Nearly Reach the Sky (22 page)

I pointed to the badge on my school jumper; I showed him my bag; I rummaged around inside it to find my pen. I even offered to go to the cloakroom and fetch my elongated claret and blue scarf. But he was having none of it. I was guilty as charged and should prepare myself for another stretch of staying behind after school with sandpaper and elbow grease to atone for my misdemeanour.

I wasn’t unduly worried: I knew who had done it. Naturally, I wasn’t going to grass him up but I was certain that when he heard I’d been falsely accused he’d step forward and do the decent thing. We weren’t the closest of friends but there is a universal etiquette about these matters. Or so I thought. Miserable toerag – he let me take the rap without the slightest qualm. He went on to play rugby for Wasps. Which just goes to show: never trust a rugger bugger.

Edition No. 91 of
Goal
led on the forthcoming European Cup final between Celtic and Feyenoord, with a confident prediction that the Glasgow side would be victorious. Seems I’m not the only one who’s a bit shaky in the crystal ball department.

There were also a number of articles looking ahead to the World Cup in Mexico the following month. A particularly good feature pointed out how Geoff Hurst had become a target for ‘the cloggers’. And there was an update on the London-Mexico rally that preceded the tournament. Jimmy Greaves and his co-driver lay tenth at the time. They went on to finish sixth – which was probably the most noteworthy thing Greaves did in his time as a West Ham player. As with any World Cup build-up, there was an underlying air of optimism about English prospects.

The quarter-final exit at the hands of West Germany was, for me, as painful as any defeat I had experienced supporting the Hammers. (As a fourteen-year-old I had yet to see West Ham get
relegated; nor had we thrown away a magnificent FA Cup final victory in the final minute.) Gerd Muller’s extra-time winner felt like a rusty breadknife had been plunged into my essential organs. I was stunned for days afterwards.

Little did I know then that it would be twelve years before we would see England in the World Cup finals again. By the time Bryan Robson led out the team in Spain in 1982 I felt differently about the three lions. There was once more a West Ham connection – England were managed by Ron Greenwood and Trevor Brooking had been brilliant during the qualifying tournament – but I knew the national side’s eventual exit from the tournament wouldn’t affect me the way it had in Mexico. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt as much as watching the Irons get beaten.

Despite the wrench of Bobby Moore’s departure I saw a few internationals at Wembley in the wilderness years that followed the Ramsey era. A more depressing experience is hard to imagine.

Watching England on the telly is one thing. Watching them live is something else. The old Wembley was a terrible place for supporters. The journey up the Metropolitan line to get there was a nightmare: the pitch was miles away from the terracing, the facilities were inadequate and some of the football that was served up by a country that had once ruled the world in the game it invented was woeful.

Three years after Martin had played his last game for England I looked on, more in sorrow than anger, as another Peters scored twice at the so-called home of football. This one was called Jan and he played for Holland alongside the likes of Neeskens, Rep and a certain Johan Cruyff. The Netherlands won 2–0 that night but in truth they could have scored however many they liked. The gulf in class was breathtaking.

Don’t ask me to explain precisely why, but I could never feel part of things at Wembley the way I did at Upton Park. There’s something very different about an England crowd, which I don’t really understand and – if I’m going to be totally honest here – don’t like very much. Some countries seem to be able to take their sporting nationalism and turn it into a party. The English can’t.

It’s been argued that many of the people who follow the national side regularly do so because their club sides are in the lower leagues and international football offers an opportunity for some glory on a bigger stage, but that doesn’t hold water for me. Whenever my club has been in a lower division my sole focus is on seeing them promoted – what supporter doesn’t want to see their team win whatever division they are in?

If the Genie of the Lamp offered me the alternatives of West Ham winning the League or England lifting the World Cup it wouldn’t take me very long make my choice. And I’d be astonished if any serious supporter didn’t put the national side’s interests second as well.

That’s not to say I want to see my country crash and burn in major tournaments. Having lived through a number of World Cups where England have failed to qualify I try to enjoy them when they do. I particularly liked Italia ’90, even though there was not a single West Ham player in the squad. We didn’t have anyone playing for Scotland or the Republic of Ireland either, but there was one Upton Park favourite flying the flag for London E13. Any takers? You are correct my friend – it was indeed the very wonderful Ludek Miklosko, representing the Czech Republic.

Some years later – in 2006 to be precise – something similar happened. We are now in Germany and again there are no players from Upton Park in the England squad, but the West Ham
goalkeeper is there in the colours of another nation. This time it’s Shaka Hislop, playing for Trinidad and Tobago. What makes this particularly interesting for me is that he is facing England in the group stages. At the risk of angering the patriots I’ll put my cards on the table here – I would have been delighted if he’d kept a clean sheet.

We’ll draw a discreet veil over the performance of the West Ham keeper who made headlines for all the wrong reasons in South Africa four years later. Poor old Rob Green has taken enough stick for his howler against the US. Incidentally, there were five West Ham players in that tournament – and if you can name them all you are one serious anorak. Green and Matthew Upson are easy enough. You may even recall Jonathan Spector on the US subs’ bench without qualifying for nerd status. However, if you’ve named Valon Behrami as one of the Switzerland squad you’d better slip on that quilted winter coat of yours. And if you know that Guillermo Franco turned out for Mexico while playing his club football for West Ham I suggest you zip it up, pull the draw-strings of the hood tight and go for a long walk in search of a more meaningful life.

There are those of a mystical disposition who will tell you it is written in the stars that England will only ever win the World Cup again when there are three West Ham players in the team once more. I for one am convinced that this is true. However, it seems the three players in question aren’t David James, Trevor Sinclair and Joe Cole, who were all playing for the Hammers when they represented the unsuccessful England side of 2002 in Japan and South Korea.

So until the cosmic prediction comes to pass I will continue to cherish the memory of Moore, Hurst and Peters – even though
I was obliged to remove their pictures from my bedroom wall all those years ago.

Watching them play against West Ham for their new clubs was a strange experience. Seeing Bobby Moore in the white of Fulham rather than the white of England at Wembley in the 1975 FA Cup final was probably the easiest of the lot to take. And, as I told the readers of
Goal
magazine, losing Martin Peters to Tottenham didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world at the time. But seeing Geoff Hurst move to the Potteries after playing 499 games for West Ham was devastating.

I was clearly not alone in thinking we had made a huge mistake in letting him go. In his first game back at Upton Park he got a fantastic reception from all parts of the ground. It was really odd to see him in red and white stripes rather than claret and blue and I think we were all still trying to get used to the idea when, just eight minutes into the game, my boyhood hero did what he had done so many times before … and scored with his head at the Boleyn Ground.

This time, of course, we didn’t celebrate on the North Bank. Some applauded sportingly. Most of us were speechless. I’d like to say Sir Geoff appeared to be as gutted as I felt, but he clearly wasn’t. In fact, he looked quite pleased with himself. It later emerged that he wasn’t exactly thrilled by Ron Greenwood’s decision to let him go – particularly as he felt the move effectively prevented him resurrecting his England career – and the goal clearly underlined his point.

Ten days after I saw Geoff Hurst score against us I watched Martin Peters return to the Boleyn with Tottenham and do the same thing. Ain’t that typical? You wait all your life for a former West Ham World Cup winner to score against you, then two come along at once.

Peters’ goal came in the Boxing Day fixture, which used to kick off in the morning. Living as I did in Berkshire, I had to make a distressingly early start to get to the game. The good news, though, was that a few days previously I had copped off with a girl called Sharon at a Christmas party and she had agreed to come with me. If I remember correctly, she had been particularly impressed by my enthusiastic response to Gary Glitter’s invitation to join his gang (and that’s not a sentence you read very often these days).

My abiding memory of Boxing Day 1972 is not so much Peters’ goal, nor the 2–2 result, but the overpowering smell of aftershave that lingered like my mate at the party who wouldn’t clear off even though it was obvious I was in with a distinct chance of scoring.

For my Christmas present, Sharon had given me a large bottle of Old Spice (she worked in Woolworths and I think they had an offer running). It was my own fault, really. While chatting her up I had added a couple of years to my age, so she thought I was eighteen and did actually shave.

I didn’t want to disabuse her so early in our relationship, so I doused myself in the stuff before setting out to meet her at the station. She obviously appreciated the gesture and gave me a very warm welcome. I had high hopes for the rest of the day.

There was a surprisingly large number of people on the train for a Boxing Day morning and any thoughts I had of rearranging Sharon’s hot-pants went right out the window (which in those days used to slide up and down and came with dire warnings about not sticking your head out. Train windows that is, not Sharon’s hot-pants).

By the time we got to Upton Park my youthful lust had abated somewhat. But the smell of Old Spice hadn’t. It seemed to have permeated my clothes as well as my skin and I just couldn’t shake it off.
The trouble was, my dad used Old Spice (I think everybody’s dad used Old Spice in 1972) and it was like having my father standing behind me throughout the entire day. And when you’re a sixteen-year-old boy who wants to shout rude things at Spurs supporters and attempt even ruder things with a seventeen-year-old girl who works in Woollies, that’s not good.

Sharon and I had gone our separate ways when Hurst scored for Stoke a second time against us at the old Victoria Ground in the early part of the following season. And when Peters did it again at White Hart Lane the year after that, she was just a distant memory – although that memory was rekindled some years later when West Ham ran out to Carl Orff’s rousing ‘O Fortuna’, which had been used on the Old Spice ads in the ’70s. Every time I heard that piece of music – which, when you translate the lyrics, is basically a medieval version of ‘Bubbles’ – I had a small pang of guilt over the way I misled Sharon.

When John F. Kennedy was sworn in as President of the US a few years before West Ham and I became an item, he uttered the often-quoted line: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’ (Apparently he pinched it from his headteacher, who was obviously a rather more inspiring character than my Mr Crittenden.)

Well, I reckon I’ve done my bit for England. I gave them every chance as a supporter and I feel have been let down badly in return.

I owe a few people an apology: Sharon for fibbing about my age; Martin Peters for questioning his undoubted talent; even Geoff Hurst for stealing the title of his autobiography as a heading for this chapter. But I’m not going to apologise to anyone for doing what most football supporters do and putting my club before my
country. I did my best with England. It’s not my fault that I can no longer summon up an emotional commitment to the national side. I am the innocent party in all this. Honestly, like Bobby Moore when he was presented with the World Cup by the Queen, my hands are clean.

T
HERE ARE TIMES
when following West Ham is no laughing matter. Certainly, the bloke I was sitting next to at Loftus Road several seasons ago wasn’t smiling when the wiry young man in front of us stood up and abused the supporters behind the goal to our left.

‘They are West Ham,’ he succinctly informed this misguided individual as he placed a giant hand on his head and, employing a vice-like grip, wrenched it through 90 degrees until a whole new set of supporters came into view. ‘They are QPR,’ pointed out my neighbour, who then continued to read his programme as if nothing had happened.

Before resuming the task of informing the opposition support exactly what he thought of them, the numpty in front of us turned
to confront the guy who had just broadened his general knowledge in such a robust way. Their eyes met; one set angry but curious, the other ice cold and deadly. The younger man had barely blinked twice before he decided he would take the matter no further. He may have been stupid, but he wasn’t that stupid.

Funny things, football crowds. You find yourself rubbing shoulders with all sorts of people. It’s true that at West Ham we have our quota of loudmouths and idiots, just like any club. And we’ve got some real hard cases too. But, on match day at least, there is clearly more that unites us than divides us. Does it extend beyond a love of the same football team though?

I like to think so. Perhaps it’s a certain way of looking at life. Fear the worst, hope for the best and try to see the funny side whenever possible. (Oh yes, and don’t have a row with a bloke who is prepared to twist your head like you’re auditioning for
The Exorcist
and then looks straight through you when you think about complaining.)

The humour at West Ham has been well documented over the years. ‘We’ve got Di Canio, You’ve got our stereo,’ may be unfair on the good people of Liverpool – but I’d defy any football supporter to keep a straight face the first time they heard that.

There’s a fine line between banter and abuse, and my personal favourite undoubtedly crosses that line. Sung to
The Addams Family
theme tune, this one is reserved for trips to East Anglia: ‘My sister is my mother, my uncle is my brother, we all procreate with each other, in our Norwich family’ (actually ‘procreate with’ is generally shortened to one word).

If you really want a song that sums up the West Ham sense of humour it has to be: ‘We’re winning away, we’re winning away. How shit must you be? We’re winning away!’ And if you want to
go one better, try: ‘We’re coming for you, we’re coming for you. Barcelona, we’re coming for you.’

What doesn’t get mentioned quite so often is the pride that goes with being a Hammer.

It will be a long time before West Ham supporters will forget the way we were taken apart by Man City in the semi-final of the 2014 League Cup at the Etihad. After I’d watched the 6–0 mauling on television I got a text from Geoff that probably summed up in one word how everyone who loves the club was feeling at that moment. ‘Jesus.’ Somehow, that seemed to say it all.

This humiliation, remember, came just days after we had been embarrassed 5–0 at Nottingham Forest in the third round of the FA Cup when an under-strength side had been sacrificed in the hope of keeping what few senior players who were still standing fit for the two-leg semi and the relegation battle in which we had become embroiled.

The defeat at Nottingham was bad. What happened in Manchester was far worse. Essentially, football is a simple game. As a supporter you don’t need statistics to tell you when you’ve been pissed upon from a stellar height. However, here are a few to be going on with. The records show that they had an astonishing thirty-two attempts at goal, eleven of which were on target, while we had three attempts, only one of which vaguely threatened their net. They had eight corners to our four and almost 70 per cent of the possession. Most damning of all, however, is that over ninety minutes we committed just nine fouls and no one was booked. A six-goal slaughter and only nine fouls? I’m sorry, but that just isn’t acceptable. If you are going to get hammered you must at least go down fighting – the supporters deserve nothing less.

On the pitch we were gutless. But in the stands we were magnificent. The support was unwavering – there were shades of Villa Park in ’91 about the way those who’d made the trip north refused to bend the knee in the face of overwhelming opposition. Despite the abysmal performance of our team the fans never stopped making a racket. At one point they mocked the home crowd with ‘2–0 and you still don’t sing.’ Fair play to the Mancs, though, who came back with ‘We only sing when it’s 4–0.’

The following day I was still angry at the way the team had performed and the clueless strategy that had been handed down from a manager who, at the time, was steadfastly refusing to play football the West Ham Way. But I was unbelievably proud of our supporters. In fact, I felt compelled to wear my favourite scarf to work as a show of solidarity. It’s the white one, with the claret and blue stripes. I wore it to the office when Bobby Moore died. Come to think of it I rarely wear it when I go to games these days, but it still comes out on special occasions.

When I got to work a colleague asked if I was wearing my colours as an act of penance. I just smiled and wished him good morning. I didn’t bother trying to explain myself – and I don’t think he would have understood if I had. He’s an armchair Arsenal supporter.

Sad to say, there are times when a small section of the Upton Park crowd leaves me feeling anything but proud. Over the years that I have followed West Ham, the demographics of the East End have changed beyond all recognition. Many of the club’s supporters don’t live there any more, having chosen to move to leafier areas in Essex and beyond. But they’ve taken their loyalty with them and they bring it back on match day. Unhappily, a minority – a tiny minority – return with their prejudices too.

It’s no secret that we don’t like Tottenham. But that’s no justification for the anti-Semitic filth that spews from the mouths of a moronic minority of our supporters.

Notoriously, in our first season back in the Prem under Sam Allardyce, the game at White Hart Lane was marred by anti-Jewish gibberish from a vociferous few in the West Ham end, who seemed inordinately proud of their foreskins. One song that caused particular offence was in praise of Adolf Hitler – the man ultimately responsible for the deaths of six million innocent Jewish people in the Second World War. I wonder if some of those morons had been in the ‘choir’ at Coventry the previous season singing an old favourite from the xenophobes’ hit parade, ‘There Were Ten German Bombers in the Air (Then The RAF of England Shot One Down)’. Maybe they missed the history lesson that explained what the planes were doing in the air in the first place.

Unhappily, this hatred is nothing new. One game that still leaves me depressed by the memory is a sixth-round FA Cup tie against the Lilywhites when Geoff was still at junior school. I took him and his friend Mike – the lad who was later to kick Jordan of Rizzle Kicks at my behest – who at the time was a Spurs fan (I’m glad to say he supports Brighton now).

We sat in the East Stand Upper, generally considered to be one of the more civilised parts of Upton Park. Civilised? Some of the people behind us would have been considered uncouth in the Stone Age. One guy in particular was so full of loathing his eyes were practically popping out of his head every time a Spurs player had the audacity to touch the ball. Only he was one of those West Ham supporters who can’t actually bring himself to use the word ‘Spurs’ – they were the ‘Yids’. And he was very
keen that others should stand up to demonstrate they too hated these sons of Abraham.

When Sergei Rebrov scored the first of his two goals the atmosphere was so toxic my instant reaction was to place a firm, restraining hand on Mike’s shoulder to ensure he didn’t leap out of his seat and celebrate. What sort of environment have we created if a ten-year-old lad can’t stand up and cheer his heroes when they score a goal without the risk of reprisal from supposedly grown men?

Still, you’ve got to hand it to the bigots; they are nothing if not even-handed. These guys clearly hate Islam as much as they hate Jews.

In the home game against Man City in October 2013 a small group of Muslims were filmed on a mobile phone as they quietly observed their ritual prayers beneath the Trevor Brooking Stand. There were still ten minutes to go to half time, but word obviously spread quickly because long before the traditional rush for a pint and a hot-dog had started a largely hostile group had gathered to witness the admittedly unusual spectacle. Stewards looked on impassively as the whole incident threatened to turn ugly, with the bystanders attempting to disturb the sunset prayers with chants of ‘Irons … Irons’ and ‘E, E, EDL’.

Sensibly, the worshippers returned quietly to their seats and did all they could to avoid confrontation with their antagonists. But it didn’t end there. The footage was online shortly after the game and the keyboard warriors wasted no time in adding their comments.

Among all the usual ‘Paki go home’ rubbish were a couple of ‘facts’ that had been hitherto unknown. Apparently, according to some, West Ham were handing out free tickets to Muslims, and when they got there the ungrateful Jihadists decided to support the away team.

The truth is West Ham make available a number of tickets at greatly reduced prices to various community groups who would otherwise not be able to afford to go to Upton Park. You don’t have to be a Muslim to qualify. And, for the record, there is not a shred of evidence to support the accusation that the lads who went to the City game were supporting the Mancs.

Encouragingly, more members of the East End’s Asian community do appear to be going to the Boleyn Ground – and they’re not all getting cheap tickets. The youngest are often taken by their mothers because dad is working. My mate Nick – who is actually a Hindu and doesn’t get a cheap ticket either – is sometimes asked in Urdu to keep an eye out for the youngsters when they need a half-time pee because, obviously, mum can’t go with them. I’ve tried to convince him he should take the requests as a compliment, but I’m not sure he sees it that way!

On the pitch, at least, West Ham has done its fair share in the battle to break down the barriers that ethnic minorities so often have to overcome. It should be a matter of eternal pride to everyone associated with the Hammers that, at a time when black players were struggling to break into professional football, we were one of the first clubs in the UK to field three in the same League side.

Put the date in your diary and make a mental note to celebrate it quietly every year from now on: it was 1 April 1972 and the three players in question were Clyde Best, Ade Coker and Clive Charles. We beat Spurs 2–0 at Upton Park, with Coker getting one of the goals.

Clive Charles’ elder brother John had become the first black player to turn out for West Ham some nine years earlier, making it into the first team after captaining the side that won the 1963
Youth Cup. He was also the first black player to represent England at any level, winning five international caps as a youth. Clive was a decent footballer himself, and Coker showed early flashes of brilliance before ultimately moving to the US. But it’s Clyde Best who will be best remembered as a trailblazer by my generation of West Ham loyalists.

I loved the guy. Most of us did. Sure, he could be frustrating – he had the build of a boxer, the athleticism of an Olympic sprinter and could cover the ground like a downhill skier. Yes, with his talent and physical attributes he probably should have scored more goals than he did. But when he did get it right, no defender could live with him. Some of his goals were the sort of efforts that stay with you for ever – blistering shots from 30 yards; diving headers in a sea of boots; crisp volleys that left opposition keepers motionless as the ball flew past them. And he understood what the supporters expected from their players.

It’s fair to say I can’t work up quite the same amount of affection for Karren Brady, who was appointed vice chairman of the club by owners Gold and Sullivan shortly after they took over. She used her column in
The Sun
to big up the fact that, at the end of the 2010/11 season, the PFA – in her words – ‘came along and rated us highest of all the ninety-two senior clubs for players doing anti-racism and disabilities work.’

She was rightly proud of the achievement. But she then went and ruined a special moment by writing: ‘When you remember that East London was once a hotbed of racism, and a rain of bananas used to greet Bermudan Clyde Best when he first played at Upton Park in the ’60s, you understand exactly why the club is so committed and will remain so committed.’

Hang on a minute Karren – sorry, Baroness Brady – ‘a hotbed of racism’? That’s a bit strong isn’t it? Yes, over the years we have had a number of followers whose dislike of their fellow human beings is based on little more than the colour of their skin, but to suggest the entire East End was once a step away from
Mississippi Burning
? Some people could take offence at that.

You’re right in saying halfwits did occasionally throw soft fruit at Clyde Best. Others pelted him with peanuts. Some merely contented themselves with making monkey noises. The point is, they weren’t usually our halfwits. These clowns were generally supporting the opposition. I do remember one bloke referring to him as Sooty throughout a game, which is undoubtedly offensive but more indicative of an age that laughed at
Love Thy Neighbour
than one that identified with the Ku Klux Klan.

Crucially, the man at the centre of if all has no recollection of being abused by his own side. A couple of years before the Baroness’s article, Best had told a newspaper that uses rather longer words than
The Sun
: ‘I never had any trouble with the West Ham fans. All I felt from them was love. East End people are good people and they will always love somebody who gives their all. I always tried my best for them.’