Huddersfield

Congratulations to Hudderfield Town on breaking Nottingham Forest's record of 42 unbeaten football league games today.
They still need another 7 to break Arsenal's all time English record of 49 unbeaten which was achieved in the FA Premier league a few years back, but still a brilliant achievement so far.

One trivia fact from my youth - many years back around 1970? I collected footie cards in packs with bubble gum and had most of the cards from 21 of the 22 of the teams, for some reason no Huddersfield players were available?

Football Memories - The 1980/81 Season

More from the archives :) a bit long winded but ...
The 80/81 season was a pretty good year to be a Hammers fan, on the back of the FA Cup win we had the bonus of a European Cup Winners Cup run and a third attempt of getting back into the top league.
The season didn't start that well with a trip to Wembley to play league champs Liverpool in the Charity Shield.

The game itself finished 1-0 to Liverpool, an early goal by McDermott.
I don't remember much else happening the only thing that sticks in my mind was our substitute Nicky Morgan coming on and brilliantly taking out serial bad tackler Graeme Souness with a lunging tackle, which left the so called hardman on the floor whining to the ref ... justice :)
The league season started badly with a home defeat by Luton then 2 away draws :(
Then things took off, new signing Paul Goddard fitted in well and by the end of the season we had run away with the league finishing well clear of second place Notts County!! the final tally was 28 wins 10 draws and just 4 defeats (including 2 by Luton). We did the double over Chelsea 1-0 away and 4-0 at home and didn't lose a league game after a boxing day defeat by QPR.
The European run was interesting we had drawn Castilla from Spain who were basically Real Madrid's reserve team? the first leg in Spain saw us lose 3-1 and after crowd trouble we nearly got thrown out, considering one of our fans died it seems harsh that we got the blame but a mate who went told me that we were far from blameless and that a load of our fans pissing on the Spaniards from an upper tier of the Bernabeau hadn't helped. The second leg was played behind closed doors and we ran out 5-1 winners, the only home game I missed that season.
The next round we beat Politechnia Timisoara of Rumania 4-0 after losing the away leg 1-0, then we had to play Russian team Dynamo Tbilisi who included some of Russia's best players, we started well with Alan Devonshire playing brilliantly but the Russians solved that with several really heavy tackles and he had to go off injured. By the end we had lost 4-1 and it was probably the only time I have ever clapped the opposition at the end as they were brilliant and would probably have beaten anyone at that time, amazingly we won the second leg 1-0 but the tie was over.
Tbilisi went on to win the competition and one odd piece of trivia from this competition was that the English league had 2 quarter finalists that year - us and 3rd division Newport County!!
Although we failed to defend the FA cup losing after 2 replays to Wrexham, we had a really good season in the League cup, we beat Tottenham 1-0 in the 5th round to get a Semi Final against Coventry, in the away leg we had gone 2-0 up but lost 3-2 in the home leg we were 1-0 up with seconds left expecting extra time when our other new signing Jimmy Neighbour scored an amazing winner to put us through to the final against Liverpool.

The final, excellent game as we matched Liverpool who were probably the best team in Europe at the time and after 90 minutes we were level at 0-0.
It all kicked off right at the end when Liverpool scored, Kennedy's shot went over the clearly offside Sammy Lee who ducked underneath it to decieve Phil Parkes, the linesman flagged the offside but welsh twat Clive Thomas gave the goal? even mild mannered Hammers manager John Lyall ran on to call him a cheat.
With seconds left of extra time Alvin Martin's goalbound shot was handled off the line by cheating bastard McDermott and Thomas finally got a decision right and gave us a penalty which super Jock Ray Stewart banged home to earn us a replay.


The replay was at Villa Park, I was in the Holt end which had been split into two with only a net between us and the scouses.
Liverpool had a young reserve in the team due to injuries called Ian Rush (whatever happened to him?) and cry baby Souness was also missing.
We took the lead early on after Jimmy Neighbour went flying down the right and crossed perfectly for Goddard, sadly Liverpool came back to win 2-1 after a scrappy own goal by Billy Bonds and Dalglish getting the winner.
Personally I only have bad memories of this game as during the second half I was hit on the head by a can of some liquid? thrown over the netting by the scouses which cut my head open, not too serious but it did bleed a bit, but I wasn't going to miss the rest of the game and a blood stained shirt wasn't that uncommon in those days.
After the game some nutty scouse decided to drive his car into our crowd outside the ground and me and many others ended up on the bonnet, he regretted that.

Football Memories - 1980 FA Cup Run

By the 1980 season I had been a regular at all home and a lot of away games for 4 years - working lad living at home Booze, birds, records and Football .... the usual :)
The 1979-80 season was our second in the 2nd division and after finishing a disappointing 5th in 78-79 we also missed out this season mainly due to the cup run.
We had a great team at this point with class acts like Phil Parkes, Ray Stewart, Billy Bonds, Alan Devonshire and Sir Trevor Brooking. Backed up former Man U striker Stuart Pearson, journeyman striker Dave Cross, young Paul Allen in his first season, Alvin Martin, Geoff Pike, Patsy Holland and slim Frank Lampard.
We had beaten Aston Villa 1-0 in the 6th Round which meant a semi versus Everton at Villa park, luckily my number came up in the draw for tickets and meant a Sunday morning trip up to Upton park to get my ticket.

The game ended up 1-1 with our equaliser memorable due to Stuart Pearson lying injured and being ignored by the Everton defenders and suddenly getting off the floor and running on to a through ball to score.
Brian Kidd getting sent off after his punch up with Super Jock was another great moment.
The replay was hastily arranged for the following Wednesday which meant a quick trip up to Upton Park on the monday afternoon to get a ticket and and having to book a coach trip to Leeds and also pleading with the boss for a short notice day off.

An interesting day having to leave at mid day and getting to Leeds around 6pm, the game itself was only memorable in the first 90 minutes for the brilliant non stop singing of the Hammers fans, extra time was probably my greatest 30 minutes of football supporting as we kept plugging away at our higher rated opponents and were rewarded when Alan Devonshire beat the entire Everton defence to tuck in a superb goal, Latchford equalised and the scoreboard showed that a second replay was arranged for Highfield road Coventry on the following Monday meaning going through all those hassles getting tickets, transport and time off again :(
With seconds left Frank Lampard somehow got his head to a cross and we had won 2-1 ... amazing.
Didn't get home till 4.30am the next day and had to be up at 6.30 for work but it was worth it.

The final meant queueing up for hours at Upton park on a Sunday morning to get a ticket. £3.50 shows how times have changed :)

The day itself worked out brilliantly with us beating Arsenal 1-0 although the old Wembley stadium wasn't the greatest place to watch football, when Brooking scored we were at the other end and so far away we really couldn't tell if it was a goal for a few seconds until the wave of cheering spread around the ground.

Football Memories - 1975

The 1974/5 season was the first year that I made regular visits to Upton Park and it turned out to be a great season, we finished a respectable 13th and won the FA cup.
I managed to get a ticket for the Semi final but didn't have the money to go to the replay and couldn't get a ticket for the final.
We had beaten Arsenal at Highbury 2-0 with Alan Taylor scoring twice in the 6th round but were still underdogs for this game as Ipswich were top 3.
This game at Villa park ended up 0-0, the replay at Stamford Bridge saw us win 2-1 with Taylor again scoring twice.
The final saw us beat Fulham 2-0 with Taylor again the hero :)

I did manage to get a ticket for the Charity shield at the start of the next season where we were beaten 2-0 by League champions Derby.

Football Memories - 1974

Here's a shock for you, my first major final attended wasn't a West Ham game it was arch enemies Tottenham!!
My uncle was an avid spuds fan and had taken me to a couple of games in this season, he had got a few tickets for this first leg of the final and luckily he invited me to go with him and my cousin.
The match ended up 2-2 after Tottenham had twice taken the lead, they lost the second leg in Holland 2-0 the week after.
Probably the last time I cheered for Tottenham, I was only 13 and didn't know better :)

A glitter badge from the 1995 Merlin premier league set.

England 1970

Here's a bit of nostalgia, I recently found this pic on the net and it's a scan of a poster that came with A&BC Football cards bubble gum in the 1970/71 season.
I still have the cards in a scrap book but this poster has been mislaid so it was nice to see it again.
As with most world cup squads printed before the actual announcement of the official squad they took a few guesses and with 37 players on the poster managed to get 21 of the 22 players in the actual squad, they obviously didn't think Nobby Stiles would make it but he did.
The players who missed out were - Simpson, Coates, Summerbee, McFarland, H Newton, Shilton, McNab, Smith, Kendall, Thompson, Reaney, Storey-Moore, Oakes, Jones, Harvey, Madeley.
Domestic honours on the 69/70 season were: League - Everton, FA Cup - Chelsea, League Cup - Man City (with Arsenal winning the Fairs cup in Europe).

I would like to reccommend this website for all things nostalgic such as Football cards, Stickers and all those little football items you used to get back in those days - Nigel's Webspace

World Cup Memories 1970

Don't actually remember much about the 1970 World Cup only what I've watched since, I seem to remember the games were being shown at odd hours so I was probably at school or in bed?
Looking at the footage shown it seemed to be one of the greatest tournaments, where England went into it with probably their best team ever but as you know goalie Gordon Banks mysteriously went down with illness just before the quarter final with West Germany and Peter "the cat" Bonetti was drafted in, I assume he was called the cat because he was asleep most of the time.
Actually I do remember some of that match when my dad was saying that he couldn't understand why Bobby Charlton was substituted when we were winning.

Why West Ham?

Probably due to being born during West Ham's golden era and them being the nearest team (about 15 miles away).
I had only heard of 3 teams when I was a little kid - West Ham, Man Utd and Southend, dad had briefly played for Southend after coming out of the army where he was the goalie for the army team.
I think Man U were league champions, but the Hammers had just won the FA Cup, Euro cup winners cup and then the World cup so it was no contest, can't help thinking I'd have enjoyed more success if I'd chosen the other lot!!
Those little bits of success have been few and far between in my years of following the Hammers but enjoyable when it does happen.
Been an armchair fan for the last few years so can't claim to be a number one supporter although I was dedicated for many years following them home and away from the mid seventies till the mid nineties.
Highlights are probably the 1980 cup year when I never missed a game home or away, and seeing some of the great names in Hammers history, sadly I didn't start going until after Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters had left but I still consider Trevor Brooking to have been one of the finest midfielders in the game.
Low points are too many to mention but the bad times make the good times so much sweeter.

World Cup Memories 1966

I actually have a memory of the 1966 World Cup (Yes I am that old).
We were visiting my nan when I was a toddler on the morning of World Cup final day and she told me whoever scored first would lose, I seem to remember that dad was watching it and West Germany scored first, so as nan had told me what was going to happen I went outside in the garden and played for the rest of the match.
Nan's are clever aren't they :)