Spirit of 1980 .The Road To Wembley

In 1980 West Ham possibly achieved their greatest triumph in defeating the holders Arsenal to win the FA Cup and becoming the last team from outside the top flight to achieve this feat.

Seven games against five teams playing in three cities and beating three teams from the division above all to reach the final of the oldest cup competition, the film over 30 minutes documents that journey using pictures, news reports and Match of the day and Big match footage to tell the story of how the club reached the final at Wembley in May, also featuring the No1 songs at the time each game was played.  

Watch as the Hammers embark on a campaign that would make hero's into Club legends and see the interviews with some of the stars and the manager that made it happen 

From Stewarts penalty,  Devonshire's Run to Dreaming of a Frank Lampard this is 

The Spirit of 1980

To watch on You Tube click here

FA Cup revisited. 1911 against United

In 1911 West ham United, then of the southern league, faced Manchester United in the third round of the FA Cup. In the two previous round The Hammers had defeated other league clubs, Nottingham Forest and preston, but United, as in these days, were a big draw as evident by the sellout crowd at the Boleyn of 27,000. The crowd mainly Hammers fans did include a fair size cheering for the Lancastrians as many from the north had ventured south looking for work in the previous years and used this to good use to see their home town team live.
This was the reds first ever visit to the Boleyn and they were to leave empty handed in the first ever cup upset at the hammers ground.

The video, the oldest known film of West Ham at The Boleyn Ground, shows the two teams running out of the original tunnel at the Boleyn ground, located in etc south west corner of the ground, while some websites have the hammers in their claret and blue kit, i believe West Ham to be wearing the all white kit, running out first.
The reason for my believing this is that at that time the hammers had a centre half called Tommy Randall, who was known by his bald head, also the clubs trainer Tom Robinson can be seen following out the team in white then standing facing the camera, The favourites Manchester then run out in the darker kit.
The action is filmed from a stationary camera situated in the North West corner looking over towards a packed Chicken Run stand and though it captures the Manchester team celebrating what seems to be a goal, it was West Ham who would run out winners. Wapping Born Danny Shea put West Ham one up early on, only for United to equalise after 22 minutes thanks to Sandy Turnbull, but with just 2 minutes left of the 90 Tommy Caldwell put the hammers through to the next round.

Danny Shea

To put in context how big an upset this was, prior to this season West ham had yet to defeat a top flight team in the FA cup and Manchester United at the time of the game were top of the First Division and would go on to win the title two months later.

The Hammers team that day was

1: George Kitchen, 
2:James Rottweil, 
3:Bob Fairman, 
4:Robert Whiteman, 
5:Frank Piercy, 
6:Tom Randall, 
7:Herbert Ashton, 
8:Danny Shea, 
9:George Webb, 
10:George Butcher, 
11:Tommy Caldwell

FA Cup Re-visited 1986 Man United away 9/3/1986

As West Ham prepare to meet Man United in the FA Cup this coming Sunday we look back at another great cup victory by the hammers away at Old Trafford.

The winter of 1986 came late and hard, Febuary of 1986 started with West Ham defeating Manchester United in the league then they had Ipswich Town twice in  FA Cup replays that was finally ended with Tony Cottee's goal in extra time on a snow covered Portman Road pitch on the 6th of that month, and that game would be the last played in Febuary by the Hammers in fact in-between the 4th of Febuary and the 12 of March we only played FA Cup games, 5 in total.

The first game of the fifth round at The Boleyn

ended in a 1-1 draw,  Frankie Mac scoring in the first half after good work from Devonshire and then a cross by Cottee across the goal mouth for Frank to put the hammers 1 up.
With around 15 minutes to go in the second half United finally got their equaliser with  Frank Stapleton effort.
The Hammers then laid siege to the Manchester goal but Chris Turner in the Red army's goal kept out notable efforts by McAvennie and Alvin Martin, and Devonshire after a trademark run into the area fired just wide of the post.
And so it was to Old Trafford six days later that the tie resumed, this time in front on the nation as ITV's big match were on hand to show the game live, United were the reigning FA Cup holders after defeating Everton 1-0 the previous May and after one of the best ever starts to a league season, 10 straight wins, they had started to slip down the league, in contrast the hammers had started slowly but though sitting in fifth spot and 10 points off the top, due to weather and cup ties were 5 games behind Liverpool who were holding the top spot.
West Ham's team for the day was Parkes in goal, a back 4 of Stewart, Parris, Gale and Martin. Devonshire Ward Dickens and Geoff Pike held the middle with McAvennie & Cottee up front.

Early exchanges in the game were even, Parkes saving early doors with Mark Hughes lurking, but then McAvennie drove wide after a good run.
Parkes then saved at the feet of Mark Hughes when he looked easier to score but the ball stuck under his foot allowing Parkes to gather.
In the 19th minute West Ham won a corner on the United left, mark ward crossed to the edge of the area where Geoff pike was standing unmarked, he powered his header past Turner in the goal into the top right hand corner to put the hammers one up with his first goal of the season.
The scoreline remain unchanged upto the end of the half. The Red United came out and carved out a chance early forcing Parkes into a great save down to his right after a strong shot by Mark Hughes, Parkes recovered to collect the follow up shot by Jesper Olson.
Stapleton then headed wide at the back post with Parkes scrambling back across his goal.
West Ham won a free kick halfway in the opposition half, Ray Stewart floated the ball over and as Alvin Martin came running he clashes with Stapleton, falling to the ground and the Referee didn't hesitate to award the hammers a penalty.
Stewart dispatched his fifth penalty of the season and after 50 minutes the Hammers are two up.
With that penalty Manchester's hopes of retaining the trophy disappeared while the Hammers looked forward to a sixth round date 3 days later against Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough.
After facing United 3 times in the FA Cup during the 1980's the two teams would not meet again in that competition again for another 15 years.

Alan Taylor

Alan Taylor is a player that will live on forever in the clubs history though his best remembered exploits were sandwiched into 2 months and none of the games were at The Boleyn.

Signed from Rochdale in November 1974 by John Lyall, who was in his first season as team manager after Ron Greenwood had moved upstairs, his career for the Hammers initially was stop start making 3 sub appearances in the December all from the bench, in fact his first game in the starting 11 came in the F.A cup sixth round at Highbury on the 8th March 1975 and here Alan scores his first two goals for the club to put the hammers into the Semi-final. 

Alan was lucky to even appear for West Ham in that seasons cup competition as just before leaving Rochdale  he suffered an injury that ruled him out of the First round proper of the tournament, leaving Rochdale the week after the game he missed out on being cup tied for his new club.

The first semi-final against Ipswich was a dull 0-0 draw played out at Villa Park and just 4 days later the teams met again at Stamford Bridge where the hammers triumphed 2-1 with again both goals being scored by the Hinckley born striker, sending the us to Wembley for the first time in 10 years and to a meeting with the clubs favourite son Bobby Moore, who was seeing out his career at Fulham. They had defeated Birmingham City the same night 1-0 with a 120th minute winning goal from John Mitchell. 

Taylor would see out the season in the first team but failed to score in the league again as the club geared up for its third wembley F.A cup final appearance and yet on the 3rd of May in the Final Alan Taylor stamped his place into Hammers History with both goals to secure the trophy again after first winning it in 1964. 

To think that just barely 6 months before was turning out in the basement of English football in front of crowds around the 3,000 mark and his season ended in front of 100,000 at wembley and in front of millions around the world watching.

The next season was saw Alan find his scoring boots hitting the ground running scoring 5 goals in the first three games of that season, including both away to Liverpool at Anfield in a 2-2 draw and by the end of the year he had hit 12 in total with another winning goal against Arsenal at the Boleyn in that total. 1975 turned into 1976 and West Ham were on another cup run this time though in Europe as they attempted to win the Cup Winners Cup for the second time but Alans goals were getting fewer and fewer though he did score against the Dutch outfit Den Haag as west Ham turned a 4-2 1st leg deficit into a away goals victory after a 3-1 victory at home to move into the Semi-Final.

Alan missed the semi-final victory and only made the bench for the final v Anderlecht in Belgium but with Frank Lampard sustaining an Injury in the first half Alan came on but the locals ran out winners 4-2 with future Hammer Frankie Van Der Elst being the star player. 

Though ending in disappointment that first full season would be Alan's best for the club scoring a total of 17 goals in all competitions in 47 appearances finishing top scorer at the club for the only time, the next seasons were not the best for West Ham nor Alan injuries and form meant he was in and out of the team evident by the fact that in his first 18months at the club he made 44 league appearances scoring 15 times, but yet in the next 3 years after he managed just another 44 league games scoring just 10 goals. 

On the 5th of May 1979 almost 4 years to the day of his finest game Alan played his last game for the Hammers away to Blackburn Rovers, in the summer he left to join Norwich City but he lasted only a season and left to ply his trade in the American soccer league for Vancouver. Cambridge, Hull, Burnley and Bury were the next short stops on his travels before finally going back to the Canaries in 1988 for just 4 games where he finally retired, though he did play in the local Non League scene in East Anglia. 

In retirement Alan has been a Milkman, ran his own Newsagents and worked as a pallbearer all around the Norwich area but he can also be found around the lounges of the Boleyn ground, wowing the fans with his rags to riches story and if i do say so myself he is also one of the nicest men you could wish to meet.