Continuing our series commemorating the 40th-anniversary of the Hammers' highest-ever, top-flight finish, Scottish braveheart Neil Orr recalls a remarkable, record-breaking 1985/86 campaign that saw him pitched into a season filled with midfield battles…
Four decades on, Neil Orr will regularly be found steering a golf trolley around the challenging hazards of his local championship links course.
Nowadays, back home in his native Scotland, it is only the wind that is blowing in from the Firth of Forth.
There may not be any Bubbles but the 1985/86 season that saw him help tee-up the Hammers' powerful drive towards their own championship challenge - and a best-ever third-place finish - still remains a cherished memory.
“How can it possibly be 40 years ago?” exclaims the former West Ham United midfielder, who made 175 appearances across seven campaigns in Claret and Blue, after signing from Morton in a £400,000 deal back in January 1982. “I’d had my best pre-season and everything went from there. We’d only just escaped relegation in 1984/85 and then gone to the Kirin Cup in Japan, where we played five games inside ten days.
“That’d been a good experience for everyone and then John Lyall changed the pre-season routine, making it about speed-work rather than our usual stamina-based training with less of his long-distance runs through Epping Forest.
“Looking back, I was injured for three of my six summers at the Club but this time I got a good, solid pre-season under my belt. I’d been out on the training pitches with the lads rather than in the treatment room and really felt a part of the group.”
Down the years, Lyall - born of parents raised in rural Kirriemuir and the Outer Hebrides - had often ventured over Hadrian’s Wall hoping to unearth spirited Scottish warriors and, with compatriots Ray Stewart and Tom McAllister already at the Boleyn Ground, Neil was about to be joined by another Braveheart.
“I didn’t know Frank McAvennie from my days in Scotland because he came along later,” says the 66-year-old, recalling the £340,000 summer-signing from St Mirren, who would mark his own arrival by netting 28 times in a standout debut season down West Ham way. “Playing alongside Tony Cottee, we’d found another creative player up front, who had speed and could score.
“Mark Ward [a £225,000 capture from Oldham Athletic] was also another good signing. In Frank and Wardie, two good characters had come into the squad but once the season began, we still made a very slow start.”
Indeed, while McAvennie bagged a quickfire half-dozen goals in his first seven matches, crucially, the Hammers managed to record just one victory during that time.
An opening-day injury to striker Paul Goddard had, ironically, resulted in the new-found Scottish scoring sensation pushing further forward and, with Geoff Pike recovering from summer surgery, the astute Lyall had then pitched Neil into the midfield void.
“John always maintained he’d signed me as ‘one for the future’ and, back home, I’d been viewed as a central defender. After everything that Billy Bonds had achieved at West Ham, nobody was ever going to replace him but John still wanted me to take his position… eventually. When I left in summer 1987, though, Billy was 41-years-old and still playing!
“Moving me into central midfield, John now looked at me to bring energy into his team and knew I’d more naturally defensive thoughts, too. In Alan Dickens, Alan Devonshire, Wardie and myself, he’d four different types of player, who all complemented each other. In today’s money, I was the sitting/holding midfielder, there to read play, win possession and then let the others do their stuff.
“Dev could carry the ball, Wardie was never frightened to take on players and ‘Dicko’ was so under-rated - he carried the impossible weight of being compared to Trevor Brooking, but Alan had great technique and brilliant passing ability, too.
“It’d been a big shift for me to move into the middle alongside those three but the balance was just right.”
Slowly but surely, Lyall’s lads found their feet, embarking upon both a record-breaking, top-flight, 18-match unbeaten run that extended from late-August through until Boxing Day and a nine-match winning streak.
“Getting results, our confidence was growing with every game,” continues Orr, who reached his century of Football League appearances against Aston Villa (4-1) before scoring his first goal of the season in November’s victory over West Bromwich Albion (4-0). “We gathered momentum and that’s really important when you’re stringing results together.
“Our home win over West Brom kept things going for us into December. We’d only used 14 players plus a couple of substitutes and hadn’t had to change things too often. There’d been minimal disruption.”
Ever-present throughout 26 league and cup matches to date, sadly for Neil, that red-hot 18-match unbeaten run turned to cold turkey in a Boxing Day clash at White Hart Lane, where Tottenham Hotspur carved out a 1-0 victory.
“Ossie Ardiles caught me on the ankle,” he winces. “Although I’d managed to get through the game, it flared up afterwards and I missed our next few matches.
“By now, ‘Pikey’ was fit-again, while a big cold snap meant we’d a few postponements, too. Although I got a couple of FA Cup run-outs, I had to spend a few weeks on the bench.
“From John’s viewpoint, given the way the team was playing, he’d no reason to change things. Across that year, he didn’t have too many decisions to make. I’d come in for Geoff following his operation and now he’d taken his opportunity after I’d injured my ankle. It was the same at left-back, where Steve Walford started before George Parris got the call and did really well in his place.”
With Orr’s pre-Christmas form having inked his name onto every team-sheet, Neil finally reclaimed his starting spot in mid-March as West Ham played catch-up following that winter wipe-out and a prolonged run to the FA Cup quarter-finals.
Come Easter, the Hammers were faced with 13 fixtures inside a frantic final 38 days of the campaign.
“Now we’d a game every three days and everyone still wanted to play in every match possible,” contends Neil. “We’d only one man on the bench, whereas they’ve five substitutes today plus another four who won’t even get on. Our recovery routine was nowhere near as scientific, while the pitches were heavier, too.”
Relentlessly chasing Liverpool and Everton at the top of the table, going into mid-April the Hammers recorded five straight victories, including an emphatic 8-1 win over Newcastle United, in which Neil bagged his second goal of the season with a 25-yarder.
“Everything went wrong for them that night, while everything went right for us,” nods Orr, recalling that Toon trouncing. “I was usually a one-goal-per-season man so it was good to get a couple that year, although they didn’t decide the actual outcome of the games.
“Alvin’s late penalty got him his hat-trick against three different goalkeepers and, with Ray being our regular taker, I remember John having a go, saying: ‘The title could come down to goal difference.’ As manager, he was so meticulous, and I don’t know what would’ve happened had Alvin missed!”
Eventually netting a total of five goals in Club colours, West Ham never lost when Orr scored.
The Hammers' final home fixture saw them come from behind to secure a tense yet thrilling victory over relegation-bound Ipswich Town (2-1) thanks to Dickens’ screamer and Stewart’s penalty.
“That was a tight game, but we still had lots of belief, which got us through our last few matches, when we’d good crowds, who’d created great atmospheres, too.”
Going into the final Saturday, three points for second-placed West Ham at West Bromwich Albion in their penultimate match of 1985/86, coupled with a draw or defeat for leaders Liverpool at Chelsea, would have resulted in Lyall’s lads needing to overcome Everton, in third, to win the title in two days’ time.
While the heartbroken Hammers duly notched a sixth-straight victory over the Baggies (3-2), the Reds’ win at Stamford Bridge ultimately secured the title for the Merseysiders.
“Form and momentum had carried us that far and, while we’d had a good win at West Brom, going up to Goodison Park our spirit had been broken. We were exhausted,” grimaces Neil, reflecting on a mixed Monday evening on Merseyside, when Everton snatched runners-up spot with a 3-1 win over the bush-whacked Hammers, who nevertheless still achieved that best-ever third-place finish. “I looked at Alvin and thought: ‘He’s still got a World Cup to go to.’”
After leaving the Hammers for Hibernian in 1987, alongside wife Julie, Neil eventually made the trans-Atlantic trek to New Hampshire, coaching at summer soccer camps and the prestigious Dartmouth College.
“Being at an Ivy League university in the USA really whetted my appetite and it opened a pathway,” smiles the father of two, who would subsequently return home to join Edinburgh University, where he combined his Sports & Exercise Science degree studies with a player-coaching role, ahead of joining the Scottish Football Association. “Next, we both had job opportunities in Australia, which was another great experience.”
After becoming Technical Director at Valentine FC and Broadmeadow Magic in Newcastle, New South Wales, Neil later worked for the Northern New South Wales member federation before teaming up with compatriot and former Hammer George Cowie - who made nine appearances for the Club in the early 1980s - to help oversee tours and camps Down Under.
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic saw the couple scramble home to Scotland where son, Kevin, and daughter, Katie, plus five grandchildren - Blair, Elliot, Rosie, Reuben and Matilda - remain close at hand.
In retirement, this Boy of 86 now concentrates on proudly maintaining his scratch-handicap at North Berwick Golf Club, where he caddies for visitors, too.
“Since leaving West Ham, we’ve certainly been far and wide,” concludes Neil, having swapped our historic 18-match top-flight unbeaten run for 18 holes on the historic West Links course. “I often look back on that third-place finish - if only we’d started the season better, we would’ve done it...”
