Nearly Reach the Sky (2 page)

So, when the object of the exercise is to win, and it is patently obvious that the overwhelming majority of supporters are destined
to spend more time contemplating failure than success, why do otherwise sane and sensible human beings invest so much time and emotional energy in following a football team? It makes no sense – yet all around the world there are millions of disparate souls who do just that (why they don’t all support West Ham beats me – but I guess that’s just another one of the universal mysteries that will remain forever unsolved).

Ultimately, I believe it has more to do with the people sitting next to you than anything else. Players come and go – even the great ones – but the supporters are in it for all time. It helps if your nearest and dearest share your obsession, or at least understand it, and when you discover that complete strangers feel equally passionate about your team it all starts to make sense.

And, trust me, there’s no shortage of passion at West Ham.

If you doubt my word, come with me as we step forward in time from a chilly October Saturday in 1967 to a sunny Sunday in the spring of 1991. We are now at Villa Park for an FA Cup semi-final. You’ve already met Di and Sid, of course. And Geoff ’s here in the Trinity Road Stand, too – albeit as a foetus (he won’t be born until November). But let me introduce you to Simon, the best man at our wedding and a relatively new convert to the claret and blue cause. He’s sitting at my right-hand side, enjoying the biggest match he’s ever been to.

There are just twenty-two minutes gone when Tony Gale muscles Nottingham Forest’s Gary Crosby off the ball directly in front of us. I can hardly believe referee Keith Hackett has given a foul, and I’m astonished when he reaches for his pocket. You can’t give him a yellow card for that! I’m right – it isn’t yellow. It’s red! This is, quite simply, the worst refereeing decision I have
ever seen – and I am not alone in my opinion. Even the Forest fans are baffled.

In the West Ham stands there is nothing but fury. Sitting to my left is my wife. Next to her is my father-in-law. He later admitted that he was completely unaware his beloved daughter even knew the sort of language she came out with at that moment.

As a second division team – albeit one that was destined for promotion weeks later – we were very much the underdogs against a classy first division outfit managed by the mercurial Brian Clough. It was a tough ask with a full team; now, down to ten men, we had no chance.

Yet the lads on the pitch dug in, and their devoted followers got behind them. We had the main stand and the Holte End. There were choruses of ‘Bubbles’ coming out of both. The singing was punctuated by frequent, desperate calls of ‘Come On You Irons’. We weren’t asking – we were telling. And our boys responded – getting forward when they could, but then chasing back; all of them throwing themselves into tackles, harrying, fighting for every ball. George Parris even came close to scoring. It was a performance that truly honoured their manager – the awesome Billy Bonds.

Then the cry that was to dominate the afternoon went up: ‘Billy Bonds’ claret and blue army!’ The response came back, with interest: ‘Billy Bonds’ claret and blue army!’ There was still the occasional burst of ‘Bubbles’, but this wasn’t a day to fade and die. Increasingly, the claret and blue army chant took hold.

At half time, astonishingly, we were still 0–0. Out came the cigarettes and the Murray Mints. Some tried to convince themselves we could yet get out of this with a draw, and then stuff Forest in the replay. I don’t think anyone really believed it, though.

Clough certainly didn’t. He reorganised his team during the break, making sure their eleven would out-pass our ten rather than engage in the sort of street fight that was clearly suiting us.

In our heart of hearts, we all knew what was coming – and we steeled ourselves for it. We weren’t any old army: we were Billy Bonds’ ultra-loyal claret and blue army, and we weren’t going to go quietly. When the whistle blew to start the second half, every West Ham supporter in the ground was standing. And then it started in earnest.

Billy Bonds’ claret and blue army! The martial rhythm that underpinned the words was provided by stamping feet and clapping hands. Billy Bonds’ claret and blue army! You put your shoulders back, stuck out your chest, declaimed your allegiance and waited for the response. Which always came. Billy Bonds’ claret and blue army! And so it went on, the volume increasing slightly with every repetition.

When the same Gary Crosby who had been involved in the incident that had sparked the outrage scored Forest’s first, four minutes after the restart, we all knew our duty. As they rejoiced over their goal, we continued to celebrate the magnificence of supporting the most wonderful football club in the world. Billy Bonds’ claret and blue army! No one faltered.

The goals kept coming, but we never missed a beat. Billy Bonds’ claret and blue army! Louder. And louder. And louder still. By now, we weren’t just standing – we were standing on our seats. When Stuart Pearce scored Forest’s third after seventy minutes we saw their supporters leap to their feet, arms aloft. But we couldn’t hear their cheers: the noise in the West Ham stands was so great we simply drowned them out. It was truly bizarre to watch a large group of grown men and women jumping for joy, while not having
to listen to a single decibel from them. With no sound to accompany their celebration, they looked faintly ridiculous – and the pain that always comes with an opposition goal just wasn’t there for once. It was as if their fourth and final goal never happened in our part of the ground.

In many ways, it is deeply worrying how you can so easily surrender your individuality to a crowd in the way we all did in response to such incitement. Frightening, but empowering. We may have been losing on the pitch, but we were victorious in the stands.

When the final whistle went, many seemed slightly baffled about what to do next. We saluted our team, gave the referee one last volley of abuse and considered the options. As we shuffled out I heard one guy ask his mate if they should go on into the city centre for a tear-up. ‘Nah, let’s go home,’ was the simple reply.

The journey up to Birmingham had been full of hope – scarves out the window, sausage sandwiches on the motorway, Peter Frampton on the tape deck. Oh baby, I love your way.

Coming back was a different story – more a case of Leonard Cohen than stadium rock. We’d lost, and our Wembley dream was over. Even the gallows humour that inevitably follows on such occasions wasn’t enough to lift the sombre mood. It wasn’t until later that we realised we had been part of something special.

After the cream of the British cavalry were slaughtered at the Battle of Balaclava, the French general who oversaw the massacre famously remarked that the Charge of the Light Brigade was magnificent, but not war as he understood it. We got a similar response from people who had watched the game on TV. ‘If that’s West Ham when you’re losing, what’s it like when you win?’ a colleague asked me some days later. He missed the point, of course.

In historical terms this was less Balaclava and more the equivalent of Dunkirk, which in truth was a desperate retreat from a rampant enemy, but came to be regarded as a triumph for the never-say-die spirit that is one of humanity’s greatest qualities.

I’m certain there will never be a show of support like that again by the followers of any club, win or lose. What the West Ham supporters did at Villa Park was unique but, as I say, we never stopped to think that our display of defiance was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. That’s the trouble with making history. At the time, you have no idea you are actually doing it.

A
NYONE WITH THE
slightest interest in English football will undoubtedly know that West Ham are moving to the Olympic Stadium in time for the 2016/17 season. Apparently, a new bright shiny stadium will herald a bright shiny future for the club. But, to be perfectly honest, I don’t want to go.

We are told that what’s needed is a ground more accessible for supporters, allowing bigger crowds to watch the games and enabling the club to become a major force in the land. The funny thing is the case being put forward to justify uprooting to Stratford sounds remarkably like the one that took us to the Boleyn Ground more than 100 years ago.

At the turn of the twentieth century, impressively whiskered directors decided that the Memorial Grounds stadium in Canning
Town, where West Ham first played after starting life as Thames Ironworks, was no longer fit for purpose and earmarked a site in the borough of East Ham that would … be more accessible, allow bigger crowds to watch the games and – you’ve guessed it – enable the club to become a major force in the land.

Ever since it was confirmed that we are to leave the area that has been the club’s home since 1904, I’ve been chalking off each game played there in the same way a condemned man scratches the wall of his prison cell to mark the passing of his last days on Earth – knowing the hangman’s noose will inevitably be wrapped around his neck at the end of it all. Frankly, it’s not a good way to feel.

Other clubs have moved to new stadiums, I know. The trouble is West Ham isn’t another club – it’s
my
club. And I’m not sure how to pack up a lifetime of memories that were fermented in London E13 and ship them off to another postal district.

Let me take you on an unofficial tour of the ground. Perhaps, then, you will understand why I am so reluctant to leave.

I’m assuming you got here from one of the smarter parts of London on the District line via Upton Park Tube station and then took the short walk south down Green Street, passing notable local landmarks such as the Queens pub and Ken’s café on the way. Each to their own, of course, but I’m not all that keen on the Queens. If you’d fancied a pint on the way you’d have done better getting off at Plaistow and looking in at the Black Lion. Alternatively, you could have stayed on until East Ham, strolled along the High Street until you reached the junction with the Barking Road, and popped into the Denmark Arms, which has a sticky-carpet charm all of its own. What you don’t want to do if you come again is make the fatal mistake of alighting at West Ham station – it’s a bloody long walk from there.

We are now at the main gates – the John Lyall gates – the ones that were adorned with scarves and shirts and teddy bears and all sorts of other claret and blue stuff when, in 1993, we were robbed of Bobby Moore by that filthy little cheat, cancer. You probably saw the pictures in the newspapers.

If you are not of the claret and blue persuasion yourself, you may well think the theatre of disturbing dreams we are now entering is called Upton Park. Let me put you straight on that one, me old china plate (I told you I was fluent in rhyming slang). Upton Park is the geographical area from which the Tube station takes its name. But the football stadium is officially the Boleyn Ground – so-called in memory of a castle that wasn’t really a castle at all.

The ‘Boleyn Castle’ was a rather strange-looking affair, built in 1544 and boasting vague connections to the woman over whom Henry VIII lost his head before he decided she must lose hers. Some romantics say Anne lived there, others reckon she merely visited from time to time. Sadly, they are wrong – she had been executed eight years before the place was built. However, Green Street House, which stood in the grounds that West Ham had rented from the Catholic Church, became known locally as the Boleyn Castle – hence the name of the stadium that stands before you.

Directly ahead, you will have noticed those two rather large and tacky replicas of castle turrets, which celebrate West Ham’s links with Tudor England. Talk about rewriting history! For years the club’s owners were desperate to knock down the original building, and finally managed to do so in 1955.

On your right is the players’ car park. I agree, some of those motors do look distinctly pricey. (Remind me to tell you about the time I nearly got run over by Mido coming out of there in his
Rolls-Royce. I guess if you are going to get knocked down by a car, a Roller is as good as anything, but you don’t want it driven by Mido – he was terrible.)

Over there is the club shop. If you’re after a souvenir, I suggest you pop in and get something now. The queues are murder on match day – they have security guys on the doors to ensure that it doesn’t get too crowded in there, although I suspect that has more to do with crime prevention than the comfort of the customers.

Right, let me show you where it all started for me. Squeeze yourself through these ridiculously tight turnstiles and join me in the Trevor Brooking Stand.

When I first went to the Boleyn Ground back in the ’60s, this was known as the North Bank and it’s where I stood. It was cheap to get in and allowed you to look like a hard case without ever running the risk of direct confrontation with the opposition hooligans, who generally parked themselves at the other end of the ground. No one – and I mean no one – ever ‘took’ the West Ham North Bank, which meant you could stand up straight and confidently sing that you hated Bill Shankly; you hated the Kop and were prepared to fight Man United until you dropped. We didn’t give a widdle and we didn’t give a wank – we were the West Ham North Bank! They just don’t write lyrics like that any more.

This, of course, was many years before Lord Justice Taylor decreed that football grounds had to be all-seater. The North Bank was a concrete terrace, punctuated with metal crash barriers that were there to minimise the danger when the crowd surged forward. What would have minimised the danger even more was if the idiots at the back had refrained from setting off a nerve-jangling human tidal wave by shoving the people in front of them simply for the
fun of it, but I suppose folk had to make their own entertainment back in those days. It was tempting to lean on a barrier, but you soon discovered it was better to have it at your back – that way you were less likely to find yourself unexpectedly and unwillingly hurtling down the terracing when the pushing began. For me, the fact that this involuntary cascade was often accompanied by the strains of ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’ made it no more enjoyable.

There were other problems involved with standing on the terraces – not least the waterfall of urine that started at half time and was sometimes still trickling underfoot at the final whistle. But there were advantages, too. You could congregate with your mates, for one thing. And if you didn’t have any mates, you could at least get together with a group of like-minded individuals who wanted to sing their hearts out in the name of West Ham United and tell the world that east London is wonderful, with the reasons why (I won’t go into those here because they are somewhat offensive).

There’s no doubt that a crowd generates considerably more of an atmosphere when it’s standing. But, as things stand, you can’t. Stand, that is. Not at a Premier League ground anyway.

The people championing the idea of ‘safe standing’ – notably the Football Supporters’ Federation – are adamant they don’t want to see a return to the vast open terraces of a bygone age. And those of us who stood on what were sometimes nothing more than crumbling death traps will say ‘hear, hear’ to that.

But, more than twenty years after Taylor called for all-seater stadiums, some people do still want to stand at football matches. West Ham supporters do it as a matter of course at away games – and some do it at home fixtures too – notably in the lower tier of the Trevor Brooking Stand.

The answer, says the FSF, is an arrangement that is proving increasingly popular in some parts of the world, particularly Germany, known as rail seating. The technology varies slightly from system to system, but the general idea is that in limited areas of the ground there are seats that can fold up flush with their metal housing, and then be locked in the upright position. The structure that encases the seats comes with a high back and a rail, which gives the row of supporters behind something to lean on.

You buy a ticket for the seat and stand in front of it – unless your club happens to be involved in a Champions League game and then the seats are unlocked and you sit down. Until your team scores, of course, and then there’s every likelihood you will stand up again…

The FSF wants to give the idea of safe standing a trial run in the UK, which seems eminently reasonable to me. It will never happen at Upton Park, but there are suggestions it might get a trial run at the Olympic Stadium. David Blackmore, who edits the West Ham fanzine
Blowing Bubbles
, is convinced it will happen after talking to David Gold. The club’s co-owner told him:

Blackmore is a persuasive man – he talked me into writing a regular column for him in return for nothing more than a pint from time to time (which, considering I am a professional journalist and the shop steward who is supposed to ensure my colleagues at
The Guardian
and
The Observer
are properly rewarded for their labour, is no mean feat). But he can’t persuade me we’ll ever get safe standing – the concept has too many opponents.

One of the most powerful voices to speak out against it belongs to Margaret Aspinall who, as chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, fought so hard to get belated justice for the ninety-six Liverpool supporters who died in the needless tragedy that was to change the face of English football for ever – and were then blamed by some for bringing about the disaster themselves. One of the victims that fateful day in 1989 was her son James, who was just eighteen. ‘There are ninety-six reasons why it should not be allowed,’ she says. ‘Standing should never, ever come back. I don’t think there is anything safe about standing.’

I believe the Hillsborough Family Support Group fought an inspirational campaign to ensure the truth finally came to light. But I’m not sure she’s right about this. Neither is Mark, who was in the Leppings Lane Stand that appalling day: ‘I knew that the centre pen was dangerous as I’d been in there on three previous occasions (including the semi-final the year before). I was keen to avoid going in there again, so I went to the right of the goal where there was plenty of room.’

Should everyone be required to sit down at a football match all these years on?

It is fair to say Mark is not an armchair fan. Not only does he still rock up at Anfield regularly, he has been to more than 100 other League grounds in England as well. ‘I’m not sure I’d want to stand up regularly, but I still stand at lower division grounds occasionally,’ he says.

So why not every time? ‘My plates are playing me up at the moment,’ says Mark. Good to know that, given long enough, you can teach a Mickey Mouser to talk proper.

If there is to be some radical new thinking at the Olympic Stadium, I’d also like to see a section where fans of both teams can sit together – as happens at Fulham.

Generally, of course, there is strict segregation inside a football stadium. Home supporters sit here, the away lot sit there. And never the twain shall meet (unless it’s a bunch of Millwall yobbos who’ve used a League Cup tie as an excuse to hole up in the
Queens with a view to starting World War Three, in which case you, them and a whole bunch of policemen meet in Green Street).

However, it’s my guess a lot of us have smuggled an opposition fan into Upton Park at one time or another.

Your mate wants to see the game, but the away end is sold out – so you do the decent thing and invite them to join you in the Bobby Moore Upper instead. You start to regret it the minute the tickets arrive – if this mate of yours doesn’t keep his trap shut you are both going to be in for a very uncomfortable afternoon. You are still warning him in hushed tones of the dangers as you surreptitiously check that no one else in the packed bar is listening to your conversation. He’s nodding furiously to indicate he fully understands his side of the bargain, but you still feel uneasy. Then a bloke jogs your elbow causing you to spill half your beer and you really begin to wish you’d stayed in bed.

As it happens you both get away with it … this time. But wouldn’t it have been so much better if there had been an area set aside where fans of both clubs could go in together and enjoy a laugh with their mates, safe in the knowledge they would emerge at the end of the game with their lives intact? We’ve got a family section, why not a mixed section? You’d need a few safeguards, naturally. But it would be perfectly possible if there were the demand for it.