Blast from the past
Today’s blast from the past features a 1-0 victory at Ayresome Park against this weekend’s opponents, Middlesbrough. It arrived nearly 27 years ago, on the 3rd of March 1990 in front of 23,617 spectators.
Beats International featuring Lindy Layton were number one with ‘Dub Be Good To Me’ and Honey, I Shrunk The Kids was in UK cinemas as the Hammers left it late to take all three points on Teesside. George Parris’ ball in was cleared only as far as Julian Dicks, who fired in a drive which Stephen Pears could only parry. ‘Mad Dog’ Martin Allen reacted quickest to tap home the loose ball with just four minutes remaining. The goal can be seen at the 1:32:16 mark of the video below.
The match marked Billy Bonds’ first win as Hammers manager having taken over from Lou Macari the previous month. Bonzo would win nine of the remaining 15 league matches, taking the club from mid-table to the brink of the play-offs.
Bonds’ Hammers ended the 1989/90 season 7th in the Second Division, two points short of a play-off place. Dicks finished the season as the club’s top scorer with 14 goals in all competitions. The left-back also won his first of four Hammer of the Year trophies, with Stuart Slater runner-up. Middlesbrough were to finish 21st, one place and two points clear of relegation.
Middlesbrough: Stephen Pears, Gary Parkinson, Alan Kernaghan, Simon Coleman, Owen McGee, Stuart Ripley, Mark Proctor, Mark Brennan, Paul Kerr (Peter Davenport), Bernie Slaven, Ian Baird.
West Ham United: Ludek Miklosko, George Parris, Alvin Martin, Tony Gale, Julian Dicks, Kevin Keen, Stewart Robson, Martin Allen, Liam Brady (Ian Bishop), Stuart Slater, Jimmy Quinn (Trevor Morley).
Club Connections
Stewart Downing welcomes his former club to the Riverside Stadium. Other players who have appeared for both clubs include:
Defenders: Emanuel Pogatetz, Frank Piercy, Robbie Stockdale.
Midfielders: Kieron Dyer, Gary O’Neil.
Strikers: Brian Deane, Jeremie Aliadiere, Mido.
In addition, ex-Hammers defender Malcolm Allison managed Middlesbrough from 1982 to 1984.
Today’s focus is on a former England international who started his career with the Hammers before later captaining Middlesbrough. Paul Ince made his West Ham United debut at the age of 19 in a Full Members Cup match at the Boleyn Ground on 25th November 1986 as the Hammers fell to a 2-1 defeat against Chelsea. He made his league debut five days later as a substitute in a 4-0 loss at Newcastle and scored his first Hammers goal just six days after that, in a 3-1 home win over Southampton which took the Irons into the First Division’s top five.
Ince’s next goal arrived ten months later, in a 1-1 home draw with Charlton in October 1987 as West Ham’s lack of investment following the success of 1985/86 started to take its eventually destructive toll – the Hammers were now entrenched in the bottom half of the table. Ince was establishing himself in the first team, displaying qualities of stamina, good passing ability, pace and uncompromising tackling. He scored again in a 2-1 home win over Newcastle just before Christmas 1987 and came off the bench to score in a 1-1 home draw with Luton in early January 1988.
1988/89 was a dark season in the history of West Ham but, despite the club’s relegation at the end of the campaign, the season had been a personal success for Ince. He scored four goals in as many games in November/December 1988 – the first in a 1-1 draw in the Full Members Cup at Watford, two more in a 4-1 League Cup fourth round triumph over Liverpool at Upton Park (video above) and the winner in a 1-0 victory at Millwall. Ince went on to score in the 2-1 League Cup quarter-final home win over Aston Villa which set up a disastrous semi-final against Luton, with the Hammers losing 5-0 on aggregate. With the Hammers locked in an ultimately vain fight for top-flight survival, Ince went on another mini scoring run in March 1989, notching three goals in four games – these came in a 1-1 home draw with Coventry, a 3-1 defeat at Norwich in an FA Cup quarter-final replay and a stunning strike to clinch the points in a 1-0 win at Aston Villa after he had carried the ball from his own half. Ince was voted the Hammer of the Year for 1988/89.
With the Hammers relegated and Ince’s mentor, John Lyall, sacked, Ince’s agent began angling for a move. Lyall had helped Ince through troubled school times, eventually signing him as a YTS trainee on leaving school in 1984 and Ince struggled to see a future for himself at the club without such an influential figure in his life. Manchester United agreed a fee of around £1m for the 21-year-old midfielder before controversy hit the deal. Ince takes up the story, in an interview with Four Four Two:
“I spoke to Alex Ferguson and the deal was close to being done. I then went on holiday, and my agent at the time, Ambrose Mendy, said it wasn’t worth me coming back to do a picture in a United shirt when the deal was completed, so I should do one before I left, and it would be released when the deal was announced. Lawrence Luster of the Daily Star took the picture and put it in their library. Soon after, their sister paper, the Daily Express, were looking for a picture of me playing for West Ham and found the one of me in the United shirt in the pile. They published it and all hell broke loose. I came back from holiday to discover West Ham fans were going mad. It wasn’t really my fault. I was only a kid, I did what my agent told me to do, then took all the stick for it."
Ince’s final appearance came under Lou Macari in a 1-1 Second Division draw at Stoke in August 1989. After 95 appearances and 12 goals in claret and blue, he completed his move to Old Trafford where he won the Premier League twice, the FA Cup twice, the League Cup once and the Charity Shield three times. He also won the European Cup Winners’ Cup and European Super Cup whilst with the Red Devils. Ince first returned to the Boleyn Ground in February 1994, scoring a late equaliser in a 2-2 draw after being on the receiving end of a hostile reception. West Ham fans would have the last laugh though as Ince and his Manchester United side were denied the Premier League title at Upton Park on the last day of the 1994/95 season, with thousands of fans holding aloft mini-banners emblazoned with the word ‘Judas’. Ince moved on to play for Inter Milan and Liverpool as well as becoming the first black player to captain England, for whom he was capped 53 times, scoring two goals.
In the summer of 1999 Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier put Ince on the transfer list and the 31-year-old signed for Middlesbrough for £1m. He linked up with his former team-mate Bryan Robson, who had by then been the Teessiders manager for five years. As club captain, Ince made 106 appearances over three seasons at Middlesbrough, scoring nine goals, before he was given a free transfer in 2002 at the end of his contract by Robson’s successor, Steve McClaren.
Ince joined Wolverhampton Wanderers in the summer of 2002, where he would be playing outside a national top division for the first time since his one appearance there for West Ham in 1989. After four years at Molineux, he was named player-coach at Swindon. Ince went on to become player-manager of Macclesfield and has since had two spells as manager at MK Dons. He has also managed Blackburn, Notts County and Blackpool. He returned to the Boleyn Ground as a manager in August 2008, only to see his Blackburn side defeated 4-1 by Alan Curbishley’s Hammers. Now 49, Ince is currently without a club but his son Tom, who scored in the 2012 Play-Off Final against the Hammers, is currently playing for Derby.
Referee
Saturday’s referee is Martin Atkinson who, ironically, took charge of our last Premier League win at Middlesbrough on 22nd December 2007. 2016/17 is Atkinson’s twelfth as a Premier League referee. Since West Ham United achieved promotion back to the top flight in 2012 Atkinson has refereed 15 of our league matches, officiating in eight wins for the Hammers, two draws and five defeats. Last season Atkinson took charge of the Hammers in our 0-0 draw at Anfield in the fourth round of the FA Cup and refereed our 3-1 win at Bournemouth in January, our 2-0 win at Arsenal last August and the 1-1 home draw with West Brom in November.
Atkinson also refereed the Hammers’ FA Cup quarter-final at Old Trafford in March, when he turned down appeals for a penalty after Marcos Rojo appeared to have tripped Dimitri Payet and failed to spot Bastian Schweinstieger’s block on Darren Randolph as Man Utd equalised late on. He refereed September’s 4-2 home defeat to Watford and his most recent Hammers appointment was our 1-0 win at Crystal Palace in October, when he controversially sent off Aaron Cresswell for two very harsh yellow cards in quick succession.
Possible line-ups
Middlesbrough could hand a start to January signing Rudy Gestede up front. Right-back Antonio Barragan and midfielder Gaston Ramirez are doubts. New signing Patrick Bamford comes into contention.
West Ham United are without Alvaro Arbeloa, Arthur Masuaku, Gokhan Tore and Diafra Sakho. Sam Byram, Winston Reid, Sofiane Feghouli and Andy Carroll are doubts.
Possible Middlesbrough XI: Valdes; Chambers, Gibson, Bernardo; Fabio, Leadbitter, de Roon, Forshaw, Friend; Negredo, Gestede.
Possible West Ham United XI: Randolph; Byram, Collins, Reid, Cresswell; Obiang, Noble; Feghouli, Lanzini, Fernandes; Antonio.
Enjoy the game – Up The Hammers!
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