This Sunday’s visit of West Brom will see the club recognise our Cult Heroes as the ‘Farewell Boleyn’ season continues. This week’s preview will focus on West Ham United’s two greatest goalscorers of all-time…
Blast from the past
6th March 1926 – the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon was destroyed by fire on this day and West Ham United’s forwards were on fire as they cruised to a 3-0 victory over West Bromwich Albion in front of 23,030 at the Boleyn Ground. Inside-forward Billy Moore scored once while the Hammers’ greatest ever goalscorer, Vic Watson (pictured), bagged a brace to beat the Baggies.
Watson is, without question, the most prolific striker East London has ever seen. He scored 298 league goals in 462 appearances, bagging a further 28 goals in the FA Cup, making him the club’s record goalscorer on 326. He scored six goals in one match, against Leeds in an 8-2 win in February 1929, scored four in one game on three occasions and scored a further 13 hat-tricks.
Victor Martin Watson was born in Girton, Cambridgeshire on 10th November 1897. He fought in the British Army during World War One, reaching the rank of sergeant. Syd King signed Watson for a fee of £25 in 1920 as cover for Hammers hero Syd Puddefoot. Watson consequently started his West Ham career at outside-left – it wasn’t until two years later, when King sold Puddefoot for a British record fee of £5,000 to Falkirk, that Watson took his place at centre-forward. The rest is Hammers history. The following season, we reached the FA Cup Final and won promotion to the First Division. Watson’s goal celebration was to pick a blade of grass from the turf and put it between his teeth – no wonder the grass didn’t seem to grow back at Upton Park until the mid-1990s!
Watson ended his career at Southampton before running a fruit and vegetable small holding back in Cambridgeshire. He died at the age of 90 in his hometown of Girton on 3rd August 1988, nine days after West Ham sold one of his goalscoring successors, Tony Cottee, to Everton and six days after fellow Hammers legend Billy Bonds retired.
Victory for the Hammers against the Baggies helped them end the 1925/26 season in 18th position in the First Division, two points clear of relegation, while West Brom would finish 13th.
West Ham United: Ted Hufton, John Hebden, George Kay, Jim Barrett, George Carter, James Collins, Tommy Yews, Stan Earle, Vic Watson, Billy Moore, Jimmy Ruffell.
Club Connections
West Ham United and West Bromwich Albion have shared a decent number of players over the years; these include:
Defenders: Danny Gabbidon, David Burrows, Steve Walford, Gary Strodder.
Midfielders: Alan Dickens, Franz Carr, Morgan Amalfitano, Peter Butler, Nigel Quashie.
Strikers: Jeroen Boere, John Hartson, Frank Nouble, David Cross.
Archie Macauley played for West Ham and managed West Brom, while Bobby Gould played for the Hammers and the Baggies and also spent a period as manager at The Hawthorns.
With a nod to the final season at the Boleyn Ground, this season’s match previews for home games will focus on one of the more high-profile names to have played for both clubs. Today’s focus falls on a player who is a bona fide all-time Hammers legend. Sir Geoff Hurst became a West Ham apprentice at the age of 15 and made his first competitive appearance under Ted Fenton in February 1960 at the age of 18. He was torn between cricket and football, playing regularly for the Essex Second XI between 1962 and 1964 and missing pre-season training due to his cricketing commitments led to regular early-season fitness issues. Hurst, who began his career at left-half, was switched to a striking role by Ron Greenwood in September 1962, a move that was to totally change the course of his career. Forming a successful partnership with John ‘Budgie’ Byrne, Hurst would prove a key figure in the Hammers’ unprecedented success in the mid-1960s.
Greenwood named the same 11 players in each of the Hammers’ FA Cup matches as the club embarked on a run which took them all the way to Wembley in 1964. Hurst scored one goal in a 3-0 win over Charlton in the third round and then two in a 3-0 fourth round replay against Leyton Orient before notching another in a 3-1 win at Swindon in the fifth round. Hurst grabbed the match-clinching third in the 3-1 semi-final win over Manchester United in the Hillsborough mudbath and scored the second equaliser in the Final against Preston with a header that bounced off the crossbar and over the line – an incident that would be repeated on international duty at the same venue two years later. The Hammers would go on to win the Final 3-2. Hurst was also part of the side which won the European Cup Winners’ Cup at Wembley in 1965.
Having scored 40 goals in 59 appearances in 1965/66 as well as bagging four goals during the World Cup-winning campaign, Hurst was the subject of a £200,000 bid from Manchester United’s Matt Busby. The offer would have smashed the British transfer record, almost doubling the standing record of the £115,000 the Red Devils had paid Torino for Denis Law four years previously. Greenwood rejected the offer. Hurst went on to score a hat-trick against the (at the time) mighty Leeds in a 7-0 League Cup triumph in 1966/67 and an astonishing double hat-trick against Sunderland in October 1968. One of Hurst’s final acts as a Hammer was his biggest disappointment, however – having already scored a penalty in the 1971/72 League Cup semi-final first leg at Stoke, Hurst saw his powerful late spot-kick in the second leg brilliantly turned over the bar by England team-mate Gordon Banks in front of a stunned North Bank. The Hammers would miss out on a Wembley trip following two replays as the epic saga continued to unfold.
Sir Geoff Hurst is, without doubt, West Ham United’s greatest post-war striker. He scored 249 goals for the club in 503 appearances in all competitions, placing him second behind Vic Watson in the list of the Hammers’ all-time highest goalscorers. During his twelve years as a professional in claret and blue he won 49 England caps, scoring 24 goals. He remains the only player to have scored a hat-trick on the biggest stage of them all, the World Cup Final. He also shares the record for the most League Cup goals in a career (49, with Ian Rush). He scored three goals in a game for the Hammers on six separate occasions, four goals on two occasions and six goals once.
Hurst left West Ham for Stoke in August 1972 for £80,000 and enjoyed a successful spell with the Potters, helping them to successive fifth-placed finishes in 1974 and 1975, higher than Hurst had ever finished with the Hammers. He signed for Johnny Giles’ West Bromwich Albion in the summer of 1975 for £20,000, scoring twice in ten Second Division matches before deciding to join Seattle Sounders in America, via Cork Celtic in Ireland.
After calling time on a magnificent playing career Hurst went into management, first as assistant to Danny Blanchflower at Chelsea before being handed the top job at Stamford Bridge in 1979. An inconsistent time with the Blues ended with Hurst being sacked in April 1981 having failed to maintain a promotion push from the Second Division in either of his two seasons with the club. Hurst also assisted his former West Ham manager Ron Greenwood with England campaigns at the European Championships in 1980 and the World Cup in 1982. He went into the insurance trade after leaving Chelsea, taking two years out to manage in Kuwait between 1982 and 1984.
Hurst received an MBE in 1975 and was knighted in 1998. He is one of only four living footballing knights (the others being Sir Trevor Brooking, Sir Bobby Charlton and Sir Alex Ferguson). He now lives in Cheltenham and celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary with his wife, Judith, last year.
The video below is a montage of Sir Geoff strikes for West Ham and England.
Referee
Sunday’s referee will be Martin Atkinson; 2015/16 is Atkinson’s eleventh as a Premier League referee. Since West Ham United achieved promotion back to the top flight in 2012 Atkinson has refereed eleven of our league matches, officiating in six wins for the Hammers, one draw and four defeats. Last season Atkinson was the man in the middle for the Irons’ 2-2 draw at Hull, as well as for our home victories over Manchester City, Leicester and Hull. He also sent off Morgan Amalfitano in our 4-0 FA Cup fifth round defeat at West Brom in February and took charge of our final day 2-0 loss at Newcastle. He most recently took charge of the Hammers in our 2-0 win at Arsenal in August.
Possible line-ups
West Ham United will be without James Collins who serves the final game of his three-match suspension for being sent off at Watford, while captain Mark Noble is also banned after collecting five bookings. Alex Song could start, although the on-loan midfielder may not last 90 minutes as he continues his comeback from injury. Pedro Obiang has been back in training and will compete with Song for Noble’s place. Darren Randolph, Dimitri Payet and Enner Valencia are all out, while Reece Oxford must prove his fitness after picking up a knock while playing for the Development Squad on Monday. Super Slav has gone on record as saying that the team haven’t been “doing anything differently” and that the players who turned out at Tottenham last week will “want to put it to bed as quickly as possible because you don’t want to let it affect confidence too much”. This suggests the manager may, enforced changes aside, give those same players an opportunity to get the Spurs disaster out of their system. The Hammers have failed to keep a clean sheet in any of the last eight games, conceding 14 goals.
West Bromwich Albion are without goalkeeper Ben Foster with a long-term knee injury. Manager Tony Pulis is also without the suspended Chris Brunt, who has been playing at left-back since the former Gillingham and Stoke boss took over at The Hawthorns; Gareth McAuley returns from a ban of his own. The Baggies’ five wins this campaign have all been by the odd goal. Six of the last nine league meetings between the two clubs have been drawn.
Possible West Ham United XI: Adrian; Jenkinson, Tomkins, Reid, Cresswell; Kouyate, Song; Sakho, Lanzini, Moses; Carroll.
Possible West Bromwich Albion XI: Myhill; Dawson, McAuley, Evans, Olsson; Yacob; Sessegnon, Fletcher, Morrison, McClean; Rondon.
Enjoy the game – Come On You Irons!