As writing about the current manager, team and the club itself has become too depressing for words most of the time, let’s reflect and remind ourselves of better times, when football was a much simpler game, the fans were largely content to pay their money and be entertained (even when we lost) without aspiring to actually win a trophy, and the world was a better place.
I particularly like this small passage of text (below) extracted from a much longer piece written by Terry Roper that will appear in the next issue of EX magazine, and I’d like to share it with WHTID devotees who don’t get our quarterly publication.
For me, Trevor Brooking was the greatest Hammer of all, for many of the reasons Terry spells out here. This is a reminder of how our heroes used to be. Indeed, it is the definition of a true footballing hero.
The majestic Brooking won the Hammer of the Year award four times during this decade – in 1972, 1976, 1977 and 1978 – plus a further win in 1984. He is the only player to have won the trophy on five separate occasions.
Brooking’s career was one of almost sanctified respectability, just one booking in 634 league and cup appearances. It was not because he was ostentatiously virtuous, but because he was – and remains – a thoroughly decent man who was very serious about his responsibilities as a professional footballer and, also, towards the club whose colours he wore with such distinction.
One suspects that Brooking was always confident of giving his courtesies to an opponent, because, even when he was beaten, he knew without any trace of arrogance that he was one of the most talented and cultured footballers ever to play the game.
Indeed, Brooking had a truly unique aspect to his armoury inasmuch that, when accepting a pass from a team-mate, he had the wonderful ability to allow the ball to ‘run’ across his body which opened up the whole pitch, thus giving him crucial time and space in which to work his magic.
However, despite whatever else Brooking achieved in his illustrious career, it is a fact that everything about him was immortalised with just one header in the 1980 FA Cup Final against mighty Arsenal at Wembley. One act, one deed, one moment. It was the goal that won the FA Cup for West Ham in the most unlikely of circumstances and gave their fans a euphoric sense of imperishable significance in the club’s history.
Football remains a myth-maker of modern life and Brooking, with that single act, ensured his place as one of West Ham’s favourite sons. Indeed, he was that impossible thing – a superstar without an ego and a hero to whom the concept of being a hero meant absolutely nothing.
Exactly 30 years after his playing career ended, Brooking’s impeccable behaviour on the field of play and the sheer dignity of his bearing still shines like a beacon in a sport that, sadly, abandoned its ethics long ago.