News: Julien Faubert draws on personal tragedy to inspire fine form for West Ham

Dedicating victories to special people is a luxury available only to victorious players, so West Ham United have seized upon some rare post-match opportunities to pay tributes.
West Ham’s first back-to-back league wins for a year have prompted praise among the players for Gianfranco Zola, the manager who was criticised by the club’s new owners. The home successes over Birmingham City and Hull City have also encouraged Julien Faubert to speak glowingly of his mother, Elisabeth, who died from a brain tumour last month.
Faubert, a right back or right-sided midfield player, recorded his first West Ham goal on his 50th league appearance for the club on Saturday and has teed up Carlton Cole to score in both victories.
“My mother has made me who I am now,” Faubert, who was raised in a poor area of Le Havre, said. “She worked hard for me to have the best opportunity to play football.
“She said to me [when she was ill], ‘If I’m going, you have to keep doing your best because I am proud of you.’ I try to play well for her memory.”
Faubert’s difficult recovery from an Achilles tendon injury led West Ham to loan him to Real Madrid, but he returned in the summer having made little impression. “At Madrid nobody gave me a chance,” he said.
“I just forgot that I was a football player, but I’m back here now and all I want to do is enjoy myself on the pitch.”
Hull’s hosts tend to enjoy themselves. Valon Behrami’s third-minute opener for West Ham set the Humberside club on their way to a nineteenth away league game without a win, a statistic that was virtually assured when Craig Fagan, their winger, was dismissed soon after the break for a second bookable offence.
A triple substitution, followed by the departure of Anthony Gardner to a bad leg injury, meant that Hull’s numbers were further reduced for the last ten minutes, but the spectacle was not strange; Hull often seem to be playing with nine on their travels.