Nearly Reach the Sky (19 page)

We listened to 5 Live on the car radio, half anticipating the news of Zola’s sacking. Had it come, it would have been the one bright spot in the entire evening.

There was a time when, ten minutes after a game, I could be sitting on my in-laws’ sofa sipping a steaming hot cup of tea and watching the results come in from other games. I still had to face the drive back to Brighton – but it was always so much easier when the traffic had cleared and I had the fortification of my mother-in-law’s Rosie Lee.

Grace made a mean bacon sandwich, too – always with a loaf that had to be cut by hand rather than the cardboard bread that makes up a sliced loaf. But that was reserved for before games; if everyone was hungry after a match we’d get fish and chips. I loved my mother-in-law dearly, and she had many sterling qualities. However, it’s fair to say a sense of humour wasn’t one of them. I once threw her into a complete spin by asking if she had some vinegar to liven up my chips only for her to discover, after searching high and low, that she had run out of the stuff. So the next time we visited we went armed with a dozen bottles which, with Sid’s help, we quietly secreted about the house in the most unlikely places we could think of; the bathroom cabinet, the sideboard, her wardrobe (which several years later we sold to comedian Joe Wilkinson via Gumtree – Brighton really is just a media village, sweetie). One
by one she found them all over the following weeks – each discovery leaving her even more baffled than the one before. She never did get to the bottom of that particular mystery. But, on the plus side, she never ran out of vinegar again.

For someone like me, brought up miles away from Upton Park, there was something very special about being able to do something as ordinary as watching
Football Focus
and the two o’clock from Kempton Park on the telly before stepping outside the front door and joining the steady procession of supporters on their way to the game. It made me feel like a proper East Ender.

On the walk back to Beverley Road, if we’d been in the West Stand, we’d usually go past the Champions statue on the junction of Central Park Road and the Barking Road. I’d sometimes ask myself what Ray Wilson thought about finding himself in such an unlikely location. The man was a top-notch left back and first-rate undertaker, but he’s no cockney. Finding yourself looking up Green Street day after day when you hail from Huddersfield must be a strange experience – and all because Bobby Moore happened to be sitting on his shoulder at the time a lucky snapper took the iconic photograph on which the statue is based. Ah well, don’t worry, Ray – not much longer now and you’ll be off to Stratford with the rest of us. I wonder what you’ll make of that.

Not that East Ham is going to be short of statues after we’ve moved. So, while Ms Segelman has got her toolkit out, I’d like to suggest another one.

Just as many countries have their monument to the Unknown Soldier, I want to see something dedicated to West Ham’s Unsung Hero. I’m not talking about the likes of Moore, Hurst, Peters, Brooking and Bonds here; they’re all well sung. What I’m proposing
is a statue that reveres the memory of someone who shouldn’t be forgotten, but probably will be in all the excitement of uprooting to the Olympic Stadium.

Deciding who gets that privilege is no easy matter, so I’ve come up with a shortlist – taking a player from each decade in which I have followed the Hammers. Leaving aside for the time being the small matter of how we’re going to finance this particular venture – these statues don’t come cheap, you know – we’ll need a ballot system which will enable you all to vote for your favourite. Perhaps you could drop the sculptor an email at her riverside gallery in St Katherine’s Dock.

Given my earlier paean of praise for Ronnie Boyce you may think I’d be nominating Ticker for the ’60s. In fact, I’m going for a man who I never actually saw in the flesh.

Dave Bickles, I believe, got a very raw deal from the club. He made his debut in the legendary 1963 victory at Anfield alongside Moore in the heart of the defence. The lean, lanky nineteen-year-old had been called up to replace the ever reliable Ken Brown. It was a big test – which he passed with flying colours. According to one newspaper report: ‘New boy Bickles slotted in as though he had been there for years’.

The brilliant theyflysohigh website features a cutting which gives Bickles seven out of ten for his performance in that historic win and carries two fantastic photos of the young centre back. In one, a smiling Moore has his arm round his shoulder and is giving him a few words of encouragement as they prepare to leave London. Another picture shows him tackling Ian St John.

Three years later it was a challenge on the same Ian St John that was to change Bickles’ life. In the collision he injured his shoulder
and had to go off. The West Ham medical team diagnosed it as a dislocation; painful but not career-threatening. In fact, a piece of bone had broken off and Bickles should have had some major treatment. The pain must have been excruciating every time he came into contact with an opponent. To quite literally add insult to injury, the Upton Park management accused Bickles of not trying in games and after just twenty-eight appearances in claret and blue he was shipped out to Crystal Palace – where they identified the problem.

Further injuries meant Bickles never did fulfil the fantastic promise he had shown as a junior and he drifted out of football, eventually becoming a teacher in East Ham. The tragic story of Dave Bickles ended on 1 November 1999, when he finally succumbed to kidney cancer. I think a small statue tucked away in the Bobby Moore memorial garden wouldn’t go amiss now.

As the ’70s candidate I’m recommending Patsy Holland. In all he played almost 300 games for West Ham and in every single one of those he never gave less than maximum effort. Holland was one of those players who could never count on his place in the side and in the early days of his career he was in and out like Nigel Kennedy’s elbow as he competed for a berth on the right side of midfield. Apparently he lacked confidence in his own ability, although you wouldn’t have guessed it when he got his head down and ran at opposition defences. Check out the goal he scored against Hereford and you’ll see what I mean.

He could certainly perform on the big stage when required. In a storming second half performance he played a significant role in both goals in the 1975 Cup final – and scored the following year in the final of the Cup Winners’ Cup as we went down 4–2 to Anderlecht at the Heysel Stadium.

His first goal in claret and blue comes with an interesting aside. Like most supporters, I had watched Jimmy Greaves make his West Ham debut on
Match of the Day
because it was at Maine Road, Manchester. I wasn’t going to miss his home debut though so, along with 38,000-plus other people, I shuffled through the turnstiles (they seemed so much more spacious in those days) and crossed my fingers in the hope Greaves might help us turn over Bill Shankly’s Liverpool for once.

This was March 1970. Holland had made his own debut at the end of the previous season but was still struggling to establish himself as a first-team regular. After a couple of decent performances he was given a further chance against Liverpool – and nearly blew it by turning his ankle while having a playful kickabout with his mates in the local park on the council estate in Poplar where he had been brought up. Club physio Rob Jenkins – an unsung hero if ever there was one – patched him up after he hobbled into his clinic twenty-four hours before the game and agreed to keep the injury a secret from manager Ron Greenwood. The swelling went down and Holland duly scored the only goal of the game.

I’m not ashamed to admit I had to consult
The Guardian’
s cuttings library for precise details of that goal. It came on fourteen minutes after Holland nipped in between two blocks of red granite called Smith and Evans and turned in a pass from Geoff Hurst – with Greaves on hand just in case. What I do clearly recall, though, is how the North Bank got a serious case of the heebie-jeebies in the face of a second-half assault from the opposition. It wasn’t the last time I was to experience that phenomenon at Upton Park.

In typical Pat Holland fashion, his last significant act for West Ham at the beginning of the following decade came at a high price
for himself. In the promotion season of 1980/81 he scored a vital goal in a top-of-the-table battle at Notts County – who were to finally finish runners-up to us in the old second division. In forcing home Trevor Brooking’s pass at the far post, Holland injured his knee and although he limped through the rest of the first half he had to go off shortly after the interval. He never played for the first team again.

(Curiosity Corner: That was last weekend for several years that referees in England used red and yellow cards because it was felt the colour-coded system had actually contributed to the number of cautions and sendings-off. They weren’t brought back until the start of the 1987/88 season, following intense pressure from FIFA.)

I really liked Patsy Holland. More to the point, so did Billy Bonds, who played a key role in his development. And if he’s good enough for Bonzo, he’s good enough to be on this particular ballot paper.

For the ’80s my nomination is Tony Gale, who was just sixteen years old and still hadn’t signed professional forms when he stepped in to fill Bobby Moore’s shoes at Fulham after England’s World Cup-winning captain finally called it a day. That was in 1977. Seven years later Gale moved to Upton Park and immediately set about forming a high-class defensive partnership with Alvin Martin.

Gale was to play more than 350 times for the Hammers (although, thanks to our friend Mr Hackett, he only played twenty-two minutes of the semi-final at Villa Park). In 1985/86, when we finished third, he appeared in every single one of the fifty-one League and Cup games that made up our finest ever season.

But the reason I’m putting his name forward as an unsung hero has nothing to do with his performances as a player, stylish though
most of them were. What sets him apart, for me, was the way he looked after a young lad called Robbi Reardon in a most unusual FA Cup tie.

We had been drawn away at Aldershot, but the fourth division club were refused permission by their local safety committee to increase the crowd capacity at the Recreation Ground so they switched the game to Upton Park.

Technically they were the home side – although they opted to use the away dressing room. We were required to play in our white away strip and the programme was a strange hybrid of our
Hammer
and the Hampshire club’s
Shotscene
.

On the back cover of that programme there is a picture of little Robbi and a no-punches-pulled explanation of why he is there.

Gale was captain for the day because Alvin Martin had been ruled out with an injury. Part of his duties were taking care of the special mascot on his special day. And what a special job he did.

‘Robbi was really excited to be the mascot but it was evident right from the start that he couldn’t run about with the players like the kids normally do,’ says Gale. ‘He was out of breath in the tunnel, so I carried him out.’

While his team went through their normal routine in the pre-match kickabout, Gale strolled around the pitch with young Robbi safely perched on his shoulders, ignoring everything and everyone apart from the little VIP he was looking after with such diligence.

‘I suppose they picked the right captain that day,’ Gale says without a hint of conceit. ‘I had a little boy about the same age as Robbi, so I could relate to him. He was a smashing lad. Robbi died not long after – it was so sad. I went to the funeral with Ian Bishop. They were a lovely family.’

As Gale put life and sport into perspective by demonstrating a level of humanity not normally associated with professional footballers he had no idea how closely he was being observed in those few poignant moments. ‘I couldn’t believe that people came up and thanked me afterwards,’ he says. ‘The chairman’s wife had a tear in her eye.’ She wasn’t the only one, Tony.

I anticipate some objections to my choice for the ’90s. I admit that it’s hard to describe a former club captain as an ‘unsung’ hero, especially when he has been voted Hammer of the Year twice. And his seventeen-year stint at Upton Park spanned three separate decades. But I loved Steve Potts and I feel he never truly got the recognition he deserved. (Besides, if the East End ‘village’ overshoots the original budget and Ms Segelman has to cut back on materials a pint-sized Pottsy is the obvious solution.)

What can you say about Steve Potts that hasn’t been said before? A total of 463 starts for West Ham in all competitions; a grand total of 506 appearances in all; twice runner-up as Hammer of the Year to go with his two wins; unfailingly sound wherever he played in the back four despite being just 5 ft 7 tall; just one red card in all that time. And just one goal to go with it – which to my mind
only goes to show that he spent most of his time doing what he was paid to do and stopping the other lot from scoring.

On top of all that, Potts has done the Knowledge and is therefore qualified to drive a London taxi. Just imagine being picked up by Pottsy – how good would that be? It would mean that every time you hailed a taxi you could eradicate the danger of an unwanted diatribe from an opinionated driver by simply sliding open the dividing window and saying: ‘Oi, mate – you’ll never guess who I had in the front of my cab.’ As the man once said – get your retaliation in first.

That often appeared to be Hayden Mullins’ preferred method of tackling. Alan Pardew’s first signing after becoming manager at Upton Park, Mullins went on to play more than 200 games for West Ham and is a serious candidate for the ’00s.