West Ham Till I Die
Comments
Dan Coker's Match Preview

Match Preview: Manchester City

Blast from the past

The week beginning 16th March 1970 was an eventful one in the history of West Ham United. Tuesday 17th March saw Hammers legend Martin Peters, who will collect the Lifetime Achievement prize at this year’s End of Season Awards, break the British transfer record by becoming the country’s first £200,000 footballer when he departed for Tottenham. West Ham received £150,000 in cash plus the £50,000-rated Jimmy Greaves. Appropriately in this week of big name transfers, Lee Marvin’s ‘Wand’rin’ Star’ was number one in the charts.

The following Saturday saw Peters score on his debut as Tottenham beat Coventry 2-1 at White Hart Lane. West Ham United, meanwhile, had acquired the king of the debut goal in Greaves – the goalscoring great had struck on his maiden appearances for Chelsea, AC Milan, Tottenham and England and was not to disappoint for the Hammers at Maine Road in front of 28,353 on the 21st March 1970.

The Hammers emerged victorious from the First Division encounter against Manchester City with a 5-1 win on a mudbath of a pitch. West Ham opened the scoring when Pat Holland broke free down the right and his low cross was calmly controlled by Greaves, putting one onrushing defender on his backside, before slotting beyond Joe Corrigan to register his debut strike. City equalised when Tommy Doyle found Francis Lee whose long-range effort sneaked under the body of Peter Grotier. The Hammers regained the lead when a long ball into the Sky Blues’ penalty area wasn’t dealt with, Geoff Hurst prodded against Corrigan and the ball broke invitingly for that man Greaves to find the same corner as he had with his first goal, passing the ball in with his left foot. Hurst himself notched West Ham’s third before half-time with a diving header from Ronnie Boyce’s lofted pass.

The Hammers’ fourth goal has to go down as one of the best and certainly most audacious in the club’s history. Corrigan’s drop-kick clearance was poor and Boyce fired it straight back, on the volley, from just outside the centre circle into the unguarded net. West Ham made it five when Billy Bonds drove down the right and delivered a cross that was only partially cleared to Hurst who hammered home with a ferocious left-foot strike.

While the match marked the West Ham debut of world superstar Greaves, it would also signal the first appearance in claret and blue of David Llewellyn. Born in Cardiff, Llewellyn would make six appearances for the Hammers in the early 1970s before signing for Peterborough, where he opened a gym after retiring from football in 1976. He also coached in the USA for 11 summers but stopped this to take up the coaching of the Great Britain Medical Football team in 2006 and has seen them win the World Football Medical Championships in South Korea 2010 and come runners up in Austria 2011.

The Hammers went on to finish in 17th place in 1969/70 while City ended up in 10th and won the League Cup and European Cup Winners’ Cup. The video below shows the goals from this match, courtesy of KUMB’s excellent 100 Greatest Moments series.

West Ham United: Peter Grotier, Billy Bonds, Bobby Moore, Bobby Howe, Alan Stephenson, Frank Lampard, Peter Eustace (David Llewellyn), Ronnie Boyce, Pat Holland, Jimmy Greaves, Geoff Hurst.

Club Connections

A large group of players have turned out for West Ham United and Manchester City. Divided by playing position, they include:

Goalkeepers – David James, Perry Suckling.

Defenders – Stuart Pearce, Wayne Bridge, Tal Ben Haim, Tyrone Mears.

Midfielders – Marc-Vivien Foe, Kevin Horlock, Mark Ward, Steve Lomas, Michael Hughes, Ian Bishop, Eyal Berkovic.

Strikers – Carlos Tevez, Craig Bellamy, Phil Woosnam, Justin Fashanu, Trevor Morley, Paulo Wanchope, Clive Allen, David Cross, George Webb.

Ex-Hammers Frank Lampard and Richard Wright are currently on the Citizens’ playing staff. Malcolm Allison and John Bond join Pearce as West Ham players who have gone on to manage City.

Today’s focus though is on one of my favourite players, an England international who excelled with the Hammers before joining City in 2003. Trevor Sinclair began his career with Blackpool in 1989, becoming the club’s youngest ever player aged 16 years and 5 months, before moving to QPR in 1993. His stunning overhead kick from outside the penalty area in an FA Cup fourth round match against Barnsley was declared the ‘Goal of the Season’ for 1996/97.

With West Ham enjoying a successful season in 1997/98, Harry Redknapp’s signing of Sinclair in January of that season represented an exciting coup for the club. The deal was valued at £2.7m with QPR receiving £2.3m in cash and fringe players Iain Dowie and Keith Rowland. Sinclair’s West Ham career got off to a flying start, scoring both goals in a 2-2 home draw with Everton on 31st January 1998 and finishing the campaign with 7 goals from 14 starts. Sinclair’s first full season in east London, 1998/99, saw the Hammers finish fifth with ‘Tricky Trev’ contributing 7 goals in 40 appearances, including doubles in a 2-1 home win over Tottenham and the final-day 4-0 triumph over Middlesbrough.

1999/2000 saw Sinclair named runner-up in the Hammer of the Year voting as he notched 8 goals in 51 appearances. These included last-minute equalisers at Aston Villa and at home against Sunderland as well as the winner against Liverpool and a crucial strike in the away leg of the InterToto Cup final against Metz, which the Hammers won 3-1 to qualify for the UEFA Cup. He was also sent off in a 2-1 defeat at Highbury in May 2000. The following season, 2000/01, was a tough one for West Ham and Sinclair – the Hammers slumped from three consecutive top-half finishes to a 15th-placed finish in the league while Sinclair was injured in January 2001 and missed the remainder of the season. His three goals in 23 matches all came in victories though; a 4-1 win over Manchester City, a 3-2 triumph at Southampton and a stunning volley in a 5-0 Boxing Day demolition of Charlton (video below).

2001/02 signalled a new era for West Ham with Glenn Roeder replacing the sacked Redknapp. Frustrated by the sales of Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard and the departure of the manager who had brought him to the club, coupled with a burning desire to claim England’s problem position on the left wing in time for the 2002 World Cup, a disillusioned Sinclair requested a move in October 2001. West Ham’s price tag of £8m did just enough to detract suitors Newcastle, Leeds and Sunderland and it took Sinclair until Boxing Day to register his first goal of the season. One year on from his volley against Charlton, it was another Christmas cracker as the ball never touched the ground from the moment Paolo Di Canio’s corner found Joe Cole who crossed for Sinclair to launch an acrobatic, horizontal scissor-kick volley into the net (video below). Sinclair scored 5 goals in 37 appearances in 2001/02 and withdrew his transfer request in February 2002.

At the end of that season Sinclair realised his dream of playing for England at the World Cup in Japan & South Korea. He had made his Three Lions debut in November 2001, in a 1-1 draw with Sweden at Old Trafford and also appeared in matches against Italy and Paraguay. Sinclair was, however, initially excluded from Sven-Goran Eriksson’s provisional 23-man World Cup squad with Danny Murphy on standby. Kieron Dyer and Steven Gerrard then picked up injuries in their final league games of the season, with Murphy deputising for Gerrard and Sinclair joining the party as standby for Dyer. Sinclair flew home to his pregnant wife but, the very next day, Murphy fell awkwardly in training and broke a metatarsal. Having just completed a 6,000-mile journey home because the injured Dyer had been picked ahead of him, Sinclair was summoned to re-join the squad in Japan as a replacement for Murphy, the original standby. Sinclair was an unused sub in England’s opening game against Sweden but replaced the injured Owen Hargreaves after 19 minutes of the next match against Argentina and helped transform England’s tournament – England famously won the game 1-0 and Sinclair started the remaining matches, playing the full 90 minutes in both the 0-0 draw with Nigeria and the 3-0 second round victory over Denmark before being replaced by Dyer after 56 minutes of the 2-1 quarter-final defeat to Brazil. Sinclair won 12 caps in total, 11 of them while with West Ham.

2002/03 saw Sinclair notch 8 goals in 41 appearances as the Hammers were relegated from the Premier League. He bagged a brace in a 2-1 win at West Brom and struck winning goals at Sunderland and at home against Middlesbrough, which proved to be his final goal in claret and blue. Having played at right wing-back, left wing, right wing and striker over his five and a half seasons, scoring 38 goals in 206 appearances for West Ham United, Sinclair joined the mass exodus from Upton Park in the summer of 2003, signing for Kevin Keegan’s Manchester City for £2.5m.

Sinclair scored for his boyhood heroes in their first game at the City of Manchester (now Etihad) Stadium in a UEFA Cup tie against Total Network Solutions. He scored 5 goals in 82 appearances during an injury-hit four years with City before joining Cardiff at the age of 34, with whom he made a brief substitute appearance in the FA Cup final a year later. Now 42, Sinclair is currently working in the media and is assistant manager of Lancaster City.

Referee

Sunday’s referee will be Anthony Taylor. The Cheshire-based official was the referee who had not one, but two red cards rescinded from the same game after he had sent off Carlton Cole and Darron Gibson in the Hammers’ 2-1 home defeat to Everton in December 2012. He was also in charge when awarding Liverpool a controversial, and ultimately match-winning penalty, against the Irons in April 2014. There was also controversy surrounding Guy Demel’s equaliser for West Ham in that game. Taylor has officiated in two matches involving the Hammers this season, those being the 2-0 home win over QPR and the 1-1 FA Cup third round tie at Everton. He also replaced the injured Chris Foy during the second half of the 3-0 defeat at Arsenal.

Possible line-ups

Manchester City are expected to be without the injured Vincent Kompany, Gael Clichy, James Milner, Stevan Jovetic and Wilfried Bony. Eliaquim Mangala, Aleksandar Kolarov and Samir Nasri could come into the side, while Edin Dzeko is another option should Manuel Pellegrini decide to go with two up front.

West Ham United have seen Diafra Sakho join Andy Carroll and James Tomkins on the injury list, while Enner Valencia may not be risked from the start. Sam Allardyce could put out the same defence and midfield that started at Leicester earlier this month, with Carlton Cole ploughing a lone furrow up front.

Possible Manchester City XI: Hart; Zabaleta, Demichelis, Mangala, Kolarov; Fernandinho, Toure; Navas, Silva, Nasri; Aguero.

Possible West Ham United XI: Adrian; Jenkinson, Collins, Reid, Cresswell; Noble, Song, Kouyate; Downing, Nolan; Cole.

Enjoy the game – Come On You Irons!

About us

West Ham Till I Die is a website and blog designed for supporters of West Ham United to discuss the club, its fortunes and prospects. It is operated and hosted by West Ham season ticket holder, LBC radio presenter and political commentator Iain Dale.

More info

Follow us

Contact us

Iain Dale, WHTID, PO Box 663, Tunbridge Wells, TN9 9RZ

Visit iaindale.com, Iain Dale’s personal website & blog.

Get in touch

Copyright © 2024 Iain Dale Limited.