I recently read something I never expected to read.
It was a compliment from a Millwall fan to West Ham United. I am not sure if it was through gritted teeth or not, but it certainly gave the impression of sincerity.
His point was that his bitter rivals should be praised for their commitment to buying English players and supporting home grown talent.
A recent count showed there had been around 70 transfers made during the English Premiership’s close season. Only sixth of those were English players moving to a top flight team. To West Ham’s credit, two of those were to the East End, with one of the other’s being Jonjo Shelvey, who was a junior at the club.
The above fact can be added to. Not only are we actively dipping into English talent, but we have the highest ranked English manager in Big Sam. Furthermore, which is a rarity these days, we have English owners.
This is something I am proud of, and as a Brit abroad in Australia, it got me thinking about a longer term trend around England and West Ham.
West Ham are the last team to win the FA Cup with an all English side. This was back in 1975 and the line-up is below.
The team sheet also shows we had an English manager back then. We beat the great Bobby Moore’s retirement club, Fulham, that day. To be fair to the opposition, if it was not for Jimmy Conway, they were within touching distance from having the same boast as us. Maybe this highlights how the times have changed.
Another more recent stat was published recently in the papers, and again gave reason to boost our boasting. This was that if the final league table was based on English players alone, West Ham would have been champions last season, with Liverpool second.
It’s a bit of a ‘what if’ stat, but there is more to this. If we look at the Bundesliga, and the relative success of the German national team, it’s a prominent example of how important home grown players are in the domestic league.
Two German clubs made this year’s Champions League final, and their national team seems to have one of the most consistent levels of success on the international stage. Is this a product of the high concentration of home grown players in their league?
What I do know is that West Ham has always flown the flag for England. Maybe it’s the Academy that gives us this edge? Just look at the quality that has come through under the watchful eye of Tony Carr. Maybe it’s a conscious decision by our owners and manager to move forward in this direction? One thing is for sure that the last time this type of involvement happened in England from our club, West Ham won the World Cup!
With out Westham , we would have never won the world cup in 1966, the players that did it for England, yes there was 11 players that day, but it was west ham elite that scored the goals, all these big English clubs have won with loads of money, but westham won without it, so that tells you a lot, and most of them have been British westham players, and not from Europe. So we have always been one of the top teams in this country. We are the elite. Macca westham f.c.