By: Tom Williams

After Harry Redknapp's sacking in the summer of 2000, I was appointed as West Ham manager and immediately set about clearing out the dead wood left by the previous managers. Four of my coaches went, as did five of my playing staff - Scott Minto, Gary Charles, Steve Potts, Nigel Winterburn and Trevor Sinclair. I didn't want to rely on these aging players, instead I set about bringing through youth team prospects such as Daniel Sjolund, Izzy Iriekpen and Jermaine DeFoe. I also targeted a number of players whom I wanted to bring into the club from outside. With the 8.25 million gained from selling these players, plus about the same again from the board, I had enough money to go into the market in a big way. However, I had not managed to bring in any new faces by the start of the season.

Having played two unimpressive pre-season friendlies, beating 1860 Munchen 4-3, then losing on penalties to Benfica, I approached my first Premiership game, at home to Leicester, with apprehension. However, I left with the strains of 'Forever Blowing Bubbles' ringing in my ears as we thrashed Leicester 6-0, with Davor Suker hitting in a hat-trick on his debut. We leapt straight to the top of the Premiership table, and had high hopes of a successful season.

Our next match was at the Riverside. The match started badly, with Ricard opening the scoring in the fourth minute. We attacked strongly, but man-of-the-match Mark Schwarzer seemed omnipotent in the Boro goal. An equally superb performance by Shaka Hislop kept the Hammers in the game, but when Kaba Diawara was sent off in the 78th minute, the match looked dead and buried. Then, one minute from time, a tackle on Suker by Middlesbrough's Colin Cooper resulted in the ball ending up at Paolo Di Canio's feet. Di Canio looked up, took a single touch then drove the ball under the diving Schwarzer for the equaliser for 1-1. With both Hislop and Craig Forrest away on international duty for my next match, hosting Coventry, I was forced to play 19-year-old Stephen Bywater. I was understandably worried about this, but in the end he played well, and made a number of impressive saves. However, our attack was toothless and the match ended in a dull 0-0 draw.

My 11-day break from football, due to international matches, allowed me to go scouting, and I picked up my first signing of the season - Scott Severin, a 21-year-old Hearts midfielder, who could challenge Frank Lampard for the central place in my midfield three. At ú5m, it was a big price for an unproven player, but I was confident in his ability. I also attempted to buy Martin Palermo from Boca Juniors, but could not agree personal terms. I gave Severin his debut in my next match, away at The Valley, and, while he didn't do brilliantly himself, the team performed solidly, resulting in a 1-0 win. I decided that one of the reasons for Severin's below-par performance was his fitness, and so I organised him a training schedule focusing on tough, physical training with my fitness coach, Derek Fazackerly.

My next match, at home to Derby, went pretty much according to plan, with 2-1 the final score. It should have been much more, but the young Scot, Paul Gallagher, in the Derby goal saved 16 of West Ham's 18 shots on target. After this match, I sold another one of my more 'experienced' players, Paul Kitson going to Coventry for ú1.5m. This left the average age of my first team at a healthy 27, despite the presence of Suker, Di Canio, Javier Margas, Stuart Pearce, Marc Keller, the two 'keepers and my captain Igor Stimac, all the wrong side of thirty. Our unbeaten run ended at Goodison Park, as we failed to recover from conceding two goals in the first half, although Di Canio headed in a Joe Cole cross just before half-time to give us hope. The Hammer's first cup game of the season was a League Cup match at home to Northampton, resulting in an easy 4-0 win, with the 38-year-old Stuart Pearce scoring his first goal for the club with a lovely volley. Another veteran, John Moncur, left the club that week, moving to Barnsley for ú750k.

The first big game of the season came towards the end of September, as Upton Park played host to Man Utd. Despite good performances throughout the team, especially from Stimac and Michael Carrick, who scored his first goal of the season, Man Utd were too good for us and won 2-1. That defeat left us in a respectable 7th position, having played 7 matches, won 3, drawn 2 and lost 2. The return leg with Northampton allowed me to give run-outs to some of my youngsters. A few were away on loan, but Severin, DeFoe and Sjolund all made the team. The match was far from staisfactory, as neither DeFoe nor Sjolund performed well, and the match ended in a 0-0 draw. To add injury to insult, Cole picked up a broken toe that would keep him out for three weeks. Luckily, another round of international matches meant that this translated into just one game. Despite Bywater's good performance in his only match of the season so far, I still felt that my back-up goalkeepers were insufficient, considering that both my No. 1 and his deputy were frequently away on international duty playing in the Concacaf World Cup qualifiers, and I therefore invested ú900k in Peterborough's highly-rated Mark Tyler. At only 23, he already had plenty of experience, having played 125 competitive matches, almost half the number played by Craig Forrest, 9 years his senior, who was transfer-listed as a result of Tyler's arrival.

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