The striker got off the mark for the Hammers during the mid-week 2-1 Carling Cup victory over Sunderland and scored his first Barclays Premier League goal with the winner in a 1-0 local derby triumph over Tottenham Hotspur at Upton Park on Saturday.
The moment was obviously a personal milestone for the 31-year-old but it was also significant for another reason. Piquionne’s strike was the 10,000th goal scored in the English Premier League with a Nike football.
To mark the feat, Piquionne will be presented with a golden ball featuring the name of the first Nike ball goalscorer, Mark Venus, who found the net for Ipswich Town against Tottenham on the opening day of the 2000/01 season.
Piquionne grabbed the golden goal when he out-jumped Spurs player Vedran Corluka to get his head to a Mark Noble corner and squeeze the ball past goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini. The 1-0 victory gave manager Avram Grant’s struggling side their first three points of the season.
Making the headlines in such a way would have seemed an impossible dream when Piquionne was born in Noumea, the capital city of French territory New Caledonia, in 1978.
His family moved to Paris when he was very young and his formative years were spent in the French capital. But after leaving school he went to live for two years in the Carribean island of Martinique, the birthplace of his parents, and played for the national team.
Martinique are not members of FIFA though so he was still eligible to play for Les Blues, the French national team, when he returned to France. He achieved this goal when he lined up for his adopted country against Austria in 2007.
After playing for Nimes, Rennes, St Etienne and Lyon, Piquionne moved across the channel to join Portsmouth, where Avram Grant was in charge, on a season-long loan last year.
He scored five goals in 34 appearances for Pompey before linking up with Grant again to become West Ham’s third summer signing in July.
Piquionne is not the only player with Pacific links to feature in the premier league this season. Fellow Hammer Winston Reid is of Maori ancestry and starred for the All Whites during their remarkable unbeaten campaign at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
Two other Kiwis, Blackburn Rovers defender Ryan Nelsen and West Bromwich Albion striker Chris Wood, are also with premier league clubs while Everton’s Australian international Tim Cahill was born to a Samoan mother and played for the Samoa U-17 side as a 14-year-old.
Piquionne has caught the eye for West Ham despite their sluggish start to the season and is currently in third place in the Player of the Month survey on the club’s website.
To cast your vote for the star striker go to www.whufc.com
Piquionne on a roll
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