Under The Hammers

In the history of English football, West Ham have allowed their managers to remain in charge of the team for longer than any other club on average. Since 1902, when Syd King was manager, through our election into the Football League in 1919, right up until the present day, we have had just 15 permanent managers. A few others, most notably Trevor Brooking, acted as caretaker managers. I have been watching West Ham since 1958 and the boss at the time was Ted Fenton, who was just our third manager in over half a century. John Lyall took over from Ron Greenwood in August 1974, and remained in charge until he was sacked in May 1989, after an association of 34 years with the club.

Lyall began his career at West Ham aged 15 as a groundstaff boy and office clerk, and was a promising full back, playing 34 times for the first team before a serious knee injury ended his career. He won international youth honours playing one game for England Youth, and was a member of the West Ham youth side that reached the final of the FA Youth Cup in 1957. He then concentrated on coaching and became assistant manager to Greenwood in 1971, becoming team manager three years later when his mentor moved upstairs.

It was a topsy-turvy 15 years in charge with a lot of success (in West Ham terms) with FA Cup wins in 1975 and 1980, the latter being the last time a club from outside the top flight has won the trophy. European Cup Winners Cup losing finalists in 1976 and League Cup finalists in 1981, losing after a replay, were also notable achievements, as was an outstanding promotion season in 1980-81 where the second division title was won by a large margin with 28 wins and only four defeats. His managerial highlight was in 1985-86 where we came so close to winning the league title, eventually finishing third, which was (and still is) our highest ever placing. This was arguably our best ever season, and we certainly played some terrific entertaining football which I enjoyed enormously.

I maintain to this day that the postponed games and subsequent fixture pile up were key factors in us not winning the title that season. In John Lyall’s autobiography Just Like My Dreams he even wrote “West Ham’s last five games spanned just ten days – a demanding schedule and hardly the fairest way to settle a nine month long Championship race.” Perhaps if the club had considered installing undersoil heating like a number of clubs had done by that time, we might look back upon 1985-86 as the season we finished as champions?

The low points were two relegation seasons in 1977-78 and 1988-89, the latter resulting in Lyall’s dismissal which many felt was not handled well by the club considering his 34 years of service and his success in charge. The programme had just a few short sentences as acknowledgement of his long period of time at the club.

He deserves credit, in addition to the trophies and finals for keeping together and attracting high class players, in particular following the first relegation. Has there ever been a better second tier side in English football in history than the one that contained Phil Parkes, Ray Stewart, Frank Lampard, Billy Bonds, Alvin Martin, Alan Devonshire, Trevor Brooking, Paul Goddard and David Cross in 1980-81?

A year after being sacked he resumed his football management career at Ipswich, and in just his second season in charge led them into the newly-formed Premier League as Second Division champions. After a couple of years at the helm, he moved upstairs, and resigned soon afterwards.

John Lyall died suddenly of a heart attack in April 2006. He would have been 77 on 24^th February this year. Less than a week after his death West Ham won through to the FA Cup final, our first since 1980, when he was our manager. The one minute silence at the semi-final just a few days after he died was followed by the continuous chant of “Johnny Lyall’s claret and blue army,” showing the genuine affection of our fans, and the high regard in which he was held. The main gates at Upton Park were renamed the “John Lyall Gates” in 2009, and have been moved to the London Stadium.

John Lyall managed West Ham for 779 games in 15 years. In pure statistical terms he had a win percentage of 40%, the fifth best record, after Bonds 44%, Pardew, Paynter and Fenton (all 41%). But if the club had invested in the team after our best ever season in 1985-86, who knows how much success we might have had?

How can we judge the success of football managers? Win percentages? Lose percentages? Goals scored and conceded? Trophies won? Stronger position financially? Attracting bigger crowds? A higher league position than when he came? A combination of these factors? Also do we need to consider the resources available and division we play in? You cannot really compare different eras but if I had to pick a 1-2-3 on a mixture of the above criteria, then in my opinion Greenwood, Lyall and Bonds would have to be considered the most successful. I’ll let the reader choose the order, or indeed make their own choice of who has been our best manager.

But whoever you pick, John Lyall gave great service to our club, and was considered to be a true gentleman by everyone who met him. He will always be remembered as an innovative coach who continued the tradition of his predecessor, Ron Greenwood, of playing football the “West Ham Way”.

There have been so many great games in the last 58 years and I’ve covered many of them throughout my book, Goodbye Upton Park, Hello Stratford. Many are remembered because of the importance of the game, the goals scored, and the spine-tingling atmosphere generated by our fans. Hopefully my memories of these great games will evoke fond memories of fans, (especially older ones like me!), and the music in the charts at the time.

In August 1968 I was fourteen and a half. It was, of course, the school summer holidays, and I was soon to move into the fourth form at school. I think that is year 10 in modern terminology. I was on a caravan holiday in Weeley when news broke of the Russian (strictly speaking Warsaw Pact) invasion of Czechoslovakia on 21 August. Younger readers will only know of two countries now, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which were formed when the original country split (peacefully) in 1993. It was a major event in world history, and one that was discussed in current affairs lessons upon our return to school a couple of weeks later.

Another significant happening in history happened around the same time. England were playing Australia in the fifth test of the summer at the Oval. England were one down and needed to win the test to square the series. A famous test match ensued with England (or rather Derek Underwood) bowling out Australia on the final afternoon to win the match after a heavy rain storm had almost forced the abandonment of the game during the lunch interval. The large Oval crowd assisted in the mopping up process on this final day (Tuesday August 27).

Basil D’Oliveira, a mixed-race South African, had been playing cricket for England for a couple of years, and scored a magnificent 158 in the game and was one of the key reasons why England won the match. Despite this he was controversially omitted from the touring team to go to South Africa that winter, although later recalled to the party following an injury to Tom Graveney, and a public outcry. With the apartheid in South Africa at the time, the inclusion of a non-white South African was unacceptable to the hosts, and this led to the cancellation of the tour, and hastened South Africa’s isolation from world cricket soon afterwards. They didn’t return until 1991 after apartheid began to be dismantled. A further topic had been added to current affairs lessons on our return to school.

Meanwhile on the Monday evening of 26 August, West Ham had a home game against Burnley. It was a memorable game on a hot summer evening and we raced into a four goal lead by half time. We were playing some great stuff, and that first half was one of the best that I remember from that era. Martin Peters scored the opener, then Geoff Hurst added a couple before a teenage Trevor Brooking added a fourth. Shortly before Brooking’s goal, the referee had to go off the pitch injured. In those days we didn’t have a fourth official at games, so one of the linesmen took over the whistle, and a member of public (who was a qualified local referee) ran the line, dressed in his suit trousers, shirt and tie, as there was no spare kit for officials either! It wouldn’t happen today. To many observers Brooking’s goal was yards offside, but the deputy linesman dressed in his office attire, didn’t raise his flag, and maintained that the ball was last played by a Burnley player, with which the referee concurred, and the goal stood.

The Burnley players complained for ages, but I couldn’t see the point. They were already dead and buried in the game. Their chairman made quite a fuss the following day, and the whole thing was described, quite unnecessarily in my opinion, as a raging controversy. The referee had recovered by the start of the second half and resumed in charge. The deputy linesman had his ten minutes of fame, and made headlines being slated in the national newspapers the following day. Incidentally it wasn’t his first call up. He had been called upon in exactly the same circumstances just nine days earlier in our home game against Forest.

Brooking added our fifth goal with half an hour still to play, but we took our foot of the gas a little, and the game ended aa a convincing 5-0 win. It took us to the top of the Division One table (we eventually finished eighth), and was followed up with a 4-0 win over West Brom the following Saturday, and then a 7-2 victory over Bolton in the League Cup a few days later. But that wasn’t our highest score that season as we put eight past Sunderland in October. We scored 47 goals in our 21 home games in 1968-69, a figure only bettered by Manchester City, who finished in the bottom half! Burney finished 14^th that year.

The West Ham team for the game was: Ferguson, Bonds, Charles, Peters, Stephenson, Moore, Redknapp, Boyce, Hurst, Brooking, Sissons. Roger Cross made his league debut coming on as a substitute for Sissons in the second half.

Number one in the charts in that memorable week in history was Mony Mony, by Tommy James and the Shondells, and other records close to the top were Fire, by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, the Beach Boys with Do It Again, Tom Jones with Help Yourself, Dusty Springfield with I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten, the Bee Gees with I Gotta Get A Message to You. Simon and Garfunkel were in the top 20 with Mrs. Robinson, one of the songs from the soundtrack of the film The Graduate, which I greatly enjoyed watching (Dustin Hoffman had the leading role). Days by the Kinks was another great song I recall from that week’s chart.

By any stretch of the imagination, I don’t think that I could possibly include this season’s game at home to Burnley in any future favourite games feature!