What Do Moore, Dicks and Lansbury Have In Common For West Ham?

Quick quiz question for you all: What do Bobby Moore, Julian Dicks and Henri Lansbury have in common in relation to the history of West Ham United? Anyone? The answer is all are outfield players who have ended up playing in goal for us! Whilst I’m sure many of you got the answer, I thought it would be fun to look back at these occasions and the other, lesser remembered moments of role reversal.

In the 1972 League Cup semi-final replay, first choice ‘keeper Bobby Ferguson was injured. Playing in what was literally a swamp, our Bobby put on the green jersey and faced up to the Stoke attack from a less familiar position than he was used to. This was headline-worthy enough. However saving a penalty that was hurtling towards his face, despite the rebound being put away, is still a memory etched in hammers’ folklore. The match ended in a 3-2 defeat yet it was just another case of Mooro doing all he could for the claret and blue.

Julian Dicks is another player classed as an East End legend who has done a stint between the posts for us. Live on Sky versus Everton in December 1995. Already 1-0 behind and without a replacement goalkeeper on the bench, Ludo Miklosko badly challenged Toffees’ striker Daniel Amokachi earning the Czech a straight red card. With the opinion of ‘nobody else will do it’ Dicksy played out the remainder of the game in his place, conceding a penalty and a John Ebbrell goal, the latter after he’d saved another chance from Amokachi. Typical cockney humour greeted every touch Dicks made with choruses of ‘England’s number one!’ Dicks also won man of the match.

The final outfield player to play in goal that I can think of (though there might be others!) is Henri Lansbury. 2-1 up at half-time and a wee bit under the cosh as the second half kicked off, first-choice ‘keeper Rob Green (remember him?!) had a rush of blood to the head and was sent off for a foul on Roman Bednar. Like Harry before him, Big Sam hadn’t picked a substitute keeper and was forced to play an outfield player. Step forward Henri Lansbury! No stranger to donning the gloves after once finishing an under-21 international in goal, and superbly protected by the defenc, Henri kept a clean sheet in his 38 minutes in goal. Choruses rang around the away fans’ enclosure of ‘Are you Ludo in disguise?!’ as West Ham added to their tally and ran out 4-1 victors.

Whereas these were all examples of outfield players taking the goalkeeper’s jersey, another role reversal happened under Harry but with less success. Whereas in the cases of Moore and Dicks it was damage limitation, and with Lansbury a successful replacement, Harry’s experiment against Arsenal proved memorable, though unsuccessful. Trailing 1-0 and lacking a hustling, powerful presence up front, Harry threw on second choice goalkeeper Les Sealey up front. Giving him Keith Rowland’s shirt to play up front, Les barely got a touch, let alone worry the Gunners defence and the result ended as it was when he entered the fray. I’m unsure if this managerial ‘skill’ had a bearing on future hammer Stuart Pearce but he did the same with David James at Manchester City. Maybe that’s the reason Roy Hodgson got the England job? Keep blowing bubbles Smudgy