Now more often than not over my years at the Boleyn Ground we have been lucky enough to have been entertained by some great players, Frank McAvennie, Paolo Di Canio, Joe Cole and Carlos Tevez, to name just a few.
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However, it is fair to say that I have seen many a team or sometimes certain individuals come to town and turn us over. Now it goes without saying that I like to see West Ham win, I get the major hump if we lose, and my girlfriend regularly mentions that I am in a bad mood between the months of August to May! But sometimes you have to hold your hands up and admit, yep we were well beaten, they/he were quality so no complaints from me!
With regards team performances there are two that stand out over the years. Now the first I will doubt I will be on any of your lists as it involves the might that is Queens Park Rangers! It was August 1993 and West Ham had just been promoted to the Premier League and following a midweek win over Sheffield Wednesday we fancied our chances of back to back victories. QPR had a different idea, at the time they were one of the top London clubs and upfront they had Les Ferdinand who was arguably hitting the prime of his career. On the day he scored twice and completely tore us apart. It was a complete strikers display, strength, pace, hard-work, and clinical finishing. He was being marked by Colin Foster though, so he has probably had harder days at the office. The final score was 4-0 to QPR and the scoring was completed by the Premier League legends that are Darren Peacock and Gary Penrice! A long and hard season looked on the cards, however, a couple of weeks later Billy Bonds and Harry Redknapp sold Julian Dicks and rather unbelievably David Burrows, Mike Marsh and Lee Chapman came in and kick-started our season. But the QPR defeat some 20 years on still sits uncomfortably with me and in true West Ham style we bought Les Ferdinand some 10 years later in attempt to avoid relegation………it did not work!
Now the other performance which stands out for me is from a more obvious team, Manchester United. They visited the Boleyn on 16 March 2002, we were sitting comfortably in mid-table, this despite Glenn Roeder being manager! Our starting 11 was useful with Carrick, Cole, Di Canio and Kanoute all starting. United were strong, Beckham, Scholes, Keane, van Nistelrooy and Solskjaer were all playing. The game was a thriller, proper end to end stuff and we led twice with goals from Lomas and Kanoute, however, despite how good we were, United were different gravy that day and went onto win the game 5-3! Now say what you like about Beckham, but if you strip away all the PR, he was a very good footballer and in this game he was a different gear, scoring two goals, one a delightful chip which beat David James all ends up! Roy Keane was still in his prime, a proper midfielder, while Scholes knocked the ball about without any fuss, again another proper midfielder. We were great on the day and gave United a real game of football, but their extra class in the end was the deciding factor.
With regards individual performances I was very impressed with Ruud Gullit who was the star man in a very average Chelsea team in the mid 1990’s. Chelsea won at our place on the night Julian Dicks accidently landed on John Spencer’s head, but Gullit was the best player on the pitch by a country mile, a real joy to watch, he made the game look simple and carried an average Chelsea side who at the time were an also ran Premier League team.
The other player I remember impressing me was Matthew Le Tissier. Southampton came to us on the last day of the season and I believe they needed a point to avoid relegation, I could be wrong here. Now I am sure plenty of Saint fans will agree that Le Tissier was a bit of a one man team at times and I am sure we all agree that he was a top notch player. He was on fire in this game, despite our fans continually chanting “Big nose he’s got a fecking big nose”, which in all fairness he took in good jest! He scored a stunning free kick in front in front of the old North Bank and this shut us all up and he then went on to get an assist as the game finished 3-3. I always found Le Tissier great to watch and I admired his loyalty to the Saints, however, the argument could be that he lacked ambition, I don’t buy that argument and I feel the game is lacking badly in this regard now.
To be honest no other individual performance or players stand out, yes, I have since us beaten many times by better teams but more often than not this is due to us being utter rubbish and these teams simply had to turn up and win!
Last season is fresher in the memory and the two players that stand out are first the obvious one, this being Gareth Bale, he was superb in both games against us, in particular at our place, the pain of his last minute winner is still very raw. The other stand out player for me was Santi Cazorla, when Arsenal came to our place. What a player, great technique, balance, passing and to cap it all he scored a pretty good goal.
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But I go to watch West Ham players, these are the ones that excite me and will continue to excite me and long may this continue, now let’s hope Gareth Bale does head to Madrid as I don’t fancy seeing him tearing us apart again.
COYI…..
