Nearly Reach the Sky (8 page)

Damn right I did. In fact, I couldn’t wait for the first game to kick off the following Saturday. Deep down I suspected I’d have to give Judas his pieces of silver, but I really wanted him to sweat first. First up was Middlesbrough at Ayresome Park, and we came away with a point after a no-score stalemate. Then a Frank McAvennie goal secured a 1–1 draw against Portsmouth at Upton Park. The season had started relatively late that year (I think they
wanted to give the nation some extra time to mend its broken heart after the World Cup disappointment of Italia ’90) and those two results meant I had at least got through August with my bet – and my pride – intact.

September offered more of a challenge. The first day of the month saw us beat Watford 1–0 at Upton Park, thanks to a goal from the mighty Julian Dicks. (Can I just clear something up for those of you who don’t support West Ham at this point: Dicksy was not ‘Mad Dog’ as so many of you seem to think. That was Martin Allen. Julian was ‘The Terminator’. Although, should you ever bump into either of them on a dark night, I suggest you stick with plain ‘Mister’.)

The following week we went to Leicester and won 2–1, with the help of an own goal and an effort from Trevor Morley. Interestingly – for West Ham fans at least – the Leicester strike force consisted of David Kelly, who had performed so poorly for us in the previous two seasons, and Paul Kitson, who would later do so much to help us avoid relegation when Harry Redknapp, to quote his immortal phrase, reckoned we needed snookers.

Next came Wolves, an early Alvin Martin goal from close range and a 1–1 draw. The highlight for me was watching another young hopeful make his initial appearance for West Ham. Between you and me, I have a bit of a fetish about debuts. The thought that the player you are watching for the first time could go on to be a claret and blue hero always gives me a bit of a tingle (but in a very masculine way, you understand). In this case it was a lad called Simon Livett. Anyone remember him? You do? To be honest, sir, I don’t believe you. This was his only League appearance for us. In fact he turned out just four times in West Ham colours and one of those
was in a friendly against Panathinaikos at Highbury. Ah, you were at the Makita tournament, too. We must get together and swap memories some time. No, not now, I’m afraid – I’m rather busy just at the moment.

After the Wolves game came a midweek encounter with Ipswich, and we tonked them 3–1. Ian Bishop, Morley and Jimmy ‘the tree’ Quinn had us out of our seats that night.

Bonzo’s team wasn’t packed with the starriest names in West Ham’s history, but they were starting to play well. Despite my glowing (and gloating) reports of the matches I had been to, Geoff was showing no signs of panic. He was confident that the next two games would win him his money – we were away to Newcastle and then Sheffield Wednesday. I listened nervously to the radio as the results came in. Both games ended 1–1. First Morley, then Dicks, had kept our bet alive.

October’s fixture list was packed with winnable games, which is usually a worrying time for West Ham supporters. Oxford were dispatched 2–0 at home, then Hull were put to the sword in a mismatch that has gone down in East End folklore not so much for the remarkable scoreline, but for one of the scorers.

Steve Potts spent seventeen years at Upton Park, making a total of 506 appearances in all competitions, and his one and only goal came in this game. I’d like to tell you it was a 30-yard match-winning screamer that left the keeper grasping thin air as the net bulged behind him. Sadly, the truth is rather different: yes, the shot was from distance, but your mum could have saved it. The Hull shot-stopper, however, failed to fulfil the terms of his job description and let it slip under his body. The ball trickled into the net and we went on to win 7–1.

The following Saturday we were away to Bristol City, who came up with the brilliant idea of trying to dissuade the West Ham support from travelling by organising a 10.30 a.m. kickoff. Nice try! In the event, 5,000 of us bombed down the M4 and saw McAvennie come off the bench to score in a 1–1 draw. The only trouble with starting a game at this time is that it gives a lot of thirsty supporters a chance to adjourn to the local pub afterwards (soft drinks only for designated drivers, of course). And not every city wants to entertain a bunch of chirpy cockneys who’ve got a few sherbets inside them. You won’t make that mistake again in a hurry, will you, Bristol?

I had hoped to satisfy my strange longings to see a debut performance at Ashton Gate, but Bonzo didn’t wheel out the newly signed Tim Breaker until the following week at Swindon, and we didn’t go to that game. Another effort from McAvennie ensured a 1–0 win, then, in midweek, Ian Bishop scored a blinder, which turned out to be the only goal against Blackburn at Upton Park, before we rounded off the October League programme with a 2–1 home win against Charlton, courtesy of two goals from Mad Dog. We were now second in the table and still unbeaten. Geoff was starting to look distinctly worried whenever I mentioned our bet. This was turning out to be fun!

Although League Cup games weren’t part of our financial arrangement, Geoff and I decided to go to the third round tie at Oxford for the simple reason that he lived there. It was just as well for me the game didn’t count – we lost 2–1. Even so, I hate to see West Ham lose and the drive back to Brighton was tinged with disappointment. Little did Di and I realise that the next time we would take our VW Golf to the city of dreaming
spires, barely three months later, it would be in the saddest circumstances imaginable.

November began with a 1–0 win at Notts County, followed by a 1–1 draw at The Hated Millwall, with Morley and McAvennie doing the honours. Di and I sat those ones out (which meant we missed Chris Hughton’s debut) but, let’s face it, a girl can have too much of a good thing. We were, however, in our seats in the West Stand on 17 November for the game against Brighton and Hove Albion. We had no way of knowing it then, of course, but one year to the day after that, Di would give birth to our first child – in Brighton. Spooky or what? Stranger still, big Colin Foster got his name on the scoresheet that day. That, and a goal from Stuart Slater, secured a 2–1 win.

The following week, a 1–0 victory at Plymouth (McAvennie again) put us top of the table – a position we cemented on 1 December with a 3–1 demolition of West Brom at Upton Park thanks to Macca, Morley and the legendary George Parris.

That bet was now starting to concern me. It’s one thing ripping the piss out of a close friend about the possibility of relieving them of a thousand quid – it’s quite another doing it. I knew by then that if West Ham could hold out for just three more games, and go unbeaten to Christmas as I had predicted, I would never ask for the money. But I was worried that Geoff would insist on honouring his obligations – he was a serious punter and would hate the thought of welshing on a gambling debt.

The next game was at Portsmouth – that’s the one where we found ourselves in the pub with the Pompey fans. Strewth, it was cold that day. Di, me, Geoff and the wonderful woman in his life, Dee, were huddled at the back of the main Portsmouth stand.
When Morley scored the goal that was to give us a 1–0 win, our enthusiastic celebration was more an excuse to get the blood circulating again than an expression of joy. Even so, it earned us some filthy looks from the home fans.

I don’t think I’d thawed out properly by the time we dogged out a 0–0 draw with Boro at Upton Park seven days later. So this was it – one game left and me on the point of winning a grand that I no longer wanted. How could our friendship survive if I won? Geoff would either be offended by my refusal to accept his money, or left flat broke if I did. In the event a Barnsley player called Smith spared me the misery of finding out. His goal meant we went down 1–0 at Oakwell, and Geoff had been proved right – when it comes to gambling you must let your head rule your heart. Mind you, had he not been so obsessed with the form book he might have backed a horse called Upton Park, which was running at Chepstow while we were losing in Barnsley. Geoff reckoned it had no chance. It romped home at 16–1.

Two weeks later, on the Saturday, it was Geoff’s forty-second birthday and, by way of a present, West Ham failed to beat Aldershot in the third round of the Cup. The following day I rang to tell him how the West Ham fans had given the visitors a standing ovation after their battling performance. Then, on Monday, I got a call from Dee that left me numbed with disbelief. Geoff had died overnight. He had gone to bed with a headache and never woken up. It was a brain haemorrhage – nothing could have been done to save him. We got the call early in the morning. The enormity of what had happened didn’t truly hit me until the afternoon. Di and I were shopping in Sainsbury’s when the tears began to fall from my eyes.

It came as no surprise that the funeral was to be a non-religious affair: Geoff was a fully paid up atheist and to have had a Christian burial would have been plain wrong. Equally wrong, in the eyes of many of us who had congregated to say a final farewell to our friend, was the way in which the Socialist Workers Party turned such a deeply personal event into a political rally. Leading lefty Paul Foot gave a tub-thumping speech that made Geoff out to be something he wasn’t; they draped his coffin in the red flag then sang ‘The Internationale’ when his coffin was lowered into the grave. They even had a whip-round at the wake to boost party funds.

Geoff’s dad didn’t share his son’s political views – in fact he was a lifelong Tory (although that didn’t stop him giving the Trots a cheque for a hundred quid when they passed the hat round – grief can do strange things to a man). Geoff had told me that politics had sometimes soured their relationship when he was younger, and there were times that the only subject they could agree on was West Ham. His dad was a season ticket-holder and he’d taken Geoff to games regularly.

Although Fleet Street journalists tend to be a fairly secular bunch, we do have our own parish church. It’s called St Bride’s, and it does a marvellous line in memorial services – which is handy for people who feel the funeral they have just attended is an inadequate way of channelling their sorrow. They like to throw in the odd prayer and an occasional hymn but, in general, they will shape the service to your bespoke requirements. You can even ask the choir to sing ‘Bubbles’. Unlike most West Ham supporters, they know the words to the verses as well as the chorus.

For the record, the first verse goes like this:

The second isn’t quite as snappy:

I have seen a version of the lyrics that suggests the first line of the second verse is: ‘When cattle creep’. But, let’s be honest, have you ever seen cattle creeping in the East End of London? Either way, in the hands of such a brilliant choir the song is magical. By the time they had raised the roof of St Bride’s with their unique version, there wasn’t a dry eye in the church. As I cleared the lump that was the size of a football from my throat, I looked over at Geoff’s parents. No one truly gets over the loss of their children, no matter what age they are. But the look on his
dad’s face suggested that, for him, the healing process had at least begun.

As I mentioned before, later that year Di and I were to have a child of our own. Some years down the line a colleague, who clearly knows me better than I’d imagined, asked if the fact we had named him Geoff had anything to do with either my boyhood hero or a sadly missed friend. To be honest, it’s starting to look like my son will never score a hat-trick in a World Cup final (although a father never truly gives up hope), but if he can make others feel lucky to have known him, in the way Geoff Ellen did, I will be more than happy. And, I’m proud to say, my son can belt out ‘Bubbles’ with the best of ’em.

I
N AN EFFORT
to do my bit for charity I would like to help an aged joke find a new home by asking if you know why West Ham are like Christmas decorations? All together now: they both come down in the New Year.

Actually, there is rather less to this old chestnut than you might think.

In 1964, the year we first won the FA Cup and the time this all started to matter to me, we finished fourteenth. On Boxing Day 1963 we had suffered the club’s record home defeat as we crashed 8–2 to Blackburn, leaving us in sixteenth place. (According to a report in the
Daily Mirror
, West Ham’s ‘tactics were all wrong and their covering terrible’. Sadly, that wasn’t the last time anyone was to say that about the Hammers.) From sixteenth to fourteenth is,
of course, an improvement of two places. By the time I had chalked up my golden anniversary of following West Ham, the second half of the season had seen us slip down the League on twenty-two occasions. But we’d also improved our position in twenty-two seasons and finished in the same place we were in on Boxing Day six times.

Admittedly, the reason we don’t plummet after Christmas is usually because we haven’t got very high beforehand. Our most spectacular decline was a fall of twelve places – from sixth to eighteenth in 1975/76, but that can largely be explained by a fantastic run in the European Cup Winners’ Cup, which took us all the way to the final. The previous season – again one that ended with a Cup final – saw us fall eight places from the dizzy heights of fifth on Boxing Day to finish thirteenth. I suspect that was when the ‘decorations’ gag was first unwrapped.

In our heart of hearts most West Ham fans do not expect to win the League. The highest we have ever finished is third, and I fear that is as good as it’s going to get for me. Having watched the team I love get relegated five times, I’m prepared to settle for mid-table security in my old age, maybe with the occasional top-half finish thrown in for good measure (on average they only come around once every three years).

The FA Cup, on the other hand, does offer hope of success once you’ve got the last of the Christmas tree needles out of the carpet. In my lifetime we’ve been to the final four times, winning three of them and coming within a whisker of beating Liverpool at the Millennium Stadium in 2006. And, of course, West Ham contested the first final at Wembley in 1923, which is now better remembered for Billy the white horse than the result. (For those of you who like to dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s, it finished 2–0 to
Bolton and Billy the horse eventually got a bridge at Wembley Tube station named in his honour.)

The FA Cup really matters to West Ham supporters. We have the tradition, and we sometimes have the realistic chance of winning the six games that earn a captain the right to hold aloft football’s most glamorous piece of silverware. So when the draw for the third round is made, many of those in claret and blue hope to get off to a flying start by being paired with a team from the lower divisions. Not me. I’d much rather play the likes of Manchester United than one of the small fry – our record in such games is not exactly spotless.

My first experience of enduring a giant-killing that amused the rest of the nation while throwing me into a well of depression was against third division Swindon in the 1967 FA Cup. I was ten, and took these things personally. (I still do, to be honest.)

West Ham went to the County Ground for the third-round replay with all three of our World Cup-winning heroes. And they came back with their tails between their legs after being turned over 3–1.

I tried to console myself with the thought that this was a once-in-a-lifetime disaster – a team that contained the likes of Moore, Hurst and Peters and had triumphed in Europe only a couple of years before would never allow itself to suffer that sort of humiliation again.

Two years later we went to Mansfield in the fifth round of the Cup. Not only did we have the World Cup winners, we had Trevor Brooking and Billy Bonds as well. What could possibly go wrong?

This time we failed to score against our third division opponents, while they got what was now becoming the customary three by
repeatedly pumping the long ball into our penalty area and waiting for the inevitable defensive errors. Simple. Ugly. But invariably successful against West Ham back then.

The Swindon defeat had been hard enough to swallow. Mansfield was far worse. My Chelsea-supporting schoolmates were now, like me, two years older – and starting to master the art of taking the piss. I’m not saying they were all that subtle, but they were remorseless. Not a day went by, until Man City beat Leicester in the final, without me finding a slip of paper – in my desk, in my satchel, in my pocket, even once in my football boots – with the simple message: Mansfield 3 West Ham 0. Children can be very hurtful.

School life didn’t get any easier when we went down 4–0 to Blackpool in the infamous third-round Cup tie of 1971.

As soon as young West Ham supporters are old enough to understand the spoken word they are sat on their father’s knee and told the cautionary tale of being spotted in a nightclub hours before a televised Cup game against a team from a lower division.

Toddlers brought up to be claret and blue sit hushed in disbelief as they learn how the mighty Bobby Moore and his mate Jimmy Greaves were on their way to their separate beds when a cameraman from the
Match of the Day
team told them the pitch was iced over and there was no chance the game would take place the following day.

Sympathetic dads, who know how easy it is for a quiet pint to be misconstrued, make it plain that there was nothing wrong with rounding up a couple of teammates and heading for a nightclub run by a washed-up boxer. They stress that the lads hardly touched a drop between them. One of their number – the saintly Clyde Best – was actually teetotal. But all that counts for nothing when
a bunch of northern mischief-makers scrape away the ice, enabling the game to go ahead … with inevitable consequences.

Having had this conversation with my own children, I can testify how hard it is to keep the lump out of your throat as the story unfurls. Because what happens next simply serves to underline the fact that you really can’t trust anyone in this life.

A number of West Ham supporters who had travelled up for the game were necking pints of Robinsons ale when Moore and co. walked into the 007 club (which was clearly licensed, although not necessarily to kill). No doubt they were thrilled to be in the presence of West Ham’s finest at the time – although they got the right hump when the Irons capitulated the following day. They were no happier on the Monday morning, complaining about late-night drinking to the club. Then someone phoned a newspaper and the story became headline news.

Now as a journalist myself I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but one or two of my colleagues are partial to a drink. In fact in 1971 you could be fired for being found sober at your desk. So the idea of a newspaperman with a liver like a lace-up football, flicking the fag ash off his typewriter and settling down to a write a story about young footballers far from home enjoying a few lagers is not without a hint of irony.

Unfortunately for Moore, Greaves, Best and Brian Dear, the fourth member of the party, their manager didn’t have a sense of irony. In fact, Ron Greenwood wanted to sack the lot of them. Cooler heads in the Upton Park boardroom talked him out of it, but Dear and Greaves were gone soon afterwards. Best was given the benefit of the doubt, but the already strained relationship between Greenwood and his captain was damaged beyond repair. It’s no
coincidence that West Ham never looked like getting to Wembley again until both men had been replaced.

Although defeat in the FA Cup is far harder to take than an unexpected exit from the League Cup, you will naturally get a hard time from rival fans if you are on the wrong end of a David and Goliath act in either tournament.

After the Blackpool disaster my final three years at school didn’t get any easier. The education authorities had taken the decision to raise the school leaving age from fifteen to sixteen, so when we lost 2–1 to Stockport County in 1972 the kids who would have otherwise left to follow their careers in plumbing, carpentry or petty larceny were still my classmates. They were most disgruntled to still be there – and our defeat at the hands of a fourth division side in a League Cup tie was one of the few things that brightened their lives. Thank you, boys, for sharing your joy with me.

That match is not be confused with the 2–1 defeat at Stockport in which Iain Dowie scored an own goal that is still regarded as one of the finest of its kind by many. There’s a 24-year gap between those two games in which we rarely wasted an opportunity to find ourselves on the wrong end of a humiliating defeat by a team from the low-rent end of the Football League.

The pick of the bunch? Hmmm, that’s tough – why don’t
you
choose one? There are certainly plenty from which to make your selection: Hull City 1 West Ham 0 (FA Cup, 1973); Hereford 2 West Ham 1 (FA Cup, 1974); Fulham 2 West Ham 1 (League Cup, 1974); West Ham 1 Swindon 2 (League Cup, 1978); Newport 2 West Ham 1 (FA Cup, 1979); Watford 2 West Ham 0 (FA Cup, 1982); West Ham 2 Barnsley 5 (League Cup, 1987); Torquay 1 West Ham 0 (FA Cup, 1990); Crewe 2 West Ham 0 (League
Cup, 1992); Barnsley 4 West Ham 1 (FA Cup, 1993); Luton 3 West Ham 2 (FA Cup, 1994). And then, just to make 1996 a really special year, there’s a 3–0 defeat at Grimsby on Valentine’s Day in the FA Cup – their first win against top-flight opposition in sixty years – to add to the Stockport League Cup debacle a week before Christmas ten months later.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t get any better after 1996.

In January 1997, West Ham went to Wrexham for a third-round FA Cup tie that had a touch of the ’71 Blackpool game about it. The pitch was covered in snow and barely fit for purpose. In fact most of the country was covered in snow, and almost half of the third-round games were cancelled. But the
Match of the Day
cameras were there, suspecting an upset, so the Welsh club pulled out all the stops to ensure the fixture went ahead. Somewhat surprisingly – and much to the annoyance of the
MOTD
boys who had gone all that way in search of blood – we got away with a 1–1 draw, courtesy of a goal from Hugo Porfirio.

So it was all back to Upton Park for the replay. Third-tier opposition at home after surviving a tricky tie at their place? Surely we already had one foot in the next round, where our opponents would be the lowly Peterborough? Our name was possibly on the Cup once more! But no, that’s not the West Ham way. We lost 1–0 after a truly dreadful performance that left Harry Redknapp looking more lugubrious than a bulldog with toothache.

Shall I go on? Look, I’m sorry about all this – I know that those of you with a delicate constitution can’t take much more, so I’ll spare you the games in which we were humiliated in one of the legs but won the tie overall (such as the 1–0 League Cup defeat at Huddersfield in 1997). But in all honesty I can’t really walk away without
mentioning the 2–0 setback at Northampton in the same competition the following year – eventually going out 2–1 on aggregate.

The League Cup has never been kind to West Ham. In 2000 we lost 2–1 to Sheffield Wednesday at Upton Park (although, to be fair to the tournament, we were beaten again at Hillsborough in the 2012 FA Cup). In 2002, we lost 1–0 at home to Oldham.

In 2006 there was a 2–1 defeat at Chesterfield. Then there was a 2–1 beating by Aldershot at Upton Park in 2011. And, of course, we cannot omit the fact West Ham lost to Sheffield United on penalties at the start of the 2014/15 season. However, there is a certain amount of satisfaction for all those who hold West Ham dear that this was a giant-killing act – simply because Sheffield United is now considered to be a minnow. It’s what Carlos would have wanted.

As I say, defeat to lower-league opposition in the FA Cup is a far more bitter pill to swallow for West Ham supporters. So in 1999 it felt like we’d been put on a course of antibiotics when we lost a third-round replay 1–0 to Swansea in January and then, after the following season’s tournament had been brought forward to avoid clashes with an expanded Champions League, we went down 1–0 at Tranmere – thus being on the wrong end of an FA Cup giant-killing act twice in the same year … which, you have to admit, is unusual. Even by our standards.

Many moons have passed since I left school and I no longer find scraps of paper inserted in inappropriate places reminding me of the score when we lose. But it’s still no fun going to work after results like that. Lower-league opposition? Forget it. Give me the likes of Man U any day.

In fact, somewhere in the back of my fast-fading mind is the recollection that the most successful club manager this country has
ever seen once stared into the bottom of his glass of Châteauneuf du Pape and moaned to anyone who would listen that West Ham always played better against Manchester United than when we face other teams. I think the word he used to describe the way we raised our game was ‘obscene’. Sir Alex Ferguson may have been right. During his reign we scuppered Man U’s chances of winning the League twice and turned them over in both Cup competitions. Perhaps there really is something in the notion that they bring out the claret and blue devil in us.

The first ever competitive game between the two sides was in the FA Cup – and we won that one as well. Sadly, history does not record whether the Man Utd keeper of 1911 looked like a man trying to hail a cab when he was beaten (in the way that Fabien Barthez did as Paolo Di Canio slid the ball past him ninety years later). If only they’d had YouTube back then.

West Ham’s first League game against Man Utd was on 25 December 1922. The second was on 26 December! Just imagine: back-to-back fixtures on Christmas Day and Boxing Day at a time when rotation was something you did with the vegetables on your allotment, not the delicate little flowers who have agents. (You will be fascinated to learn that in 1922 we won the first game in Manchester 2–1, but lost the return fixture 0–2 at home. How West Ham is that?)