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For The Claret & Blue. Mickey Smith
Читать онлайн.Название For The Claret & Blue
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781843586906
Автор произведения Mickey Smith
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство Ingram
People were going mental, hugging and kissing. My old man was nearly crying and I was jumping up and down. A chorus of ‘E-I-A-D-E-O WE WON THE CUP’ burst out, quickly followed by ‘Bubbles’. It was so loud! Bobby Moore lifted the Cup and celebrations were of the extreme. Bobby was named ‘footballer of the year’ that season. He was loved by all West Ham and you would never hear a bad word spoken about him.
After about an hour the crowd was thinning out. I had lost the old man or he lost me, I dunno. I finally got out of the stadium and headed to the tube. People were still celebrating, dancing around, singing. The Greyhound pub was packed – no good looking for the old man there, I would never find him. I headed home. The tube was full of singing West Ham fans. A few Preston lads were on the carriage I was on. There was no trouble, a bit of gentle banter and hand-shaking mainly. Back at Mile End and outside the station the pubs were packed and had people spilling out on to the pavement.
I went home to find the old man had beaten me home, picked up Mum and headed down to Green Street to celebrate. My brother told me he was off too but that I had to stay home. Yeah, right! I was out like a shot, meeting my mates and going over the game time and time again with them, showing off my new scarf and rosette. I was the talk of the street amongst our lot of friends – what a way to see your first senior game!
I went to a few more reserves games after that but they seemed tame. Even the odd time I was taken to see the first team it still was not as good as the final crowd but a lot louder than the reserve games. I got to see a lot of first-team football from then on. I saw two European games – Sparta Prague and the semi-final of the ECWC playing Real Zaragossa in a packed Upton Park.
We made it through to our first Euro final again at Wembley, playing TSV Munchen 1860. I really wanted to go to this one and the old man kept me dangling. I made sure all the odd jobs were done around the house, kept my shoes clean, offered to clean the old man’s boots, tried to stay out of trouble at school and at home and when I finally got the nod that me and my older brother were going as well I went mad. Nearly a year after the last final I was to make the trip again, but things were a little different this time. The old man knew I could find my way around all right and me and my brother were to meet him at the Two Puddings pub at Stratford at opening time. We found out later that it was open nearly all day.
I was raring to go, this time scarf ready but no rosette. I had flogged that for a quid at school – not bad money in those days, but as it turned out the kid who bought it had done his gas meter in to buy it and got into all sorts of trouble. He never told why he wanted the money. If he had, my final trip would have looked shaky.
We finally left Stratford and got the tube to Mile End and changed lines again. The trains were full of West Ham fans and many seemed more confident this time. The old man gave us our tickets, a sign to us that if we got split up we could get in OK. A few bob each from him and our uncles and we were set.
Arriving at Wembley station we lost our old man and uncles, or they lost us, but we did not care. I was ‘Jack the Lad’ at this lark now and showed my brother the way around once inside the ground. My brother and I got some light ales at one of the bars. He was older, and if asked said the drinks were ‘for Dad, mister’. We had about four to five small bottles I remember, then some barley wine. I felt funny and don’t recall much of the game except we won 2-0 and we were going potty. The Cup duly lifted, songs sang, we made our way home, a journey which seemed to go on forever.
Back at Mile End the scene was the same as the previous year – people going mad all over. I felt sick and was worried what would happen. When I got home Mum was there and asked what was wrong. We said we had eaten one of those hamburgers you could get at the game (you know the ones – a piece of rubber between a stale flat roll slopped on with a ton of semi-cooked onions) and had felt bad since. She gave us a funny look. We were hoping she could not smell the drink on us. Thank God for Bazooka Joe bubble gum! She made us a cream soda with milk and packed us off to bed saying we would be OK by the morning. I don’t know what time the old man got home but found out later that he came and got Mum again and went down East Ham way to my uncle’s place.
The next morning we made our way on to the Mile End Road hoping that like the year before the Cup-winning team would come along there showing off their Cup. Once there we knew they would be coming as thousands of people were milling around. Some looked like they just got back from the game, singing, mainly drunkenly, cheering, loads dancing. It was a funny sight. I have often wondered how many did not show up for work – loads it must have been, but no one seemed to care.
West Ham had won the ECWC only once. It had been won once before by Tottenham. This was a mainly all-English affair with local lad Brian Dear scoring both goals. I have watched the game many times on the telly years later and still believe it was one of the finest Wembley finals ever. Champagne football, that was what West Ham were known for – the entertaining Hammers – and how true that was. I had been to my second final in as many years but little did I know I had a third coming up, a game with which many Hammers fans claim – and rightly so – that West Ham won the World Cup. I went to Wembley many times in later years after those three games to see other finals, but it was never the same atmosphere that I had felt at the West Ham finals.
I went to the 1967 all-London final and to say I hated it would be a fair statement. I went again in 1973 and that was quite good but the noise and atmosphere was nothing compared to the 1964 game.
There wasn’t much fighting in those days. The odd punch-up but nothing like the organised carnage that swept the game for years to come. I saw a fair bit at the 1967 final but nothing to write home about.
I knew that West Ham were the team (and supporters) for me. They were all I knew and loved. It was reared in me – from my granddad, who went to the first Wembley final, right though to me and my brothers. When my brother supported Wolves for a while I recall that my uncles kept asking my dad what he did to make him that way – and, indeed, I overheard him saying he did not know where he went wrong, such was the loyalty to West Ham in our family. To even think about following another side, like the double-winning Tottenham, was not on round our way. A few kids did, but they paid for it big time in the end, only being allowed to join in games of football or cannon now and then. They were prime targets for crushing tackles and the like.
We used to play over in Victoria Park against kids from Roman Road, whose area took in Bow Boys School – a bitter enemy, as our schools hated each other. It always ended with some kid from both sides steaming off in tears, saying, ‘I’m gonna get my big brother’ and so on. If a kid played who was not West Ham he would be last to be picked and very rarely made it through a game without copping a dead leg tackle or a big sliding tackle that saw him fly up in the air. No one cared and many laughed – he wasn’t West Ham and he did not count. It was after many of these tackles and this treatment that my brother saw sense and became a Hammer. The games got better for him from then on and we seemed to have less fights with the other lads.
My first game on my own was against the Busby Babes in 1967. A big game for them, because a win against West Ham and they would have clinched the title. That day was madness on and