Boleyn's Farewell

Danny Lewis

Description

When the final whistle was blown at Upton Park on 10 May 2016, it was more than a football match that had ended. West Ham United's victory over Manchester United was the club's spectacular swansong after 112 years at its spiritual home. The Boleyn's Farewell: West Ham's Final Game at Upton Park delves into one of the club's most historic nights, with insight from players, fans and others who were there. Everything from the atmosphere before the game, Winston Reid's winner and the digitised Bobby Moore switching off the stadium lights, the build-up and aftermath of the game, as well as the on-pitch action are recounted and celebrated within these pages. This was an evening that would come to define a generation and is unforgettable for many West Ham supporters. While the Boleyn Ground no longer stands, memories of the stadium and the Hammers' glorious farewell performance will endure. The Boleyn's Farewell is the definitive account of one of the most significant matches in West Ham's long history.

Sujets

• Gran Londres
• Greater London
• Grand Londres
• London

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 10 mai 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785319334
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2021
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
© Danny Lewis, 2021
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781785317743
eBook ISBN 9781785319334
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Contents
Foreword by Tony Cottee
Introduction
1. The Backdrop
2. Preparation
3. Before The Game
4. First Half
5. Half-Time
6. Second Half
7. The Ceremony
8. It’s All Over
9. The Aftermath
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Photos
Foreword by Tony Cottee
WHAT DOES the Boleyn Ground mean to me? Memories.
As much as I enjoy the new experience of going to the London Stadium as the passionate West Ham fan that I am, it’s not quite the same day out as it used to be. Like many other supporters, I yearn for the good old days.
From the moment that I first went to a game at the Boleyn in 1972, I was hooked, but the memories of my fore-bears had already been planted deep inside me by my dad. Tales of my great uncle being a founding member of the Supporters’ Club, the 1923 White Horse FA Cup Final, 1964, 1965 and the West Ham World Cup winners of ’66 were repeatedly recounted by all members of my elderly family in my early years.
But such wonderful stories always seemed to end back at the Boleyn, with more talk about the great nights under the floodlights there and the special atmosphere that only Hammers fans can generate. I can remember my dad giving me permission to stay up late and watch the legendary Gordon Banks save Geoff Hurst’s penalty in 1971: if only!
By the late 1970s, I was a teenage season ticket holder going to every game and I loved every minute of it, watching my heroes Pop Robson and David Cross bang the goals in. I loved the whole day and my journey to and from the Boleyn. Two buses from Collier Row to the top of Green Street, then walk down the road to the stadium. Lower West Side, opposite the six-yard box to start with and normally ending up opposite the 18-yard box after all the surging on the terraces during the game! After the match, another walk back up Green Street, with a regular stop at the chip shop for my saveloy and chips and then home to watch Match of the Day . The Boleyn fan experience was the best.
The Villa quarter-final in 1980, the Coventry semi-final in 1981 and the West Ham fans clapping off the Dinamo Tbilisi team after we had lost 4-1 at the Boleyn are quite simply some of the best memories of my time as a fan. The halcyon days!
On 1 January 1983, I made my debut and scored the first of my 146 goals for the club. I scored over 300 goals in my career, but I can honestly say that the feeling after my first one, at the South Bank end of the Boleyn, was the best I ever felt in my career.
Not all of my memories are good ones, which goes without saying as a Hammer. The saddest is the death of my grandad from a heart attack in January 1980 before the kick-off of the FA Cup third round replay against West Bromwich Albion. All I can say though is what a way to go – under the nameplate in front of the West Stand! If I could nominate my way to leave this life, I would love to emulate my grandad.
Apart from my playing days, one of my best days as a fan was the last game at the Boleyn, which I’ve described in this book. The ground was given a proper send-off that night and I will always cherish what happened there back in May 2016.
I’ve not been back to where the ground used to stand since that night, and I don’t have any plans to either. The reason is quite simple: memories.
All my love for the club, the fans and all my personal achievements happened at the Boleyn and although the old lady is no longer with us, my memories will never die!
Enjoy the book.
Introduction
IT’S FRIDAY, 11 September 2020, the day before West Ham United kick off their 2020/21 Premier League campaign. The Hammers just about managed to stay up last season, and pessimism is in no short order. After making his loan move permanent, Tomáš Souček is the only signing so far, while Grady Diangana being sold has created uproar among the entire fanbase.
However, in my mind, all of that can wait until tomorrow, as my head is stuck firmly in the past. Today is the day I return to Upton Park for the first time since the final game at the Boleyn Ground. I had never really had a reason to come back before now, but it was also something I would have gone out of my way to avoid at all costs – I never wanted to see anything filling the space the club’s spiritual home once stood on. There is something about writing this book that compels me to go back, though. Despite the stadium no longer being there, while writing about that historic night in 2016, it feels important to be close to the area where it had taken place at least once.
Still, there is a very real sense of nervousness as I leave the house, fumbling around with my keys and checking I have everything I need a million times. It feels like I’m making a pilgrimage of sorts, only in this one, the very thing that made this site feel holy has been razed to the ground and is still being built on.
To fit in with the book’s theme, I would have loved to have taken the same route as I did for the Boleyn’s swansong. However, that would involve me going back to my old university halls in Bournemouth. Instead, I do the next best thing and take the route from when I was growing up, back when I was a fresh-faced kid who couldn’t wait to wolf down a bacon sandwich after football training and get to my favourite place in the whole world.
As I get off the train to switch at West Ham station, I have vivid memories of sprinting through it with my dad, purely so we could catch the next train and get to the ground as quickly as possible. As I step on to the platform for the last leg of the journey, I recall the excitement of standing alongside others in claret and blue and how the mere sight of other fans got me up for each and every game. There had always been an unspoken bond between all of us, which is something I had loved.
However, as much as all of this is going on in my mind, this is just a normal day for everyone else. That fact is made abundantly clear to me when I get off the train at Upton Park station to be hit by a wall of silence, with everyone else just going about their daily business. There is nobody shouting ‘Irons’ at the top of their voice, no hustle and bustle, just a couple of people on the opposite platform wondering why I’m taking a picture of the Upton Park sign.
If I’m honest, I don’t really know what to expect as I journey out on to Green Street. Coronavirus has meant that I’m now used to places feeling slightly different than they had before lockdown. It has, however, been more than four years since I last walked on these pavements and the difference was always going to be drastic.
First impressions tell me this is just a normal place now. The market is still going, shops still tick along and there is a little bit of activity from local residents. Normal isn’t what I had known this place for, though. There is now no Gary Firmager on his step selling copies of Over Land and Sea . No burger vans. Nobody shouting out to buy two bags of sweets for a pound. Nobody competing to shout ‘Irons’ the loudest and longest. No one selling a matchday programme. No score predictions. No excitement in the air. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.
A place that had once lived under the shadow of the Boleyn Ground is now only towered over by a crane and some flats. Where this site had once been filled with the noise of chants, cheers, boos and everything else that comes when football fans convene, all I can hear now is constant drilling and machines at work.
The site where the Boleyn Ground once stood is now occupied by flats, but it is still a work-in-progress. There is a mixture of works and scaffolding that is impossible to ignore when walking past, with diggers on the go and labourers carrying parts. As I head to the back of the development, there are people entering one of the completed parts of the building with shopping bags. That used to be the ticket office where I got my replacement ticket for the Leicester City game in that final season, having forgotten my season card. I had hoped to see the section where the Bobby Moore Upper entrance had once been, as that’s where I had sat for our beloved stadium’s final few seasons, but that is currently cordoned off.
I knew all of this was coming, but it still doesn’t prevent the immense change from being a shock to the system. This means I can feel my heart racing as I walk down the same roads I had done every other weekend for 11 years. There’s something in the fact that the work still isn’t finished despite all the time that has passed, which makes it feel almost like the Boleyn is hanging on to everything it had represented and stood for – even though in reality that is ludicrous.
One thing that gets me is the famous ‘LONG LIVE THE BOLEYN’ graffiti. Two people – one of whom clearly goes by Gabz – had decided to add their own mark to the wall. There is also a collection of bin bags and litter directly beneath the wall that had been spread across social media so