We delve deep into The British Newspaper Archive to look at cuttings that shed light on West Ham United’s history...
West Ham United have seldom enjoyed a better three-day period in the Club’s 130-year history than they did between Saturday 5 and Monday 7 November 1966.
With England still basking in the achievement of winning the FIFA World Cup that summer, the Hammers kicked-off the 1966/67 season with the Three Lions’ captain Bobby Moore, hat-trick hero Geoff Hurst and fellow final goalscorer Martin Peters in the squad.
Ron Greenwood’s side made a free-scoring start to the new campaign, netting in each of their first 27 matches in all competitions, plundering an incredible 76 goals.
However, as was so often the case for West Ham in the 1960s, that attacking flair was offset by defensive frailty, and Greenwood’s side conceded 47 goals and kept just six clean sheets in those same 27 matches.
The 17th and 18th of those matches were played in early November and produced two sensational victories, 13 goals and a record win over Leeds United.
First, on Saturday 5 November, West Ham brushed aside a Fulham side managed by another visionary manager - Vic Buckingham, who had managed Dutch giants Ajax and is considered to be a pioneer of Total Football - by six goals to one in the First Division. Hurst scored four times, with Peters netting the other two.
A little over 48 hours after the final whistle blew on that victory, Greenwood’s men took to the Boleyn Ground pitch again to face a star-studded Leeds side.
Under the management of Don Revie, Leeds had finished as First Division runners-up in each of the previous two seasons and reached the FA Cup final in 1965.
Revie fielded Scotland international David Harvey in goal, England’s World Cup winner Jack Charlton alongside homegrown stars Norman Hunter and Paul Reaney in defence, and Scotland international Billy Bremner, Republic of Ireland international Johnny Giles and future England international Paul Madeley in midfield.
All seven would be central figures as Revie’s Leeds became a dominant force in the late 1960s and early 1970s, winning the First Division title in 1969 and 1974, the FA Cup in 1972, the Football League Cup in 1968, and the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1968 and 1971.
For 90 minutes on a football pitch in east London on 7 November 1966, however, they were simply no match for Ron Greenwood’s West Ham United.
“West Ham buried Leeds under a seven-goal avalanche last night,” wrote the Daily Express’s Norman Giller. “John Sissons and Geoff Hurst each plundered three goals in West Ham’s second runaway win in a little over 48 hours.
“I saw them knock Fulham for six on Saturday, but even then they did not touch the magnificent peak of power that crippled Leeds in this fourth-round League Cup game.”
While winger Sissons and Hurst both bagged hat-tricks, and Peters scored the other, it was another England international who Giller picked as the star of the show.
“You won’t find the name of match star Johnny Byrne on the score sheet, but he left Leeds in no doubt about his presence with a performance of pure perfection. He had a well-directed foot in five of the seven goals.
“The Leeds’ calculations of playing for a draw were upset by the simple fact that West Ham were playing to win.
“It was a victory for aggression over defensiveness - and I call that a victory for Soccer.”
Some 27,474 spectators saw Byrne’s perfect performance as West Ham swept into the fifth round. There, Hurst scored twice more and Byrne once in a 3-1 win at fellow First Division side Blackpool.
But West Ham’s defensive fallibilities returned in the first leg of the semi-final, losing 6-2 on aggregate to the same West Bromwich Albion side who had beaten them in the final the previous season, and Greenwood’s free-scoring Hammers would have to wait for a maiden League Cup success.
That wait still goes on today but, for one glorious evening in November 1966, West Ham were the toast of the competition.
