Nearly Reach the Sky (21 page)

It was a clear infringement of our civil liberties (yes – even football supporters have civil liberties) and our friend Simon was outraged. Mind you, by then he knew a thing or two about security in football grounds.

The worst-kept secret at Upton Park is the coded message to stewards that there is an incident somewhere in the ground that needs their immediate attention.

There is an almighty cheer every time it is announced that Mr Moon is in the stadium – and an equally loud one when it is revealed that he has left again.

It’s such a natural occurrence – like the rising of the tides and the setting of the sun – that regulars don’t think to mention it to newcomers when they introduce them to the delights of a Saturday afternoon at the Boleyn Ground. I certainly didn’t give it a moment’s thought when I persuaded my close friend and best man to come along and see his first home game. Perhaps I should have. Simon’s surname is Moon.

We were sitting quietly in the West Stand – me studying Hammer, him soaking up all the atmosphere the second division could offer in the ’80s – when the oh-so-familiar announcement was made. As is the custom, the crowd roared as if a pantomime villain had suddenly appeared before us. I roared. My wife roared. My father-in-law roared. And my mate nearly jumped out of his skin.

It takes a lot to rattle a man who has been brought up near Wigan and educated by a sadistic bunch of head-bangers called the Christian Brothers who came over to the north-west of England from Ireland with the primary intention of beating the bejesus out of as many young boys as they could in the hope of educating them in the ways of the Catholic Church. But Mr Moon was clearly shaken by 20,000-plus people cheering the fact he had taken the trouble to come to the ground that day.

His look of utter astonishment will live with me ’til the day I
turn up my toes and find out whether or not the Christian Brothers are right after all. Then his expression changed slightly. He clearly thought I had something to do with it! All right, I was helpless with laughter and my denials must have lacked a certain amount of sincerity – but how could I have pulled that one off?

I admit he did have grounds for suspicion. What else is a best mate for if it’s not to be on the wrong end of a practical joke from time to time? Simon and I worked on the
Daily Express
back then, and one of our colleagues was an obsessive long-distance runner. He wanted to put together a team to represent the paper in the London Marathon and was looking for volunteers. Somebody (it might have been me) let it slip that my mate had been a champion fell runner in his native Lancashire and would be an ideal candidate for the team. The only problem was that he was ridiculously modest about his achievements and would deny them if pressed. But don’t be put off, I told our athletic workmate, you’ll talk him round in the end. And, whatever you do, don’t tell him where you got your information – he’ll never forgive me if he finds out it was me who divulged the glories of his past.

My modest friend did deny his achievements, just as I had predicted. That might have been because I had made them up – I’m not sure they even have fells in Lancashire, to be honest. But that didn’t deter Marathon Man, who pestered Simon for weeks, leaving him increasingly baffled about why his pursuer wouldn’t take no for an answer.

I readily accept this isn’t the funniest prank that anyone has played on a mate, but it amused me. (I like a running gag.) The Real Mr Moon only found out the truth a few days before his first trip to Upton Park, and he was convinced that I had
concocted a far more elaborate practical joke than the one he had just endured.

I am happy to report Simon came to see the funny side in time, but none of us who were at Selhurst Park to see Tonka’s farewell game were laughing when those cameras were turned on us for no reason whatsoever. In the unlikely event the police still have that footage, they might like to look at it again; I think you’ll find we were not amused.

Twenty years after I saw Tonka take a penalty for the first time we were back at Upton Park for another quarter-final against Villa. This time it was the League Cup, and we shouldn’t have been there at all. We’d already beaten them to book our place in the semis, then it turned out we’d fielded an ineligible player in the first tie.

His name was Emmanuel Omoyinmi, although that was generally shortened to Dear Manny in the death threats he received from irate supporters when it emerged he’d already turned out for Gillingham in the same competition and was therefore Cup-tied. He’d come on for the last few minutes of extra time and barely touched the ball … but rules is rules and West Ham had broken them.

That first game was a shocker. After eighty-eight seriously forgettable minutes it is 1–1 – then the visitors appear to win it with a Dion Dublin volley. One last foray into Villa territory brings us a penalty … which Paolo Di Canio strokes home with all the insouciance of an Italian gigolo on the pull in an old folk’s home in Rome. Half an hour later the scores are still level and it’s penalty shoot-out time. Five West Ham players step up to the spot – and five West Ham players score. Hard to believe, I know, but true nonetheless. Of the five Villa players who try their luck, however, only four are successful. Gareth Southgate, who England followers
will recall has some previous in this department, fails to trouble the scorers and the mighty West Ham United are in the semi-final of a major Cup competition with every chance of going all the way. Or so we thought.

We might have had more chance of getting away with it if two months previously we hadn’t played Croatian defender Igor Stimac in a UEFA Cup tie, even though he still had a two-game ban to serve dating back four years to his time at Hajduk Split. UEFA accepted responsibility for the oversight on that occasion. But the Football League weren’t so lenient and they ordered a replay – which we lost 3–1 after extra time. After years of failure this was the first time in West Ham’s history that we had actually managed to win a penalty shoot-out in a competitive game and then go on and lose the tie. You can see why a lifetime spent following the Hammers gives you a rather jaundiced outlook on life.

The penalty kick itself was devised by an Irishman named William McCrum who played in goal for his village side Milford FC in the Irish Football League. Judging by his first season, in 1890/91, he may not have been the greatest keeper the world has ever seen. Milford finished bottom of the League with no points from fourteen games, having conceded sixty-two goals. However, the village had been built by his millionaire father, who also just happened to run the local linen business, so it was unlikely he was ever going to be dropped.

This was the time when the game was played by amateur ‘gentlemen’, who never cheated. Only they did – and McCrum, as a keeper, was perfectly placed to see them do it. To counter some of the violence that was taking place in front of him (which could be startlingly brutal at times) he came up with a proposal that
went before the International Football Association Board for consideration.

What the man known locally as Master Willie suggested was:

You will notice that the infringement had to happen 12 yards from the goal line, rather than in the penalty area. There is a simple explanation for this; before McCrum came up with the idea of a penalty there was no need for a penalty area, so it didn’t exist. Interestingly, a penalty would only be awarded after an appeal – in the way a cricket umpire cannot give a batsman out without first being asked – and the kick could be taken from any point 12 yards away, not necessarily a central spot.

The idea did not go down at all well at first – particularly with his fellow players who dubbed it, among other things, the ‘death penalty’. However, a year after the proposal was first made it was approved, with a couple of amendments, and became the Law 13 we know and love today.

Penalties I can live with. But the penalty shoot-out really is a devilish invention. As a way of settling drawn games it is preferable
to the heads-or-tails lottery of the coin-toss that preceded it. But only just. First introduced in England in 1970, the shoot-out began life here in the late, but not-so-lamented, Watney Cup. (West Ham were to lose the first of many shoot-outs in this particular competition when Bristol Rovers proved they were better than us at taking penalties in 1973.
Plus ça change
, as they say in Bristol.)

Sorry, did someone say this would be an ideal opportunity to analyse the penalty-taking techniques of the lads who came up so desperately short in the shoot-out after Stephen Gerrard’s last gasp equaliser for Liverpool in the 2006 Cup final? Relive that heartache – are you mad?

This isn’t just a West Ham thing. There cannot be an Englishman worthy of the name who doesn’t dread a penalty shoot-out. I don’t care what team you support, I simply don’t believe that anyone who considers George the dragon-slayer to be their patron saint actually believes their team will come out on top if it goes to pens.

It’s anybody’s guess what Master Willie would have made of the bastard offspring of his noble idea. One man who might have an inkling is my colleague Robert McCrum, a highly distinguished writer on
The Guardian’
s sister paper
The Observer
, who is William’s grandson. I thought about asking him but we’re all pretty busy at work these days and I didn’t think it right to waste his time with silly questions like that.

In the unlikely event my life depended on West Ham winning a penalty shoot-out, and I had to choose five players from any era to take them, I’d go for Tonka, followed by Julian Dicks, Paolo Di Canio, Sir Geoff and Mark Noble. I was tempted to include George Kitchen, who didn’t let the fact he was a goalkeeper put him off and scored five times from the penalty spot between 1905 and 1912.
(Apparently he is the only keeper ever to have scored on his debut. No kidding?) However, he also missed three – including one in a game against Brighton on Bonfire Night in 1910 in which he also scored. This all sounds a bit flaky to me, and as it is my life we’re talking about here I’m not going to risk it.

The mighty Julian Dicks scored fifty times in his 264 appearances for West Ham, which came in two slices. The unlikely filling in this sandwich was a spell at Anfield, where he will always have the distinction of being the last Liverpool player to score in front of a standing Kop before they made them all sit down. The Terminator reckons that of all his penalties he only ever tried to place two: one hit the post and the other missed altogether. The rest he simply blasted with a ferocity that was staggering to behold. In all, he converted thirty-five of his thirty-nine spot kicks while wearing claret and blue.

Di Canio, of course, was a law unto himself when it came to taking penalties, just as happy to wait for the keeper to dive and cheekily chip the ball into the space he had vacated as place it unerringly in the corner; Hurst – despite the heart-breaking miss against Stoke – was brilliant from 12 yards; and mighty Mark Noble has the assurance of a professional assassin when he puts the ball on the spot. Save a plinth in the West Ham hall of fame for this man – the day he hangs up his boots his place alongside the club’s all-time greats is assured.

Marlon Harewood, on the other hand, will have to wait a little longer for an invitation to take his place among the legends of E13.

Quite how he got to take a penalty in a crucial relegation clash against Watford in the Great Escape season when Carlos Tevez was on the pitch is beyond me. But that is in the second half, and we
have an opposition penalty to deal with first. Geoff and I are in the Trevor Brooking Lower, in much the same place I had stood all those years beforehand when my son’s illustrious namesake was foiled by the Banks of England. Less than a quarter of an hour has passed when Anton Ferdinand pulls back Darius Henderson in the area for a nailed-on pen.

Funnily enough, I never have the same feeling of doubt when we concede a penalty as I do when we’re awarded one. I am always convinced our keeper is going to save it. And in all my years of going to Upton Park I cannot recall anyone better at saving penalties than Robert Green. This time, however, my confidence is misplaced and Henderson’s effort beats Green’s flailing right hand and finds its way into the bottom corner.

We proceed to bombard the bottom-placed club and come close on a number of occasions. Then we get our chance from the spot. Curiously, we have had to wait until February for our first penalty. For reasons of illogical superstition that escape me now, I decide to look away when Marvellous Marlon steps up to do the honours. It is the first time I have ever opted not to watch as we take a pen.

By the nature of things, it is rare to turn your back to goal at a football match (we don’t do the Poznan at Upton Park) and it is an interesting experience when you do. If nothing else, it gives you a rare opportunity to study the people who share your obsession. Like you, they will be exultant if this ball finds its way into the net. Similarly, they will be plunged into the gloomy depths if it doesn’t. You can work out for yourself which emotion we are left to deal with as we go on to lose 1–0 and sink deeper into the relegation mire.

Having tried it, I won’t look away again. Neither will I shut my eyes. From Hurst to Harewood, West Ham will always leave me on the edge of a nervous breakdown when a ref points to the spot. But, unlike them, I will never miss another penalty.

W
HEN BOBBY MOORE
wiped the mud off his hands on the velvet cloth draped over the edge of the royal box and prepared to receive the Jules Rimet trophy from the Queen at Wembley on a glorious July day in 1966 I couldn’t have been happier. England were world champions, and the nation’s global triumph had been achieved with the considerable help of three players from the club side to which I had given my young heart two years earlier.

Moore, Hurst and Peters – the holy trinity for West Ham supporters of a certain age (the age that means you have to start watching your cholesterol and hills seem steeper than they once did). Not only had West Ham provided the captain of a world-conquering team, we had come up with the goal-scorers too.

Naturally, I had pictures of all three of them on my bedroom wall. By the time the World Cup was won I wasn’t allowed posters because my dad didn’t like the way Sellotape stripped off a piece of the wallpaper when you took one down for whatever reason (such as an elder brother inking in a Hitler moustache on a favourite player in retaliation for some perceived offence by a totally innocent party). Instead, I had framed photographs. The 10x8 prints were supplied by Typhoo Tea in return for a set number of packet tops. The frames – and the glass that prevented any further acts of sibling vandalism – were provided by my old man, who was a dab hand at that sort of thing.

The pictures, hanging on pukka picture-hooks, were aligned with perfect precision – my father was the sort of man who insisted on using a spirit level for jobs like that.

For me, there was a similar and equally pleasing alignment between my club and my country at that time. With Moore, Hurst and Peters being automatic selections for the national side, supporting England was merely an extension of following West Ham.

The three of them remained on my wall, quite content to be there, for the following four years. West Ham never quite enjoyed the success they should have done in that period but I knew it was only a matter of time before we won another trophy. Besides, all three were such an integral part of Alf Ramsey’s plans I happily regarded England as my ‘other’ team. And a very good team it was too. They were certainly going to win a major tournament again soon.

Had I given the matter any thought as I entered my teens, I suppose I would have told you I expected West Ham’s World Cup heroes to remain on their hooks where my dad had hung
them for years to come. It never occurred to me that any of them might want to leave Upton Park. And I couldn’t have dreamt that I would one day feel very differently about England.

The first picture to come down was Martin Peters. To be honest, I wasn’t all that upset. In fact, after I’d removed his photo and filled in the holes left by the hook under the watchful eye of my father – who couldn’t understand how I could make such a mess with a little dab of Polyfilla and a trowel – I actually wrote a letter to
Goal
magazine expressing my delight at the deal that took Peters to Tottenham and brought us Jimmy Greaves in exchange.

It certainly didn’t change the way I felt about England. This was 1970, and the three lions were preparing to defend the World Cup in Mexico. The fact that Martin Peters no longer played his club football in claret and blue mattered not one bit. I was desperate for England to retain the trophy.

They might just have done it too. It would have meant beating a brilliant Brazil team that boasted the likes of Pelé, Jairzinho and Carlos Alberto. But this was the best England side the country had ever produced – better even than the ’66 team – and with the defensive brilliance of Moore and the tactical genius of Ramsey anything was possible. Trouble was, we never got to find out. On a Sunday afternoon that was to graze my soul, Sir Alf’s strategic acumen deserted him and after taking a two-goal lead – including one from Peters – some dodgy substitutions, coupled with some even dodgier goalkeeping by Peter ‘The Cat’ Bonetti, saw England crash out 3–2 to West Germany in the quarter-final.

Two years later the picture of Geoff Hurst came down. My dad, having given up all hope of teaching me how to do handyman-type
jobs, filled in the holes himself and finished off the job with a splash of paint that matched the wallpaper.

Hurst left West Ham to join Stoke in August 1972. Not only would he never wear the claret and blue again, he’d played his last international as well. In the April of that year he’d been substituted with twenty minutes to go as England went down 3–1 at Wembley to the nation he had put to the sword in the World Cup final. That was his forty-ninth cap for England. There would be no fiftieth.

That defeat effectively ended England’s hopes of being champions of Europe, but the tournament then had nothing of the prestige it does today and supporters of the national side shrugged off the disappointment then turned their attention to qualification for the next World Cup in West Germany.

The good news was that Bobby Moore was still at the helm – both for West Ham and England. His face, now hanging proudly alone, looked out over my bedroom with a knowing serenity that assured me all was well.

On Valentine’s Day in 1973 he was awarded his 100th cap for England before we Sassenachs demolished Scotland 5–0 at Hampden Park. There was no telling how many more caps he would win as England sailed through the qualifying games and then set about the more serious challenge of negotiating the group stage of the World Cup finals. Then there would be the knock-out encounters – quarter-final; semi-final; maybe even the final in Munich itself …

It didn’t appear to be a difficult qualifying group. England, Poland and Wales. Finish top of the pile and book the plane for Germany: what could be more straightforward? England started well, beating Wales in Cardiff. Poland, on the other hand, lost to the Welshmen. This was practically in the bag. The first feelings of
foreboding came in the Polish city of Katowice. The great Bobby Moore – the rock upon which the England side was founded – had an absolute shocker, getting caught in possession to gift the home side their second goal in a 2–0 defeat.

When the Poles came to Wembley in October 1973, England had to win if they were going to qualify. Those of us who cared about the nation’s prial of lions were nervous, but far from overawed by the challenge. Then came the bombshell news: Sir Alf Ramsey had dropped Bobby Moore. And that was the moment I fell out of love with England.

Of course I wanted England to beat Poland. The World Cup finals without England was unthinkable. But what was ‘England’ now? Representing my hopes were players I regularly abused when they turned up at Upton Park to represent the likes of Leeds, Liverpool and Spurs. Norman Hunter; Emlyn Hughes; Martin Chivers – I loathed them when they wore their club colours. Now I was supposed to cheer them on in a side that – for the first time in my life as a football supporter – contained no West Ham players. It didn’t feel right at all.

After being told he had been dropped, Moore asked Ramsey if that was the end of his international career – only to be reassured that he would still be required to captain the side when they had made it to the finals. That, of course, never happened.

In the event, Moore played one more game for England – his 108th international appearance – in a friendly against Italy a month after being left out of the side. Five months later Sir Alf was sacked – and any hope that the West Ham captain had of re-establishing his place in the national side went with him. Not that it would have been much consolation to the great man at the time, but
Robert Frederick Chelsea Moore kept his place of honour on my bedroom wall while the rest of the country turned its back on him. He didn’t come down until he finally said goodbye to West Ham and retired to Fulham. If I remember correctly, my dad took the opportunity to completely redecorate soon after.

With Moore dropped for the Poland game the only remaining member of the ’66 World Cup-winning side still in the England team that night was Martin Peters. He took over as captain, in fact.

This, of course, was the man Sir Alf had famously described as being ten years ahead of his time. Yet I had written to Britain’s leading soccer magazine to say I was perfectly happy to see him leave West Ham. That letter has troubled me ever since.

I don’t really do football memorabilia. My ‘collection’ consists of some old programmes, a ball signed by Hurst and Peters and an autographed framed photo of the world’s greatest ever defender that hangs in our downstairs loo, aka the Bobby Moore Suite. But if I did I would be a regular customer of the wonderful Matchday Memories, run by a boing-boing Baggy named Dave. It was Dave who patiently sifted through his back catalogue of
Goal
mags and found the issue that featured my letter. You, sir, are a gentleman.

What really worried me was that
Goal
had published my letter in full. Because I was pretty sure that not only had I written in praise of the incoming Jimmy Greaves, but had taken the opportunity to point out Martin Peters’ shortcomings as well. In the event, it appears I was saved from myself by a kindly sub-editor who took his red pen to the more extreme parts of my correspondence. (As someone who went on to become a kindly sub-editor myself I am better placed than most to appreciate his intervention.)

What appeared under the one-word headline ‘Boom!’ was:

I was really proud of that letter – it was the first thing I’d ever had published. I showed it to all my mates at school.

For the record, my prediction fell some way short of the mark. The following season West Ham finished twentieth out of twenty-two, narrowly missing relegation. It’s fair to say I’m not all that hot at this forecasting malarkey. Perhaps that’s why the country’s leading bookmakers send me a Christmas card every year.

On reflection, what I should have done was thank Mr Peters for his fantastic contribution to West Ham. It is often said that he played in every position for my beloved Hammers – including goalkeeper – but in fact he never wore the No. 2 shirt. Not that that detracts from his talent and versatility in any way. He made 302 appearances for West Ham and scored eighty-one times, including a hat-trick against Dave’s West Brom that is among my earliest memories.

Peters was the complete player: two-footed, good in the air, an eye for goal and strong in the tackle. Greaves, to put it politely, was in the autumn of his career.

Mind you, that didn’t stop him scoring on his debut – just as he had done for Chelsea, AC Milan, Tottenham and England. In fact
he scored twice in his first game in claret and blue as we thumped Man City 5–1 in a quagmire at Maine Road. Geoff Hurst got a couple as well. There’s a fantastic photograph of the two of them celebrating on the back page of my recently acquired copy of
Goal
. Due to the strange camera angle at which the picture was taken Sir Geoff appears to have three legs! Now that would have gone on my wall if it hadn’t been for my dad’s poster ban.

I loved
Goal
. Thursdays couldn’t come quickly enough. I’d often wait by the front door for the newspapers to drop through the letterbox, hurriedly separate my periodical from the rest and scan it over breakfast before going to school. Then, for the next few days, I’d re-read it time and again – savouring every word and memorising every picture with an application that would have astonished my teachers, who were tearing their hair out at my unwillingness to show similar levels of concentration in French, biology, religious instruction and the similarly pointless subjects I was expected to study while in their care.

When Dave sent me issue No. 91, for 2 May 1970 – in return for a couple of measly pound coins plus postage – I read it with the same devotion I displayed forty years ago. (Although I did resist the temptation to do the spot-the-difference puzzle on page forty-six.)

I turned to my letter first. I had been hoping to win the £2 prize for the Star Letter in Goal Lines but I was pipped by Miss Heather Harrington from Blackpool, who had written in praise of women’s football (and, as well as the money, earned herself a very condescending remark from the editor asking ‘but who will look after baby on a Saturday afternoon?’ for her pains).

It should be pointed out that two quid was not to be sniffed at
in 1970; at today’s value it’s worth more than £25. It would certainly have been enough to buy me a good deal of the merchandise on offer in the magazine’s adverts.

There is actually an ad for football boots (or, to use the manufacturer’s description, ‘soccer slippers’) that features Martin Peters still wearing a West Ham shirt – several weeks after he had moved to Tottenham. Advertisers would have a fit if that happened today.

The Goalpost advertising page offered several replica kits for boys. Back then, replica kits were always for boys. Grown-ups didn’t wear it. A basic set for a child cost 32s 6d (that’s a fraction over £1.60 in today’s coinage) which would have given me change of 7 shillings and sixpence from my £2 if I’d won the prize for Star Letter. For that you got the shirt, shorts, socks – and a club badge! Had I wanted the iconic West Ham away strip (the light blue shirt with the two claret hoops) I would have had to fork out an extra 5s 6d (27.5p), which would have still left me two bob to the good if Ms Harrington hadn’t written a better letter.

There is loads of other good stuff for sale too – but I had all of it. The enamel badge, the shoulder bag, the pen: everything in club colours, of course.

No one was left in any doubt about who I supported when I went to school. I was a walking advert for West Ham United. Which made it all the more galling when I was called up before the deputy headmaster and accused of defacing a desk in the name of Liverpool FC. It was true that I did have some form when it came to writing on desks, but I’d paid my debt to society over five nights of detention and, as I pointed out to Mr Crittenden, I was hardly likely to write ‘Liverpool are Great’ when I clearly followed another team.