Nearly Reach the Sky (5 page)

G
IVEN A FEW
moments, we can all think of the best game we ever watched. But what about the best game you never saw?

If it’s goals you’re after, there are a fair few to choose from should you be lucky enough to follow the Hammers. But be careful here – goals aren’t everything. West Ham’s record win is a 10–0 demolition of lowly Bury in the League Cup but, according to those who were there (and not many were), if you weren’t able to get along to that you really didn’t miss much – although manager John Lyall clearly saw something in Bury’s centre half that night because he promptly went out and bought him. So what exactly was the thinking here?
If the extremely shaky Shakers had not had Paul Hilton in their side that night, they would have been beaten really badly.

One game that I would have really liked to have been at was the one in which Geoff Hurst scored six. Yes, I know technically it should have been five – because the first one was handball – but we’re talking about a knight of the realm here, not some dodgy character with a history of abusing recreational substances and an arse the size of Patagonia. It’s only cheating when he does it and claims it was the hand of God.

West Ham 8, Sunderland 0 makes me dribble just imagining what Upton Park must have been like on that Saturday afternoon in 1968. Any takers for the scorers of the two goals that weren’t down to Sir Geoff? Of course, it was Saint Bobby and Sir Trev. You know the times of the goals as well? Oh. I can see I’m going to have trouble with you.

But picking any old game that you missed where we gave the opposition a good hiding would be too easy – and if West Ham stands for anything at all it’s about doing things the hard way. So I’m ruling out the massacre of the Mackems and several others like it. For the sake of this rather pointless exercise, you have to select a game that you had actually given some thought to attending but didn’t get to for one reason or another. Perhaps it was your wife’s birthday, or you had a hangover that merited an entry in the
Guinness Book of Records.
It doesn’t matter to me (although I imagine your missus would have something to say if the two coincided).

So I’m going to leave Sunderland behind and move forward a few years to 1976 and the Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final against Eintracht Frankfurt. By this time Hurst and Moore were gone, and the shops in Green Street no longer closed on a Wednesday
afternoon. But we still had Trevor Brooking. That’s Sir Trevor Brooking. The man who’s got a stand with his name on it.

If you are of an age that means you were too young to have seen Brooking play, I envy you your youth. But I also feel sorry on your behalf that the odds are impossibly stacked against you ever getting the chance to see a true one-club hero who could make hardened supporters smile knowingly while simultaneously shaking their heads in disbelief at his outrageous skill. It’s thirty years since he retired, yet I can still get through grey days by picturing Brooking angling his body to receive a pass, letting the untouched ball slide past him as he used his muscular frame to shield it, and then bringing it under instant control while he turned and powered away from a desperate defender who, seconds before, thought he had everything under control. What made it really special was the fact opponents knew it was coming, but could do nothing within the laws of the game to prevent it happening. These days, climbing stairs makes me gasp. Back then, it was Trevor Brooking.

I will concede that he left something to be desired as a TV pundit (I can say this after fifty years of devotion to West Ham – supporters of other clubs are not permitted to utter one word of criticism of Sir Trev). The problem was twofold, I believe. First, he himself was so good as a player he was unable to believe others could be so inept. And, secondly, he was too nice to be horrid about anyone. So when some useless lump failed to bring the simplest of balls under control, or fired it over the bar from 6 yards out, he put it down to a ‘bobble’. It was an expression that was to pass into the lexicon of TV commentary. Before Brooking, ‘bobble’ wasn’t a word you heard all that often – unless it was a reference to that knobbly bit on top of woolly hats.

I do understand that there is nothing worse than hearing a previous generation banging on about how good the players were in their day. I’m sure when Brooking made his debut there was some old boy in the Chicken Run explaining to the bloke next to him that there would never be another Vic Watson. Such is life.

But Brooking really was different gravy and, unlike good old Vic, there is the video footage to prove it. Just take a look at the highlights of the two legs of the Frankfurt game and you will understand why he is so deeply admired by all those who saw him in the flesh.

Before you do that, though, let me tell you how I gave the world the song that really sums up how so many people feel about this man – ‘Trevor Brooking Walks on Water’. Yep, that was me.

To be frank, I’m expecting a fair amount of controversy over this particular claim. I can already hear the legions of West Ham stalwarts with bus passes harrumphing that they were singing ‘Trevor Brooking Walks on Water’ long before Highbury 1975. Honestly, though, over the years I have racked my brains endlessly in an effort to recall a previous occasion when I had heard those words and I really can’t come up with anything. Should anyone produce some concrete evidence to prove me wrong – newspaper reports, old videos of
Match of the Day
; sworn affidavits – you can slap my wrist and call me Geraldine. Until then, I’m claiming the copyright.

For reasons that need not detain us here, I was unable to make the great man’s final game at Upton Park in May 1984. Apparently, many of those who did go stayed behind for the best part of an hour to salute him, using the hymn of praise I had composed some years earlier. Had I been there, I suspect modesty would have prevented me from telling those around how I’d been the first to
put the new lyrics to ‘Deck the Halls’, but I feel the time has now come. Future generations of historians need to know this stuff.

West Ham were in the Cup Winners’ Cup because we had won the FA Cup the year before. (The nation’s dealings with Europe were so much simpler then.) The final itself, against Fulham, is remembered more for the fact that Bobby Moore turned out in white instead of claret and blue than for the quality of football – but some of the performances leading up to Wembley had been sensational. Best of all was the quarter-final against Arsenal, which I went to with the wife of a close friend. Sadly they are no longer married so, to spare their blushes, I will change her name to Claire. Why don’t you join us in the Clock End at Highbury on an overcast day in the March of 1975 and I’ll give you the full story?

Come to think of it, join us an hour earlier as the Tube pulls into Arsenal station. The Piccadilly line train is rammed with claret and blue – it’s standing room only. But the platform is deserted: everybody in north London knows the Gooners are at home to West Ham that day. Everybody except the solitary figure standing on the platform, cradling what can only have been a framed picture bought from one of the local antiques shops. The look of horror on his face as he realised what was about to befall him even before the Tube doors had opened will remain with me for the rest of my life. (Those of you familiar with
The Scream
by Edvard Munch will know what I’m talking about here.)

I can’t be 100 per cent certain it was a painting because it was wrapped in brown paper, but it’s hard to imagine something that shape could have been anything else. I hope, for his sake, it wasn’t a masterpiece. One minute he was standing like a contented human easel, cherishing the artwork nestled in his arms. The next moment
he was twisting like a whirling dervish, desperately trying to protect his purchase from the irresistible tide of humanity that had just spewed out of the train and was carrying him back down the sloping tunnel at Arsenal station. I am sad to report he was right to be fearful; it seems that not all West Ham supporters’ love of beauty extends to art, and more than one felt the need to stick their fingers through the brown paper while questioning the poor man’s sexuality. Expressionism is all very well, boys, but I do think that some of you could express yourselves rather more politely on occasions. Remember, you are an ambassador for the club at away fixtures.

So, where were we? Oh yes, Highbury with my mate’s wife. Claire was from South Africa, and had never been to a football match. There was no way my friend was going to take her, so she asked me. Then she asked again. And again. And yet again. And … finally I gave in.

On reflection, a London derby – not to mention a quarter-final of the FA Cup – may not have been the best choice as a debut game for someone unfamiliar with the strangely violent culture that surrounded football in the mid-1970s but, hey, I was young and foolish. (Which I now realise beats being old and foolish.)

You didn’t need a ticket to get in back then. Honestly! You could simply turn up and grab a spot just about anywhere that took your fancy. Segregation was a word you only ever heard in conversations about Claire’s homeland – it didn’t apply to football supporters.

Now I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but some West Ham fans often seemed to prefer the bit the rough boys from the other side liked. We weren’t always made terribly welcome, but after a free and frank exchange of views (often described as mindless savagery by the popular press) the home supporters would sometimes let us
have their favoured part of the ground. Tottenham, for example, always seemed prepared to give us the Park Lane End. Their north London neighbours were generous hosts too but, even so, I was surprised to find myself surrounded by quite so many displaced Gooners, who had been turfed out of their North Bank and now were congregated at the Clock End considering their next move.

It’s fair to say they weren’t in the best of moods. The Clock End, unlike the North Bank, was uncovered and there was every chance we were all about to get soaked in another heavy downpour. Their humour wasn’t improved by an enthusiastic South African screaming ‘Come on West Ham’ while jumping up and down as she frantically waved a claret and blue scarf. And all this with half an hour until kickoff – and not a sniff of a player on the pitch.

I like to think I’ve lent my voice to the cause over the years, but there are times when it’s better to keep your mouth shut. I tried to explain this to Claire, but she was having none of it. In fact, the more I urged her to button it, the louder she got. It’s true that she was an extremely good-looking woman, but I don’t think that was why we were being stared at by an increasing number of grumpy Gooners. I remember one, in particular, who was clearly tortured by the idea that he was forbidden by his personal credo from battering a woman, and was obviously considering battering me instead.

On the plus side, Claire was also attracting the attention of other small groups of West Ham fans who, like me, had wrongly expected to find themselves in the majority at that end of the ground. Gradually these small islands of support began to drift our way – drawn by a beacon in the same way that millions have answered the call of the Statue of Liberty. ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free … send these, the homeless,
tempest-tost to me’. The weather-beaten West Ham masses were certainly queuing up to huddle around Claire.

This was the second time I had been to Highbury that season. The previous October I had gone with a bunch of Arsenal-supporting mates from the factory where I was driving a forklift truck – and didn’t those boys enjoy themselves as we went down 3–0! It’s fair to say they really knew how to have some fun at the expense of a hapless Hammer (when they weren’t telling new arrivals at the factory to pop down to the stores to ask for a glass one … or a left-handed screwdriver … or a long stand).

Some weeks earlier, one of the lads was looking for some lost gaffer tape when I reminded him that that particular roll was almost finished and he had discarded it.

‘Oh, so I discarded it, did I?’ he asked in what he thought was an upper-class accent.

‘It’s a perfectly good word,’ I responded defensively. ‘It means to throw something away.’

The accent wasn’t so posh when my charge-hand told me in no uncertain terms he was perfectly familiar with the word’s meaning. As I recall, there was an odd expletive in there to emphasise the point. And, from that day forth, nothing in that factory was ever thrown away again. All unwanted items were discarded.

‘I say, Maurice, I don’t suppose you’ve seen my copy of
Titbits
have you.’

‘Why no, Sidney, I believe you discarded it earlier.’

How I laughed.

Two of the scorers in that 3–0 game went on to play for West Ham … with contrasting fortunes. Liam Brady was past his best when John Lyall bought him many years later, but he managed to
win over the fans with flashes of brilliance – which underlined the point that, if you have to live within your means as a football club, you are generally better off with a has-been than a never-will-be. (OK, step forward all those who were at Upton Park when Chippy scored with his final kick in his final game as a professional footballer. Oh, it’s you again. I should have guessed.)

John Radford, on the other hand, couldn’t hit an elephant’s arse with a cricket bat, let alone hit the back of the opposition’s net. Come on, John, you were supposed to be an international striker – so how do you explain thirty appearances and no goals?

In the name of clarity, can I take this opportunity to point out that, from now on, when I talk about the number of appearances a player has made for the Hammers I give the lot – including substitutions and tuppenny-ha’penny competitions like the Anglo-Italian Cup, Watney Cup, Texaco Cup and Charity Shield. This is because, if I had ever been brought on as a sub for the last five minutes of, say, a Watney Cup game wearing the holy claret and blue, I would to this day be telling anyone who cared to listen that I had once appeared for West Ham. Who wouldn’t?