or one of them picks up a knock, don't be surprised to see him thrown in for a game or coming off the bench.

Hopefully now with the publicity (it was on n2 news last night) he will be recognised and publicised when it comes to selecting the irish squad. Even though Kerr will be well aware of him, it'll be great to have him reminded he's there.

I'll certainly be watching out carefully for him. I'm delighted for him. Now that he has his foot in the door the window of opportunity is wide open for him.

Lets look at the worst case scenario...i am confident he will play well for west ham reserves and impress. Even if... they are relegated, they will end up having to let go the players they can't afford to pay, which means that people like breen who are probably well paid will not be reemployed. Clives wage tag will be relatively small, they'd be mad to let him go, that's if he hasn't been spotted by another club by that stage. Thats why he has gone. Not for the money. He is a footballer and im sure he dreams of making it. He is on the road to a very good career as an accountant and by all accounts Bohs was not seen as a better option to that, however he knows that the move to the hammers is too important to turn down.

In 3/6 months he'll either be on the way to a succesful career as a pro footballer, or he'll be back behind a desk in pwc and perhaps wearing the students blue again.

Andy