West Ham United fan, nostalgist and author Sid Lambert goes back 20 years to relive our Premier League return and push for FA Cup glory during 2005/06…
We ended the last entry with Alan Pardew’s mighty Hammers sitting fourth in the table after a fast and furious start to their Premier League return.
We were undoubtedly the top-flight’s surprise package. And no one was more dumbfounded than me. I fully expected us to be clinging on to 17th position, grinding out scrappy 1-0 wins against relegation rivals to keep our heads above water.
Even after 20 years of pain supporting this Club, it was hard not to be a little giddy. I’d spent last season questioning Pards’ tactics – and occasionally his sanity – as we repeatedly tripped over our own shoelaces en route to promotion.
Now I was convinced he was a managerial genius. A man building a legacy akin to Sir Alex at Old Trafford, pausing only to lead England to World Cup victory in 2014 courtesy of a Mark Noble winner in the final.
That’s the thing about football fandom. There’s no room for rational thought. The line between delight and despair is razor-thin. And you could cross it at any moment.
It took about 70 minutes at the Stadium of Light. Our performance was terrible. Just terrible. A real throwback to the dark days of the early Pardew era. Sunderland swarmed all over us and were well worth their one-goal lead. It was only thanks to Roy Carroll – performing like the lovechild of Luděk Mikloško and Phil Parkes in goal – that we kept the score down to 1-0. Last year we had relied on the wisdom of the evergreen Teddy Sheringham to drag us out of situations like this. But even he seemed lost.
Thankfully we had a new hero.
As the Black Cats tired of peppering shots at goal, Yossi Benayoun burst from midfield and outpaced his marker before steering the ball into the corner. Cue silence. Then, from a far corner of the ground, a guttural roar from the frost-bitten travelling support.
“ALAN PARDEW’S CLARET AND BLUE ARMY”
We’d been rancid. But we had a point. And that was good enough.
What wasn’t good enough was our showing at Manchester City in our next fixture. I’d been listening to The Arctic Monkeys – the breakthrough band that had exploded in the charts – on the way to the game. I’m not sure whether our back four looked good on the dancefloor, but there would be a cavernous gap right in the middle of it if you gave them a chance. Andrew Cole could have reverse-parked his car in the penalty area such was the space afforded to him. The veteran striker scored twice and Bobby Zamora’s late consolation was flattering to say the least.
The bad news was that one point, and two dire showings, from two games had rubbed off some of that early-season gloss. The good news was that our next opponent was Middlesbrough.
There are very few games I approach with any sort of certainty about victory. Cup exits against the likes of Torquay, Stockport and Wrexham have taught me some painful lessons about that. Yet a home game against Boro has always felt distinctly winnable. We hadn’t lost to them for 16 years. I know what it feels like when a team has some kind of hoodoo over you. I spent many a painful afternoon in the 80s with a tear in my eye as I checked the score from Goodison on Ceefax, struggling to contain my emotions as I found out we’d taken another four-goal hammering. Those weekends felt so hopeless. I’d try anything as a kid to distract myself from the heartache, even re-enacting the fixture on the Subbuteo table where George Parris would score an unlikely quadruple in injury time and salvage a point. But it wasn’t enough. Some games are just tinged with doom.
If their away record at Upton Park wasn’t bad enough, Boro had another unlikely obstacle on this October afternoon in 2005 – in the shape of The Worst Linesman Performance Of All Time.
The match had started out in traditional fashion for this fixture. We were all over from Boro from the start. One curious onlooker was Sven-Göran Eriksson. The England gaffer was rumoured to be watching Nigel Reo-Coker, though given Sven’s curious squad choices of the time, Tommy Repka probably thought he was in with a chance of a call-up.
It took us an hour to get the goal our attacking play deserved, sub Sheringham scoring with his first touch – a fine slotted finish on his left foot. Eight minutes later came the controversy. Paul Konchesky’s free-kick was accidentally nodded goalbound by Boro centre-half Chris Riggott. Still there seemed little danger. Even when the ball took a slightly unusual bounce, ‘keeper Mark Schwarzer adapted his dive to catch the ball comfortably. All seemed well until the linesman on the far side started waving his flag frantically.
No-one was any the wiser. Had he spotted an old schoolmate in the crowd? Was he trying to ward off an incoming aircraft? Or was he in sudden need of emptying his bowels?
Incredibly, he was signalling that the ball had crossed the line. It was a scandalous decision. On the touchline Boro boss Steve McClaren was incandescent in rage. Whilst a sheepish Pardew looked like a man who’d just found a sly tenner down the side of his train seat. The enraged visitors mounted a temporary comeback and scored with three minutes to go. Thankfully it was too little, too late.
The win kept us comfortably in the top ten. We were still upsetting the odds. We were getting points when we didn’t deserve them. And even the linesmen were on our side.
Life was good.
Sid has a book out: ‘Highs, Lows and Di Canios: The Fans’ Guide to West Ham United in the 90s’. Head into the official West Ham store for a rollercoaster ride through one of the most turbulent decades in Claret & Blue history.
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of West Ham United.
