Former West Ham United goalkeeper Jimmy Walker believes the Irons have every chance of building on their success of the last two seasons.
The Hammers have secured back-to-back qualifications for European football through their league position for the first time in the Club’s history, finishing sixth in 2020/21 and seventh in 2021/22.
And having balanced that domestic success with starring on the continental stage this last year, reaching the UEFA Europa League semi-finals, Walker feels the building blocks are all there for another successful campaign to come.
The former goalkeeper played for the Hammers for five years, securing a return to the Premier League in 2005 and reaching the FA Cup final in 2006, and has greeted and entertained fans in Club London as a matchday ambassador at London Stadium this season just gone.
Speaking to whufc.com, Walker also reflected on the second half of the season for him personally, in which he worked as U18s goalkeeping consultant at the Academy of Football, helping the youth team finish second in U18 Premier League South…
It was an incredible season just gone.
I know it petered out a little bit towards the end of the campaign, but we can all forgive the lads that for the season that they’d given us.
What they were able to produce as a squad was outstanding.
To have been an ambassador of the Club, and to have been at every game, has been amazing for me.
We’ve been like fans at times, and we’ve really enjoyed coming back to London Stadium this year.
We’ve grounded out results when we’ve needed to and played exceptionally well. The lads seem to have a real good spirit amongst them.
For a lot of the ambassadors that got back involved with the Club recently, I think it reminds a lot of us about our time in the changing room, where we had a really tight-knit group. You can see the lads digging in for each other, like we used to, which is brilliant to see.
Hopefully we can continue to build on the season we’ve just had and have another positive campaign next time out.
We were going mental during the Sevilla game and throughout the run in Europe, so it’s been great to have been a really small part of that.
The Sevilla match got everyone together and the atmosphere throughout was electric – I’ve never seen anything like it.
I loved Boleyn Ground – it was an incredible place and the atmosphere there was special at times – but that night probably took it to a new level, because there were more people inside the ground.
It galvanised everyone, and now it’s a time to build together and go from there.
For me personally, my other favourite memory from this season was probably Lyon away.
I was fortunate enough to go out there in my ambassadorial role for the Club and was in with the fans during the afternoon before heading to the game.
It was a complete performance and to be there to witness it was amazing.
It was also brilliant to be involved with the Academy as U18s goalkeeping coach – I loved every minute of it.
I always speak about the Academy with Kevin Keen whenever I see him whilst we’re doing our ambassadorial duties, so it came up from there. There are a number of former players back there now – Carlton Cole, Elliott Ward, Kenny Brown…
The former coach happened to leave, and when I went in to speak to Kev about something completely different, he asked if I fancied filling in for the time being.
I said to him that I’d never worked with the U18s before and that I didn’t know the environment, but he persuaded me and said I’d love it, which I did!
Kev runs it like a first team, which really appealed to me, and the lads are outstanding young men – I’ve really enjoyed working with them.
I’ve never worked with that age group before, but you can really give them some input and they listen to you and they put it into practice out there on the pitch, which is fantastic to see.
I think it’s a big summer ahead for us.
If we have a good summer recruitment-wise, as well as keeping hold of the quality players that we have, the Club is going in the right way.
Hopefully we can kick on from the season just gone and build something really special at this Club.
