First Spurs at the Boleyn

So for the last time the Hammers have played great rivals at the Boleyn Ground, so perhaps now is a good time to look back all the way to 1904 and the first meeting between the two clubs at the Boleyn Ground.
24th September 1904 was the date of only the clubs 3rd league match at their new home and after a 3-0 victory in the opener v Millwall and then a defeat to Queens Park Rangers it was North Londoners turn to visit.

The Hammers team that day is listed as

Mathew Kingsley, Signed from Newcastle and an ex England international, would leave for Q.P.R after just 30 games after being sent off for deliberately kicking an opponent.

Tom Bamlet,  Another from Newcastle though his tally of games for west Ham was just 18 before heading back to his native north east.

Dave Gardner, A Scotsman by birth but another ex Newcastle player in the ranks, this was his first season at the club, he would play 80 games before leaving in 1907

Frank Piercy, Another from the North East but this time Middlesborough, he had only just signed for the club, but he would stay after retirement, mainly coaching the reserves up until his untimely death in 1931. Awarded a testimonial after his death.

Thomas Allison, Born in Edinburgh but began his career with New Brighton on Merseyside, signed for the Hammers from reading in 1903 would stay for 6 years playing 165 games scoring 7 goals.

Jack Flynn,  Scored one of the first goals at the Boleyn in the opening day defeat of Millwall, only stayed the one season scoring 4 goals in 21 games

William McCartney, Signed From Manchester United, another who stayed just the one season missing only 6 games out of the 34 available scoring 3 goals. 

Jack Fletcher, Signed from Queens Park Rangers, another one season wonder playing 24 games scoring 4 goals

John Russell, Possibly the first player to wear the Number 6 shirt for West Ham at the Boleyn, another player to stay just the one season playing 17 games in all.

Charles Simmons, signed from West Brom, played all 34 games in the league scoring 8 goals, 

Billy Bridgeman, A local lad from Bow, Scored a hat-trick in the Boleyn curtain raiser game, in a friendly, and then followed it up by scoring twice, including the very first in a competitive game at the Boleyn, against Millwall in the 3-0 opening victory. A Centre Forward he would leave after 3 years for Chelsea, not before scoring 20 goals in 74 games. 

The Game itself seems to have been a tight affair spoilt possibly by the weather, the match reports give better detail of the game 

As described above the attendance was an improvement of what they were achieving at the Memorial Grounds and officially in club historical records the attendance is set at 16,000 but the reports from the day show 20,000 being at the game, which as evident below was the highest in their league for that day.

Finally the league table after the game was as follows

so after 3 games at the Boleyn they had managed a win a draw and a loss, possibly setting the tone for the next 112 years.

Jimmy Greaves, East End Hero

As this week the hammers face old rivals spurs for the last time at the Boleyn and with the sad news this week of of his health problems its perhaps fitting that we look at Jimmy Greaves, a Hero to some, but a legend of the English game.
Born in 1940 within earshot of the Boleyn Ground, Hitlers blitz put paid to him being brought up in Manor Park where he was born, instead after his parents house was flattened just 6 weeks after Jimmys Febuary birthday and they were moved out to Dagenham, an area that would prove to be a rich training ground for football in the 60's. 
While being East london of birth it seems though West Ham was not his club of choice as a kid, infant Jimmy says while he did visit Upton Park at times, he preferred the local non-league scene of the time which in the 50's could attract crowds numbering in the thousands for big local games. 
Jimmy was also a school boy star at football, playing for both London, and Essex School boys and soon the scouts of London's top clubs would be looking to sign him, though both spurs and the hammers showed an interest it was Chelsea who won his signature signing for them in 1955, the same year the Blues, with future hammers manager Ron Greenwood, would win the first division championship. 
Jim broke into their team as a 17 year old in 1957 making his debut against Spurs, scoring in a 1-1, he managed an amazing 124 goals in 157 games before going AC Milan in 1961. Milan was short lived but 9 goals in 12 games showed his quality, but homesick and with stories of him escaping out of windows in Hotels to try get away, Spurs soon came in for him and ended his misery in Italy. 
At Tottenham is safe to say the word Legend is not over doing it, 220 goals in just over 300 league games in 9 years in North London, before he finally came back home, to the East End, to join his best mate Bobby Moore at West Ham in the March of 1970.
His first game for the Hammers came away at 

Manchester City and as he had done for every club /team he had debuted for Jim scored on his debut, in fact netting twice in a 5-1 victory against the blue half of Manchester. 
greaves played 6 games at the end of the 69/70 season scoring 4 goals in total, so it seems he had lost none of his goal scoring exploits. 
The first game of season 70/71 would see his first return to White Hart Lane since his departure in the March, and true to form he delivered a goal for the Hammers in a 2-2 draw.
The goals were now getting harder for him though, only 2 in October and again only 2 in December showed a poor tally for the formerly prolific goalscorer. What was not known to the outside world was Jim was descending into Alcoholism. 
In the January of 1971 West Ham faced Blackpool away in a F.A Cup game, the game was in doubt

and after Greaves and Booby Moore had a chance meeting with BBC camera men in the hotel they were informed the pitch was so frozen they doubted the game would be played, and so Greaves and Moore, together with Brian Dear and the youngster Clyde Best they decamped to Boxer Brian London's night club on the Blackpool sea front. How much they drank is disputed, Best was tee total so only had orange Juice, but the other three still did take in Alcohol, Three hours they spent in the club before retreating back to the Hotel.
In the morning the pitch was declared fit to play and with the four all playing West Ham were outplayed, out fought and out of the cup 4-0. To put the result into context, Blackpool had just been promoted into the top division but were rock bottom and had just sacked their manager who would not save them from the impending relegation. 
For one West Ham fan though who made the journey the defeat was bitter, especially as he had seen the four players and the physio Rob Jenkins in the nightclub, that fan confronted Ron Greenwood on the Monday after at the Boleyn and next day the press had their teeth into the story. Greenwood wanted to sack all 5, the board though bulked at that fault, Dear though would go while the rest received suspensions. Bobby Moore would later comment years later of his treatment   "I had claret-and-blue blood, but I could never forgive the club for the way they treated me"

After a month out the team, Jimmy returned v Coventry away scoring in a 1-0 win but again his goals were too few and far apart, in fact just 3 more were added to his tally taking his season tally to 9 in 30 games, not anywhere near his usual prolific tallies in previous seasons, and so aged just 31 Jimmy Greaves retired from professional top flight football. 366 top flight goals in just over 500 games leaves him as the country greatest top flight goalscorer, in fact he is Europe's greatest top flight goalscorer with Lionel Messi still 60 goals behind him. He is also England's 4th all time greatest goalscorer with 44 goals though his came in just 57 games
Jimmy Greaves West Ham record stands at 13 goals from 38 games, and his time with us is looked at as disappointing but in comparison Dean Ashton scored 15 in 46 games and is looked at as a hero of the club.
Greaves conquered his alcohol problems and managed to forge a career on the TV for years though sadly last year he suffered a massive stroke and is now wheelchair bound with severe impaired speech. The future for him does not look great and he needs constant care hopefully the English football family will rally round to support him in his hour of need to help England's greatest goalscorer 

Bobby Moore in the USA

May the 14th 1977 As Bobby Moore waved goodbye to his football career, walking off after his last league game for Fulham v Blackburn Rovers, it wasn't to be his final farewell to playing football as the summer before he had spent a season in the burgeoning soccer scene in the United States where he played in Texas for the San Antonio Thunder. 

San Antonio played at the Alamo stadium and Moore appeared 24 times, for the Thunder including another match up against his old friend Pele as they beat the New York Cosmos 1-0, with Bobby setting up the winning goal. 

The season though was not a success as their stats show that they may have won 12 games but they lost 12 as well with no draws, though at that time in the NASL there were no tied game, extra time was played then a shoot off was held to decide any games with level scores.

They finished 4th in the league, with 107 points (don't ask) failing to make the playoffs and with only an average crowd of 4,700, which was only 300 more than the season before the writing was on the wall for the club.

Sadly at the end of the 1976 after just 2 seasons of existence the franchise was moved to Hawaii and renamed Team Hawaii and with it it seems Moore's journey in America.

While with San Antonio though Bobby had 1 more international tournament to appear in, to celebrate the two hundredth year of independence of the U.S of A, a 4 team competition was organised with England Italy Brazil and a North american soccer League representative team called Team America. 

The format was simple, each team played the three others with Some of the best stars of the NASL pulled on the red Jersey and swore allegiance (temporarily) to the cause

and so on May the 31st at Philadelphia's JFK stadium Bobby Moore led his Team America out against his beloved England, who were captained by QPR's Gerry Francis. The mercenaries though were out done by Revies England, wearing a strange Yellow kit for the only time, with England running out 3-1 winners (Keegan 2 T.Francis) and finishing runners up in the tournament to Brazil. Team America lost every game and would never appear again. 

                 

After his summer sojourn in Texas Moore was back at Fulham for what would be his last season yet he was not finished in America and a full year since his last game at Blackburn, and nearly 20 years since his debut for West Ham  he joined Seattle Sounders for the summer of 1978. 

Why Seattle, well probably the fact that his former hammers teamates Bobby Howe and Harry Redknapp were assisting the manager, Jimmy Gabriel. Seattle had reached the championship final the year before losing out to Pele's New York Cosmos and attracted good crowds, over 22,000 regularly, so in 1978 the fans were looking forward to another successful season and possibly so was Moore, but unlike his ever present season at the Thunder in Texas he managed just the 5 games, one of them again against the New York Cosmos with Seattle losing out 2-1.  Strangely for Moore he didn't wear the number 6 shirt he has become so synonymous with but the number 9    

Moore also appeared for the Jimmy Hill owned franchise of Detroit Express in a friendly in Austria alongside his great friend George Best, best scoring in a 2-2 draw.                               

                                 

And so it seems that would be the end of Bobby Moore the footballer but there was one more stop to come,in 1983  joining up with Ex Fulham pal Rodney Marsh at Carolina Lightnin, a minor league team in Charlotte North Carolina, Moore, now 42, was his assistant on the coaching team but one night it seems injuries to the team meant for one last time in a competitive game, Bobby Moore put on his boots, crossed the white line and rolled back the years. in an interview with an american magazine, one opposition player on the night described how he found himself up against a world legend. Glenn Davis was a rookie that summer with the ASL’s Pennsylvania Stoners and recalled his shock at finding Moore in the American Soccer League i

“Carolina had so many injuries they activated Bobby Moore to play that night against us.  Bobby was probably 43 years old and he obviously can’t move.  He’s kicking everything and everybody that he can get close to.  And we’re just going “Oh my God – it’s Bobby Moore.”

I remember we had a 2-0 lead and we absolutely crumbled in the final ten minutes with their fans going nuts.  They had probably about 7,000 or 8,000 fans in this cool little stadium in Charlotte.  I think it was called the Memorial Stadium.  We totally collapsed as a team and lost 3-2.  I remember our owner on the bus back to the hotel and screaming at one of our players.  I think a lot of us were just still in shock that Bobby Moore was playing that night.”

Moore and Marsh Carolina Lightnin

Its quite possible that the above picture is from the last competitive that Bobby Moore played in, Carolina had a poor season in 1983 but with the heyday of soccer is the U.S long over the ASL folded and so ended Moore's time in the states. He returns to England where he takes over at Southend United for 2 seasons. success eluded him there as well and professional football closed its door on him in 1986 when the Shrimpers languishing in the fourth tier of english football let him go. 

Charlie Paynter

Standing in the gym of the old West Stand at the Boleyn ground, Uncle Charlie as he was known lovingly by the players passes on his years of experience to the first team, including Vic Watson at the front in the middle and Jackie Morton front far left. Charlie possibly can lay claim to being the longest serving members ever of the coaching staff in the clubs history, he joined West Ham in 1901 just a year after we were formed and finally retired in 1950 after holding the positions of trainer, coach, and manager.

Born in Swindon on 28 July 1879 his father word as a ironworker for the great western railway, and it was his trade that brought Charles Snr and his family to West Ham around 1882 to work in the railway industry around the borough. They lived in Blanche street of Hermit Road just a stones throw away from the Thames Ironworks original playing field, in 1901 he lists his occupation as dock labourer though it has been said he worked as an electricians mate as well. It was in 1901 he joins the staff of west ham helping out Tom Robinson the trainer and eventually replacing him after his retirement 10 years later, and there he stayed for another 21 years until after Syd Kings suspension in 1932 and then his sacking in 1933 Charlie finally became manager of the first team. the move I imagined would of been welcomed by the players as Charlie was popular with them. Jimmy Ruffell in an interview with the author Brian Belton in 1973 declared that it was Charlie who took the team day to day and it was he who took them to Wembley in 1923 for the first Cup Final to be played there.

The whole period of Charlie's tenure as manager was spent in the second division and in his first season nearly ended in relegation to the third tier, but in the following seasons he steadied the ship while playing some attacking football with some of the greatest players to play for the club. Vic Watson, Len Gouldon who would win 14 caps for England in this period. Jackie Morton would also appear for England and towards the end of his time another long time servant of the club established himself in the team, Ernie Gregory. He also appointed after the war former player Ted Fenton as his assistant and thus continuing the West Ham way of ex players assisting the manager until they could take over. 

And so in 1950 it was time for him to retire, aged 71, and in gratitude of his service he was granted a testimonial which was against Arsenal at the Boleyn. He stayed close to the club acting in ambassadorial roles and Nine years later the club held a 80th birthday for him inviting back many of the players he and coached and managed. He lived out his life living in Oulton Crescent at Barking, he died in 1970 aged 92.

 

Testimonial line up V Arsenal                   With Syd King

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.