Games That Made Us

Daniel Hurley

Description

1992 to 2022 was a period like no other for West Ham United. Taking in the rise of the Premier League, promotion, relegation, European nights and so much more, Daniel Hurley looks at key moments in West Ham's recent history from a fan's perspective, remembering joy and despair in equal measure along his journey as a football supporter from child to adult. The Games That Made Us is the story of an unforgettable period in West Ham's history told through the club's 50 most important matches over the past 30 years, with each game put into context and the consequences examined. From Dicks to Di Canio, Harewood to Antonio, Redknapp to Allardyce, The Games That Made Us tells tales of last-minute winners and last-second heartbreak, of trips to Cardiff, 5-4 victories and 4-2 defeats, plus more matches against Wimbledon than you would expect. Find out how a former manager once gave Daniel a transfer exclusive, why his son's first game was possibly the worst debut in history and why John Hartson ruined his 14th birthday.

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 15 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781801503044
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2021
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Daniel Hurley, 2022
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781801501484
eBook ISBN 9781801503044
---
eBook Conversion by www.eBookPartnership.com
Contents
Introduction: 1992
1. 1993
2. 1994
3. 1995
4. 1996
5. 1997
6. 1998
7. 1999
8. 2000
9. 2001
10. 2002
11. 2003
12. 2004
13. 2005
14. 2006
15. 2007
16. 2008
17. 2009
18. 2010
19. 2011
20. 2012
21. 2013
22. 2014
23. 2015
24. 2016
25. 2017
26. 2018
27. 2019
28. 2020
29. 2021
30. 2022
Photos
To Kate, Jack Adam - I was put on this earth for the three of you.
To Mum, Michael Callum - Thank you for being there for me, any every time I ve ever needed you.
To Dad - This is as much your story as it is mine.
To Nan and Grandad - It makes me smile knowing how proud of this book you both would have been. I miss you every day.
Introduction
1992
EVERY JOURNEY has a first step. And mine, on this long and winding road we call being a football supporter, was taken on Saturday, 21 November 1992.
This was not the day of my first game, however. It was indeed the day of a game I was attending, a home match against Oxford United in the newly renamed Division One, one rung under the brand spanking new Premier League that had begun three months earlier. But my first game? No it wasn t.
The truth is I have absolutely no idea which was my first game. My dad thinks it may have been a testimonial against Ipswich a couple of years previously, but his guess is as good as mine.
Because prior to this day and this match in November 1992, I had no interest in football whatsoever. It was something I was being made to sit through and I was going to commit as little of it to memory as I could.
Don t worry, the interest does pick up as we go on
But at this point, there was none. Nothing. Football was just an inconvenient, cold way to spend a Saturday afternoon with my dad. I had no idea why he was putting me through this. It wasn t like I had shown any interest in playing the sport, let alone watching it. And to say my ability matched my lack of interest in playing was an understatement. (Sadly, the ability has never been there even when the interest picked up!)
I have a memory of a football match against our local primary school, which I was technically part of, although I was more standing still and watching. At one point the ball was passed to me, I ll assume by accident. Rather than trying to do something useful like the other kids, I saw people running towards me, panicked and picked the ball up and threw it as far away from me as I could. I don t remember if Dad was there watching me at this game; I m guessing that he wasn t as we are still on speaking terms.
So why was he putting me through this?
Looking back, it makes complete sense. Dad had been going to Upton Park for several years at this point with my Uncle Dan, (his brother-in-law), but Uncle Dan had given up his season ticket at the end of the calamitous relegation season of 1991/92, making the more than reasonable decision that his Saturdays would be better spent not watching fans run on to the pitch protesting against the board as oppositions battered us.
So, Dad, for the first time in the 25 years he d been going to watch West Ham, found himself without a match-going companion. And this was where young Daniel came in.
Only for the early matches, I didn t come alone. Oh no. I brought along ten, 15, maybe even 20 companions. And in the grand tradition of apparently every match played in the terraces era of football, they were all smuggled in for free. Well, I say smuggled. They were brought in a carrier bag. They did however, all have double-hard nicknames like I imagine a lot of the people who went to football in the 70s did: nicknames such as Boss Man, Hulk, the Snake and the Animal. The only difference was my companions weren t there to cause trouble, they were there to keep me entertained. For they were 6in-high WWF Wrestling figures, who would have marathon Royal Rumble-type matches while Dad and a few other blokes sat, watched, and complained about what was happening on the grass in front of me.
(As an aside, if you want a working example of how much football has changed over the last 30 years, nowadays you can t take a bottle top into a ground, but back then nobody thought twice about letting somebody into a ground with 15 solid, 6inlumps of plastic )
And that was my main confusion about my first few experiences of going to a football match; all people seemed to do was complain. Nothing good ever happened as West Ham never scored, so all Dad and the other people around us ever did was moan and occasionally laugh at my wrestling commentary ( one, two, oh he kicked out! You know the stuff). I remember a couple of people saying to Dad that what I was doing looked like more fun than what they were watching, which says a lot.
The whole thing really confused me, to be honest, I couldn t work out why all these people would spend their day going to watch something that they didn t seem to enjoy whatsoever, they just sat there shouting and getting angrier and angrier. Nobody was forcing them to be there, so why did they bother doing something they didn t have to do, when it just made them sad?
Sometimes I still ask myself that question.
I remember seeing us lose a game, I assume against Charlton from my research, when there seemed to be about 50 people in the stadium, and then a 1-0 loss to Swindon sticks in the mind as every time I looked up from my intense Hulk Hogan v Macho Man match, their goalkeeper seemed to be flying through the air making another save, and then Swindon scored which sent everybody in the ground into blind fury and caused my confusion to grow yet further.
But as it seemed like this was a thing we were going to be doing, despite nobody enjoying it or wanting to be there, for a match against Oxford I made a big decision, one that has ended up being the biggest decision that I had made in my seven years and ten months on the planet that point.
I left the wrestlers in the car.
That s right, I decided, for the sixth or seventh game of football that I d been to, that this time I was going to change things up and watch a game of football. Time to find out if this was something I could actually have even the slightest bit of interest in.
Two minutes after the game kicked off, a player called John Durnin put Oxford 1-0 up. What had I done? The Million Dollar Man could have been fighting the Hulkster for the championship now, but instead I had to sit and watch this for what would feel like 40 hours.
But then, something odd happened. Five or so minutes later, West Ham attacked, the ball was crossed in and our vastly experienced striker Clive Allen turned the ball into the net! We d scored a goal, with me in the crowd, surely there must have been some sort of mistake? Everybody jumped up, I sort of, but not quite, joined them as this was something that I was in no way prepared for, and off we went again.
Five minutes after that, right-back Tim Breacker, a player who in years to come would become one of my favourites (his constant forays forward from right-back were decades ahead of his time), steamed towards the area, was passed the ball, ran on with it and then smashed it into the net. We d scored again! Two actual goals, in the first 15 minutes! We were winning!
Oh, I was jumping up at that one let me tell you. Seven-yearold Daniel was fully on board, he could get used to this. A few minutes later, it got even better, courtesy of somebody I hadn t heard of at that point, but somebody that was about to become a very big part of my young and teenage life.
A long ball up field from our left-back Julian Dicks was scrambled clear by the Oxford defence, before being won back by midfielder Kevin Keen, who casually back-heeled the loose ball to Dicks, who d moved up the pitch and was now around 30 yards from goal.
What happened next was something I didn t realise people could do in real life. Left-footed, first time, an absolute howitzer into the top corner of the net. I didn t even see it go in. I jumped up in bewilderment, I remember Dad picking me up in joy, a goal celebration he would do many more times in the coming years, and one if he attempted to replicate today would probably lead to his death
Video footage for this game does exist, and while somewhat basic it is fair to say, it s absolutely perfect for this goal, as the camera doesn t manage to keep up with the ball after Dicks has hit it. This corroborates exactly with the memory I have of the strike, only on video the ball doesn t burst into flames upon hitting the net, which I m almost positive it did that day. In my head anyway.
That was it. I was hooked. Thirty minutes, three goals, no wrestling figures, and I understood what all the fuss was about. Why this was a thing so many people seemed to care so much for, why everybody played it in the playground, why Dad wanted me to like it so much.
To this day, it is the greatest gift he has ever given me.
In the second half Dicks did i