Greatest Escape

Daniel Hurley

Description

As a football fan, there are those seasons which remain indelibly inscribed in the memory. Simply unforgettable. The 2006/07 season remains one of those for fans of West Ham United. A season that began with such promise: Alan Pardew signed two genuine world-class players ahead of the kick-off, but little did the Argentinian pair of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano know they joined a season-long relegation battle. Roll forward to the business end, and with nine matches left to play the Hammers looked doomed. Seven wins from those nine made it arguably the greatest escape in English top-flight history. A season so memorable for all the wrong reasons: going two months without a goal; 11 games without a win; snatching defeat from the jaws of victory against your biggest rivals. Then having survived, on the final day by winning at Old Trafford, extra-time in the courts, with the rest of football saying you had cheated, and the table did lie. The Greatest Escape is the story of the highs, lows and controversies that were the 2006/07 season.

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 18 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781785318931
• 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, 2021
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Print ISBN 9781785318177 eBook ISBN 9781785318931
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Prologue
1. May - August (pre-season)
2. August
3. 31 August and September
4. October
5. Early November
6. Late November
7. December
8. January
9. The Next Five Games
10. March
11. April
12. The Last Four Games
Epilogue
Squad of 2006/07: What Happened Next?
Acknowledgements
TO KATE, for being my sounding board, editor and best friend through this process. I thank you and I love you, with all my heart.
To Jack and Adam for asking me to tell them a story about West Ham while out walking one day, and then enjoying the story I told them enough to think other people might like it too.
Prologue Cardiff, Saturday, 13 May 2006, 4.48pm.
GOOD GOD almighty, we might actually do this . I still remember thinking that to this very day. It was the 90th minute, and we were 3-2 up in the FA Cup Final. Against Liverpool. Liverpool, still the reigning European champions. Surely this couldn t be happening. We d all been in the same stadium a year prior to this day, but in such different circumstances.
Preston in the 2004/05 Championship play-off final was the biggest game I d ever been to, the biggest game most West Ham fans had ever been to. We d been an average-to-poor side through most of the season. We somehow ended up scraping sixth in the league but probably weren t even that good in truth.
Then we were the beneficiaries of Ipswich freezing like a deer in the headlights in a blizzard, just to get through to the final in the first place. And if we d failed to win that game and get back up to the Premier League, we d have joined Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday and Portsmouth on the list of giants that had fallen from their perches and never made it back to the big time.
But we did win that day. It was nervy, God it was nervy. Goalless at half-time and with not much in it, in the 57th minute Matty Etherington, our most important player at the time in my opinion, made his first successful foray down the left in the whole game, crossed from the byline and there was Bobby Zamora to tuck the ball home and put us 1-0 up, giving us a lead we very comfortably held on to. That s if you call your goalkeeper rupturing his knee ligaments, seven minutes added time, and what felt like 127 crosses into the box and even more shots, comfortable.
But we held on, and West Ham United made it back to the Premier League. As we left that day, emotionally exhausted but elated, we all consoled ourselves in the knowledge that after two consecutive years paying for tickets to ride this emotional rollercoaster (first and only time for that clich ) known as the play-off final, we wouldn t have to go through anything like it for a while, and definitely not the following year.
In fact, as nice as Cardiff is, as much fun before the game as it is, with its streets full of (and I mean full of) bars, which thirsty Hammers fans were more than happy to take full advantage of from as early as we were allowed to do so, I think there was an element of relief that we wouldn t be going back there the following year.
And yet 12 months on from that day, here we all were again in something nobody saw coming when the season began in August. A side that was barely the sixth-best team in the Championship in 2004/05 became one of the better teams in the Premier League the following season, giving the West Ham faithful arguably their most enjoyable season since the famous Cottee/McAvennie-inspired third place in 1985/86.
While this is obviously a book about the season after 2005/06, it would be remiss of me not to briefly mention some of the highlights of that wonderful first season back in the top division, which include the following:
Opening day, things start oddly well: The opening day of a season is always one of the most, if not the most, optimistic days in any football fan s calendar. But as a West Ham fan, before or since 2005, it very rarely stays optimistic for long (as I write this in 2020, we have lost our last three opening games 4-0, 4-0 and 5-0).
This looked to be the case when Andy Todd bundled Blackburn, at this time a Mark Hughes-led established upper-level Premier League team, into a 1-0 lead that they held into the second half. But in front of a raucous crowd who clearly realised the challenges this young team could face over the season, second-half goals from veteran striker Teddy Sheringham, captain Nigel Reo-Coker and Etherington gave us a 3-1 win that set the standard for things to come.
Marlon s big night and an amazing day of sport: This one may be more memorable to me than most people, but hey, it s my book, so I will indulge. For me, Daniel Phillip Henry Hurley, Monday, 10 September 2005 was about as close to sporting perfection as it was possible to get.
As well as my passion for West Ham and football in general, I am also a huge cricket fan. This was the day that after spending two summer months watching the 2005 Ashes series, unquestionably the greatest series of cricket ever played, Kevin Pietersen (I imagine making his first-ever appearance in a book about West Ham) smashed Australia around the Oval for 158 and the Ashes came home to England. All this prior to our game at home to Aston Villa that evening.
The win in the cricket, as you can imagine, led to celebrations that involved me and my two best friends and then-university housemates Steve and Chris (even more certainly making their first appearances in a book about West Ham) heading straight to the pub for post-Ashes-winning drinks, pre-football drinks, during football drinks and post-football drinks.
To cut a long story short, Marlon Harewood, our main striker at the time, got over a couple of iffy displays in the first three games to score two goals in the first half hour and a hat-trick in 50 minutes.
The night was then rounded off by Yossi Benayoun, a new signing from Maccabi Haifa, scoring a wonderful fourth goal having twisted and turned Aaron Hughes to the point that he may still struggle with balance to this day.
All in all, it was as perfect a day s sport as it was possible to have, made even better by Chris falling off his chair in the pub shortly after the final whistle. Good times.
Last team at Highbury : We ll talk about the end to that song later, don t worry. By January, things were going extremely well. We were comfortably mid-table and travelled to Highbury knowing a win would put us only two points behind Arsenal, who were only two seasons removed from the great invincibles season and would end up runners-up in the Champions League to Barcelona four months later.
Fair to say, however, that I wasn t at my most hopeful before the game that night, letting my friends know that I wouldn t be up for our usual Wednesday night out at the erm, world-famous Portsmouth University Student Union nightclub (it s a library now, times have changed). After some gentle nudging by my mates, I agreed that I would come and watch the game with them and then head home for a quiet night. Unless we won, which I really couldn t see happening. I mean, the season had been great, so many of our players were in form and looking Premier League quality, but surely rocking up at Arsenal and beating them was a bridge too far?
It looked as if I was spot on with my pessimism over the first 20 minutes, which if my memory is correct consisted mainly of Henry, Pires and Van Persie kicking the ball to each other in and around our goal line but for some reason not kicking the ball over said line.
This odd tactic was taken up a notch after 25 minutes by Sol Campbell deciding to just not kick the ball full stop, which led to Reo-Coker running clean through on goal for what felt like about five minutes before slotting past Jens Lehmann to give us a 1-0 lead. Ridiculously we doubled this lead shortly after when Campbell, clearly not satisfied with his earlier work, decided to react to Bobby Zamora cutting back on to his left foot by essentially falling over in front of him; Zamora somehow wasn t put off by this and curled the ball into the far corner of the net, at which point your author nearly passed out.
Mr Henry clearly took this as a wake-up call and scored a goal of his own in first-half injury time, one of what feels like approximately 362 times in my life I have seen West Ham go 2-0 up in the first half of a game only to let a goal in just before the break (the only reason this number isn t true is because we haven t been 2-0 up in the first half 362 times in my time as a fan; if we had been it would be accurate, trust me).
This would obviously then lead to an Arsenal equaliser and winner in the second half, and an expected defeat coming in a way that makes you more upset than you were anticipating. Always fun when that happens; only this time, it didn t. We held on, stayed in the game, kept pushing forward when we could, and then somehow counter-attacked and scored again.
With ten minutes to