Millwall 1930 FA Cup 5th Round

In Febuary 1930 West Ham faced local Rivals Millwall in

the F.A Cup 5th round, meeting for the first time sine they had left the Southern League in 1919 and joined the football league.
To get to this round the Hammers had defeated Notts County in the 3rd round 4-0 then Leeds 4-1 with both games being played at the Boleyn to set up the first meeting in 15 years between the old enemy.
The Hammers attack was led by all time leading goalscorer Vic Watson, who was in the midst of his greatest season. in the 44 games he played that season Watson scored 50 goals. 42 of those came in the league and 8 in just 4 FA Cup games.
The Hammers team on the day were as follows

Ted Hufton

Alfred Earl

Charlie Cox

Jim Collins

Jim Barrett

Albert Caldwell

Tommy Yews

Stanley Earl

Vic Watson

    Viv Gibbons

   Jimmy Ruffell

Gibbons Yews and Watson

The game was over as a contest before half time as first Gibbons, then Watson scoring two in between a goal scored by Tommy Yews set alight the 26,000 crowd the had brave the weather. Newspaper report from the day claimed that the attendance may have been higher if the West Ham board hadn't seen fit to double the gate entrance fee for this game leaving 8,000 less fans at the game that had seen the 4-1 victory over Leeds in the previous Round.

Millwall's goal was scored in the second half after a mistake by West Ham keeper Ted Hufton, though it was to be no more than a consolation as West Ham marched into the sixth round. 

The fans probably at that time dreamed of a return to Wembley but West Ham's cup bubble was burst as Arsenal was pulled out the bag to face the hammers in the next round.

The Gunners would dispose of west Ham at The Boleyn 3-0, in their team that day was a familiar cup foe in David Jack, now of Arsenal but back in 1923 Captain of Bolton Wanderers and scorer of the first Ever Goal to be scored at Wembley in the famous final of that year, one which the Hammers lost 2-0.

But in 1930 we are lucky enough to witness the goals as Movitone news cameras were on hand to film the game in what is the first ever filmed meeting between West Ham and Millwall.

 

   

 

Barnes stings the Hornets

Just 4 months after our FA Cup win the Hammers set about regaining their top flight status, after a slow start to the season, No wins in first three games, the team were on the up after winning 3 out of their next 3 to leave them sitting fourth in the table, with a European adventure to boot, Lyalls legends were up and running.
The first european game is remembered for all the wrong reasons as crowd trouble marred the night but it was that game that saw a young 17 year old Youth star make his first appearance for the club, coming on as a substitute for Nicky Morgan Bobby Barnes got his first taste of the big time.
Bob didn't have long to wait for his second appearance though as just 3 days later on the 20th September 1980 he was handed a starting place wearing the No7 shirt again replacing Morgan from the Wednesday night defeat in Madrid.

West Ham Team

Phil Parkes

Ray Stewart

Frank Lampard Snr

Billy Bonds

Alvin Martin

Alan Devonshire

Bobby Barnes

Paul Goddard

David Cross

Trevor Brooking

Geoff Pike

This was only our 3rd ever Football league meeting with the Hornets and we had yet to win the previous two but this game was to be a goal fest.
Watford took the lead in the first half with a goal created by Luther Blissett and scored by Malcolm Poskett and it took until the second half for the Hammers to come back into it with a David Cross goal after a great cross by Lampard.
Stung by that goal, Watford hit back with a goal from their own teenage player, Kenny Jacket, to put West Ham back behind in the game. This though was where Barnes came into the game and joined the list of Hammers to score on their full debuts, as the video show below he picks the ball up just inside the Hornets half, slips the ball past a watford midfielder to run on goal and as two defenders close he shoots past their keeper to equalise.
The game is won by Brooking with a fantastic header which in 1980 wasn't as rare as many believe.
3-2 to West Ham and they move up to second spot in the table, top spot would be achieved on 11th of November and from that day until the end of the season they never dropped down a place again, winning the league with a (2 point a win) record of 66 points, 13 clear of second placed Notts county.
That season West Ham only lost 1 home game, and that was the first against Luton in the August, they finished with 21 home games played, 1 loss, 1 draw with Oldham and 19 wins of which though Bobby Barnes would start just the one game, with 5 other sub appearances which considering his start is perhaps surprising but would be indicative of his career at West Ham. In the 5 years he spent around the first team he would make just 38 starts, scoring 6 goals before leaving to join Aldershot but he will mainly be remembered for his goalscoring start to his hammers career.

The video has all 5 goals with commentary from Brian Moore from the Big Match 

1980-81

Dear Shoots the Foxes

Brian Dear

Christmas 1967 and West Ham face Leicester in two games over the festive period that were packed with goals, mainly by 1 player but also we see perhaps the start of a legendary career as a young academy graduate score for the first time.
That season the hammers had a indifferent start to the season before slumping down to the lower reaches of the table hanging around the bottom three for a period in November and into December but in the last game before christmas with goals by Billy Bonds and Brian Dear, West Ham managed to defeat rivals Spurs 2-1 at the Boleyn to start a run of 6 wins in 7 games with the only defeat in that time away to Manchester United.

GAME 1

Boxing Day 1967

The Beatles were No 1 with Hello, Goodbye as the hammers welcomed Leicester to the Boleyn to witness the first of the two games with the team that day
Bobby Ferguson, Billy Bonds, Frank Lampard, Martin Peters, John Cushly, Bobby Moore, Brian Dear, Ronnie Boyce, Trevor Brooking, Geoff Hurst and John Sissons
The 26,000 in attendance that day were treated to to great spectacle as Dear grabbed himself a hat-trick, his second of the season after he grabbed 5 V West Brom earlier in the season, the other Hammers goal was grabbed by 19 year old Trevor Brooking, scoring his first ever goal for the club in his first season as a first team player in only his 8th start for the club.

As was the tradition back then it wouldn't be long till the clubs met again in the league, in fact it was just 4 days

Game 2 

Dec 30 1967

The same two teams met at Filbert St but this time the Match of the Day cameras were on hand to record the game, which was played in poring rain.
In typical West Ham fashion the good start in the first half, Brooking scoring again with his second goal for the club, was undone by two Leicester goals leaving the Hammers training 2-1 at half time.
In the second half that all changed as a header from the man of the moment Brian Dear put the teams level, then next the foxes young keeper, a certain Peter Shilton 29 years before he joined the hammers, would be left embarrassed as the ball squirms through him into the goal direct from a John Sissons corner.
Brian Dear completed the victory with his second of the game and fifth against Leicester in 4 days and those two victories pushed the hammers up the table away from the relegation places, a trend that continued in the second half of the season as West Ham managed to finish in a respectable 12th place.

The video below is the goals from the second game with David Coleman providing the commentary.

Lights Out Lampard

3rd of November 1997, West Ham welcomed Crystal Palace to the Boleyn Ground for a Monday night game live on TV, it could be described as a non decrepit game but one that would later be be found to be part of an international betting scam, featuring corrupt security guards Chinese triads and Malaysian  betting fixers. Yet those us of us in the ground that night would never have thought what happened was nothing but co-incidence. Months later it would look to be part of a sinister plot to fix football matches in this country to allow asian gangs to collect their winnings as in asia they pay out on abandoned games as long as the second half has started unlike here that just void all bets.
West Ham had made a topsy turvey start to the season, winning 3 out of their first 5 games, before losing 5 out of the next 7 games, but with only the one defeat happening at the Boleyn, including victories over Spurs and Liverpool,the home fans had enjoyed the season so far.
Confidence was high with palace struggling in the table, surely this would be an another home win, Palace though had other ideas going into a first half two goal lead thats to a Neil Shipperly brace.

Whatever Harry said at Half Time though seemed to have done the trick, first Hartson scored what should of been his 13th goal of a so far profitable season, and then Frankie Lampard 

scores to equalise just 15 minutes into the second Half, but as can be seen in the video above, within seconds the floodlights go out on the game, which at the time seemed to just add to the excitement of the goal and 30 minutes later, around the time the game should have finished, the game was abandoned.
It would take 2 years before the truth would come out in a trial at the Middlesex Guildhall Courts of those suspected.
It seems that using a wireless trigger, the gang could disable the floodlights and stop them from working, to do this though they had to have had someone on the inside to assist in them placing a trigger across the floodlights electrics.

This is known as a year later the betting gang had tried again to fix another game, this time at Charlton, but having recruited the Addicks Head of security to the cause, the guard he had asked to help as well instead phoned the Police, and the gang + Charlton's security man were arrested in the act of planting the trigger. At The trial it was revealed this game and another at Selhurst park featuring Arsenal and Wimbledon that again had floodlight failure with the game tied in the second half.
The Hammers and Palace, unaware of what had caused the lights to go out met again just 1 month later to replay the abandoned game, again live on Sky though this time West Ham were not going to be caught cold.
A great exhibition of control in the box from Eval Berkovic sets up John Hartson for the first, who else but shipperley would equalise, but before the half was out Berkovic would score as the ball came off the bar after a Hartson header. Two more goals in the second half from David Unsworth and Steve Lomas would see us to the victory and push us back into the top 10 after 4 weeks just on the edge of it.

While West Ham would end the season in 8th spot with 56 points, second highest total in the Premier league for the club, and with a -1 goal difference, currently our best ever in the Premier league, Palace would finish rock bottom and go back to the Championship only 12 moths after promotion.
What of the betting syndicate, well the Police never found any direct evidence that they were the cause of the floodlight failure at The Boleyn but they had established a link between them and an employee of the club who was arrested but with a lack of evidence was released without charge.
The 2 Malaysians and Charlton's Security advisor were not so lucky, being jailed for between 18 months and 4 years.

Boleyn Gates

In 1956 the club were looking to buy the land in front of the West Stand, the entrance to the stand was down a narrow strip of land besides the Church, the land where the current entrance stands was part of the Boleyn Castle estate, which in the mid 50s was in a dilapidated state and eventually was demolished in 1955. West Ham already had use of the grounds and had sub-leased the building to the Boleyn castle sports and social club.

After being owned by various family in the late 18th century into the early 19th century the Catholic church purchased the 30 acre property to open a reformatory school in 1869. The school held upto 200 boys and was run by the Brothers of the order of the Mercy and was known as the St Edwards reformatory. The school moved to new premises in Walthamstow in 1906 and the building was used until 1912 as a Maternity hospital. That close in 1912 where upon the club leased the land off the catholic church.

 The picture shows the ground in 1948 with the entrance being where the current players car park is situated, and with the Green Street House and castle not being used by the church the club at last managed to the free hold to the land helped in a way by the selling of one of their star players at the time, Harry Hooper.
Harry joined the club aged 16 but was not born in the local area, he arrived thanks to his father being appointed the year before a trainer.
His dad Harry snr was from Burnley but played most of his career for Sheffield United, where he captained them in the 1936 FA Cup final v Arsenal, sadly for Harry Snr they lost 1-0. With the war interrupting football Harry left Sheffield for a short stint at Hartlepool before retiring in

Harry Snr at Wembley

 1949 to join West Hams training staff at a time when the management baton was being passed from Charlie Paynter to Ted Fenton.
Harry junior joined the ground staff soon after and in 1951 still only 17 made his debut against Barnsley in a 4-2 victory. A fast paced winger Harry didn't establish himself into the first team until 1953, but in his 6 seasons at the club  he still managed 136 games scoring 47 goals which for a winger was a good return.
so good that it persuaded Wolves manager Stan Culls to part with £25,000, a club record fee received at the time by the Hammers.
Wolves in the 1950s were different to the club of nowadays, led on the field by the Country's captain Billy Wright, they had won the First Division title in 1954.

The Transfer fee though was used by the West Hams board to purchase the free hold of the land in front of the Main West Stand and with that the gates were erected in their current position. Strangely Hoopers stay at Wolverhampton was short lived, though he scored 19 goals in 39 games manager Stan Culls it seems was not really impressed with him, and he was sold to Birmingham City for a £5,000 loss just 1 season later.
Cullis claimed that he signed Hooper in front of Tottenham Hotspur after watching him for sometime, His reason for selling him was that Hooper didn't fit in with the Wolves style of play.
The gates, now renamed after former manager John Lyall, though stood at the new entrance for 57 years until 3 of them were removed to be rehoused in the clubs new shop next to the Olympic Stadium where they will stand against a wall, though if you look at the look at the top picture from 1948 a set of gates can be seen at the entrance on Green street. The video below is from further back records the visit of the then Prince of Wales visiting the ground, gates can be clearly seen at the top as he enters the concourse so it seems the


gates go back even further than thought
possibly to when the Main west Stand was built in 1925.
Whether theses are the same gates or indeed new gates that were purchased with the money raised from Harry Hooper im yet to discover but with some of the gates removal and relocation to the clubs new retail shop by the Olympic Stadium it starts the removal of nearly 100 years of gates guarding the entrance to the Green St entrance

Lyall Gates in the club shop

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