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theaxeman 10:16 Sun May 10
At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

As a 16 year old skinhead with Hammers cut into the back of my head I was transported down the terrace at Wembley as Sir Trevor stooped and guided the ball in to the back of arsenals net. The last time we won anything, what a day! What a team that was! COYI




Memories?

SDKFZ 222 12:36 Mon May 11
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

only1billybonds 9:39 Sun May 10

Mine too, more than the 85-86 team.

Dagenhammer 10:39 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

Thought it was interesting that in the first two of our cup final teams, all 22 were English born. This one broke the run, with just 10 of the starting 11 being English, the 11th was a Scot, Ray Stewart.

gph 10:28 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

You've forgotten the 1999 Intertoto Cup.

Joint winners with clubs of the status of Juventus and, er, Montpellier...

terry-h 10:22 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

No player from our cup winning sides of 1975 and 1980 ever won anything as a league club manager.( Devonshire got two non-league clubs promoted).
Only Ken Brown senior from the 1964 cup winning side won at managerial level with promotion and a league cup win at Norwich.

I don't know what the above means to be honest,apart from its very difficult to win things as a player and a manager. Even Alex Ferguson won bugger all as a player.

Just to depress everyone, I can't really see any of our current players winning anything unless they move to other clubs!

only1billybonds 9:39 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

Our 81 team was my favourite ever WHU side,we really should have achieved a bit with that lot.

Dudley Moore 8:44 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

What a day that must have been. Wish I were old enough to have been there. I cannot believe we’ve won nothing since then.

theaxeman 8:43 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

I think that side and arguably the 81 side was better than 86 team. As always never invested properly to kick on

terry-h 8:33 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

We didn't have problem positions at full back and midfield in those days.
The balance of that side was a pleasure to behold!

fraser 7:47 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

They gave out vouchers at the Cambridge league match.. Massive crowd that day.. Then there was a draw, I didn't get lucky.

zico 7:38 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

only1billybonds 7:24 Sun May 10

Ha ha, yeah. Love the Canning Town Len films, as I did with the Sex Drugs and Carlton Cole specials, don't know why they finished.

Forgotten that Alvin missed the Semi Final with tonsillitis and that Ray Stewart filled in at centre back with Paul Brush I think right back. None of this two or three players in each position bac then.

only1billybonds 7:24 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

Zico.

Alvin made me laugh when he said BobbyFerguson was passing the beers up tothe lads on the bus. Nice knowing the booze was in safe (ish) hands.

ted fenton 7:23 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

Hahaha :-)

only1billybonds 7:22 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

Dont regret it mate,youwould have got bored with the groupies eventually. :-)

zico 7:19 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

Watched the whole match last night and looking back the team really defended well. Brian Moore's "The Hammers have done it again", still sends shivers down the spine and the only sad part of the coverage was both BBC and ITV thought Pearson had scored so left their cameras on him rather than let us see Sir Trevor lose his composure for once!!

Watched Canning Town Len's FA Cup Interview with Alvin as well and he said they didn't have an open top bus but stood on tables with bodies hanging out of the opened sky lights (or whatever they are called). No Health and Safety back then!

jooliandix 7:16 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

I got a ticket through getting the correct numbered voucher given out at the Cambridge game ?,and my mum bought me the ticket for my 12 birthday,it was only my second season going to games,and if I knew then I’d never see us win another trophy supporting us would have seemed a futile endeavour,but I wouldn’t change a thing,it’s just in the blood.

ted fenton 7:04 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

Majority of workers in Millwall & West India Dock were West Ham billy Harry Redknapp's old man mainly worked in the Royals but he was a Gooner.
I met Mrs Ted just before I took severance pay from the PLA 1980 so my playing in pub days were over but my mates band played in the Two Puddings for years,
Still regret not pushing the playing lark a bit further but such is life.

only1billybonds 6:56 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

Ted.

I reckon i might have seen you strumming aling with your mates,definitely remember live music down the Tooke. Did you play any other pubs in the East End?

Funny set up with our lot and Millwall back then on the Island. Plenty of em about but there was always a certain respect between the two factions. Dont know if its coincidence or design but i can honestly say i have never had a genuine mate who supports that other lot.

ted fenton 6:18 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

only1billybonds 5:27 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

We used to get in the Tooke after work sometimes and at one time roughly 1977/79 three of us played guitars in there which mainly went ok the two other lads lived on the Island and told me to buy there for obvious reasons but hmmm never did.... one of the lads went on to be a successful comedian Al Benson.
Always thought the Tooke was millwall but we got away with Bubbles lol.

PostmanPissed 6:17 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

Not like I've had too many days like that to blur the mind.

Manuel 6:15 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

You remember a hell of a lot for a 7 year old!

PostmanPissed 6:06 Sun May 10
Re: At 3.14pm 40yrs Ago Today

Gonna be honest have been watching reruns of highlights and it choked me up a bit. For a club of our stature 40 years without another major trophy is god damn awful, embarrassing, but that day never fails to fill me with pride.

I was seven years old at the time and the only games I missed in the run up to the final were West Brom away and the semi final replay, Orient in the fourth round was my first ever away game. Anyway, my dad had tickets to take me to the final, but I went down with appendicitis in the week leading up to the final. I was in Rush Green hospital and allowed out the day before the game, I should have been kept in a day or two longer but they let me go to watch the final at home, under doctors orders I wasn't allowed to go. Dad went with a couple of his friends, my ticket unused.

I got up the morning of the game eager to get my West Ham shirt on, I had read in a paper that we had chosen to wear all white as we thought it was a lucky omen from the semi final. So there I was decked out in full admiral kit, away shirt, home shorts and socks, and the socks pulled up to the knee so that that claret band and light blue admiral logos going around the band were on show.

During the morning I went with my mum around the local shops in Porters Avenue, Dagenham, it seemed to me that the majority were done up in claret and blue decoration, well the butchers, greengrocer, chemist, Roundhouse pub and wool shop certainly were. The wool shop was run by Steve Potts mum, which they lived above, and were selling little claret and blue woollen figures, I was so West Ham obsessed a figure was a must.

The match itself I watched around my friends three doors down, his dad had decorated the windows of their house, and ours, with a foil FA Cup and claret and blue ribbons. My recall was that the game wasn't the greatest to watch, confirmed when I watched it on video a decade later, but that didn't matter in he slightest West Ham were the greatest team in the country for me that day. John Lyall had pulled off a tactical masterstroke, we normally played a 442 but David Cross was to play as the lone striker with his partner Stuart Pearson sitting deeper. That day every player put in shift, Phil Parkes the world most expensive keeper was dependable and pulled off a couple of good saves, the fullbacks Ray Stewart and Frank Lampard were solid, The journeyman striker David Cross covered every blade of grass without ever getting a sniff on goal, his strike partner Stuart Pearson working hard in he unfamiliar role of midfield, Alan Devonshire a constant threat when we attacked, the youth team graduates Alvin Martin, Geoff Pike and Paul Allen playing like cup finals with such composure you would think FA Cup finals were common practice for them. Sir Trevor making Old Big Mouth eat his words, who cares if he feel over, if he meant it or not, it was a goal end of, a goal that would to this day give me my greatest feeling of being a West Ham fan. Holding it all together and playing like the true leader he is was Bonzo, putting himself on the line to take a bit of pressure off of his teammates, working like a horse but also the calming influence. They were a team, the unused sub Paul Brush, another graduate, and squad players in Bobby Ferguson, Jimmy Neighbour and Patsy Holland were ecstatic at the final whistle. Brush would get a medal, the other three missed out but it didn't seem to matter to them at that moment, Patsy Holland even in tears himself with his arms around the tearful Paul Allen. John Lyall beaming with pride at the tunnel end at what his boys had achieved as they went on their lap of honour.

Me and my mate were sat in his garden on deckchairs posing for photos in our kits holding a foil covered cardboard cut out of the FA Cup while my mates younger brother was made to kneel down and blow bubbles from a pot behind us.

The celebrations on the Sunday are hazy but I recount being perched on my dads shoulders in front of the balcony of East Ham town hall, my mum hoping up and down on tiptoes to get a better view.

Also had the privilege of holding the FA Cup when the club allowed it to be taken on a tour of local pubs and social clubs. I got to hold it at the extension of the Roundhouse pub, what was then a bingo hall.

Little did I realise that to this day would I never see us with another major trophy, but I'm glad I got to experience the excitement of that day . Soppy I know but it still puts a lump in my throat.

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