Dunno about you, but I can’t get enough of the Battle for No 10. There are several candidates in this particular bunfight, all of whom will be familiar to the electorate to a greater or lesser degree, but for me the choice is clearly between two men.
There is a popular nationalist who is certain to command a sizeable share of the vote, but I won’t be putting my cross next to his name. Sorry Paolo, this is a straight fight between Sir Geoff Hurst and Sir Trevor Brooking.
There have been many players who have worn West Ham’s No 10 shirt with distinction, but none more so than our knights of the realm.
There have been some duffers as well, of course. Remember Savio Nsereko in 2008-09? The next time you are on the point of getting out of your seat to have a pop at one of the present strikers, think back a few short years and remind yourself just how inept our “record” signing was in comparison. I’ve owned Subbuteo players who were more aware of what was going on around them.
Of course, you can’t have a go at our present No 10. Mauro Zarate – hailed as another marquee signing at the beginning of the season – is on loan at QPR. But I reckon he’s got more chance of eventually getting to grips with the Premier League than Savio ever did.
Squad numbers were first used in the 1958 World Cup, but didn’t become part of English league football until 1993. Our first No 10 under the new system was Clive Allen, who once memorably described Arsene Wenger as “two bob” when he was working as Harry Redknapp’s assistant at Tottenham.
In his autobiography, Always Managing, Redknapp tells a great story involving John Moncur, the man who inherited the No 10 shirt from Allen. And it involved a good deal more money than two shillings.
According to ’Arry, Paulo Futre was not all happy when he was allocated No 16 for his first game at Arsenal in 1996. Redknapp writes:
‘Futre 10, not 16,’ he said. ‘Eusebio 10, Maradona 10, Pele 10; Futre 10, not effing 16.’
By this point, there were 45 minutes to kick-off.
‘It’s changed now, Paulo,’ I explained, as gently as I could. ‘We’ve got squad numbers and your number is 16. We didn’t choose that number. When you came all the numbers were gone, so the kit man gave you No 16.’
‘No 10,’ he insisted. ‘Futre 10. No 10. Milan, Atletico Madrid, Porto, Benfica, Sporting — Futre 10.’
Now it was getting desperate. I tried to be firm. ‘Paulo, put your shirt on, get changed, please, we have a big game. If you don’t want to wear it, Paulo, off you go,’ I said. And he did …
The following Monday, Paulo came back in with his team of lawyers to negotiate for the No 10 shirt. At first we tried to tell him that we had sold so many replicas with ‘Futre 16’ on the back that it would be impossible to change, but he called our bluff.
‘How many?’ he asked. ‘I will pay £100,000.’ And that was when I knew this was an argument we could not win. Futre was willing to spend £100,000 just to be No 10. In the end, he got it a lot cheaper. John Moncur, the No 10, agreed to swap, and Paulo let him have two weeks in his villa in the Algarve, which is about the best one there, on the cliffs overlooking the best golf course.”
And, as we all know, if that’s the way Harry tells it, it must be true.
Prior to this new-fangled way of doing things, shirt numbers were allocated according to a player’s position. Younger readers will be fascinated to learn the No 10 went to a team’s inside left, who was expected to play alongside the centre forward.
Just to confuse matters, Geoff Hurst began life in professional football as a left half (look it up on Wikipedia while you’re checking the decimal value of two shillings) before Ron Greenwood decided he was such a terrible defender there was nothing to lose in moving him further forward to see if he could score goals better than he could prevent them. The rest, as they say, is history.
Geoff Hurst was my boyhood hero, and the goals he scored for West Ham and England were the flashes of sunlight that got me through the coal-black days of school life (I didn’t actually go to school in a coal mine you understand, they don’t have mines in Berkshire – that is a literary allusion, the like of which you don’t always get on other West Ham sites. I’m trying to raise the tone here.)
I was devastated when Hurst was allowed to leave to join Stoke in 1972. By all accounts, my hero was none too chuffed either – not least because he felt it effectively ended any hopes he still had of reviving his England career. He certainly looked pretty pleased with himself when he scored on his return to Upton Park in his first game back in E13. I think you made your point, Sir.
Trevor Brooking, on the other hand, stuck with West Ham throughout his career, including three seasons in the second division despite being an England international. Think you’d see loyalty like that these days? There’s more chance of seeing Big Ginge on Strictly.
If you are of an age that means you were too young to have seen Brooking play, I envy you your youth. But I also feel sorry on your behalf that the odds are impossibly stacked against you ever getting the chance to see a true one-club hero who could make hardened supporters smile knowingly while simultaneously shaking their heads in disbelief at his outrageous skill. It’s 30 years since he retired, yet I can still get through grey days by picturing Brooking angling his body to receive a pass, letting the untouched ball slide past him as he used his muscular frame to shield it, and then bringing it under instant control while he turned and powered away from a desperate defender who, seconds before, thought he had everything under control. What made it really special was the fact opponents knew it was coming, but could do nothing within the laws of the game to prevent it happening. These days climbing stairs makes me gasp. Back then it was Trevor Brooking.
I do understand that there is nothing worse than hearing a previous generation banging on about how good the players were in their day. I’m sure when Brooking made his debut there was some old boy in the Chicken Run explaining to the bloke next to him that there would never be another Vic Watson. Such is life.
But Brooking really was different gravy. It really is no coincidence there is a stand that bears his name at Upton Park. Was he the club’s greatest ever No 10? Well, he certainly gets my vote. Was he West Ham’s greatest ever player? That one I’ll leave up to you to decide…