It’s FA Cup Final day – a magical day in the English footballing calendar. I’m sure, for many Hammers, memories are evoked of Ronnie Boyce popping up out of a trapdoor (as Sir Geoff Hurst describes it) to nod the Irons to victory in 1964; of Alan Taylor’s fox (or should that be Sparrow?) in the box routine against Fulham in 1975; or Sir Trevor Brooking stooping to conquer in 1980. Any Hammer born between the late ’70s and late ’90s, however, had been starved of such memories. And although victory was to agonisingly elude us, the FA Cup Final of 2006 was one that could never be forgotten…
13th May 2006 – Gnarls Barkley was number one with ‘Crazy’ and I, along with thousands of others, was on my way to a pretty mad game of football. My day started at around 6.30am in sunny Bracknell, from where I travelled to Oxford to meet up with a friend from university, a fellow Hammer. From the dreaming spires we took the train to Cardiff – standing room only in a carriage full of Scousers, a sea of red shirts and scarves and a cacophony of laughter. We shared stories of our seasons so far and previous trips to The Millennium Stadium for both sides – the time flew by.
Before long we were in a pub near the stadium singing ‘Bubbles’, a converted theatre where the acoustics made the famous old ditty sound that bit extra special – the whole day, the whole experience was just that, a bit extra special. The previous time the Hammers had reached the FA Cup Final, I was still three years away from being born. For any Hammer currently under the age of 40, 2006 is the only Hammers Cup Final we have any memory of – we’re not all lucky enough to have seen 1964, 1975 and 1980 with Moore, Hurst, Brooking and Bonds only seen in TV clips rather than in the flesh. The 13th May 2006 was our time to create memories…
Having met up with a few more Hammers to soak up the atmosphere, we headed into the stadium for the third time in three years; we were directly behind the goal in the second row from the back of the upper tier. ‘Abide With Me’, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone and ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’, red and white and claret and blue – a feast for the senses.
Team news was positive – Matthew Etherington and Dean Ashton fit enough to start, although neither would last the 90 minutes, let alone the 120. The noise from the 71,140 in the stadium was a cracking crescendo at kick-off – and on 21 minutes, one end of the stadium erupted. Deano found himself in space and played a delightful ball in behind the Liverpool backline for loanee right-back Lionel Scaloni to run onto. The Argentine’s cross for the lurking Marlon Harewood was intercepted at the near post by Jamie Carragher, the Liverpool centre-half only succeeding in diverting the ball into his own net.
Seven minutes later, we really were in dreamland – Etherington, my favourite player at the time, jinked his way into a shooting position before firing in a drive which Reina should have held but spilled. Ashton, seizing the moment, darted in to steer the ball into the net. 2-0 up in the Cup Final – a deafening chorus of ‘Ole, ole, ole, ole, Deano, Deano’ rained down from the stands. Dreamland: entered.
The Reds halved the deficit within four minutes – Steven Gerrard pinged a ball over the heads of Danny Gabbidon and Anton Ferdinand, the West Ham centre-halves who had enjoyed such a fine season. Djibril Cisse expertly volleyed beyond Shaka Hislop – “what a Cup Final we’ve got here now” exclaimed John Motson, commentating for the BBC.
Half-time, 2-1 up, but we all remembered Istanbul – the year before, Liverpool had come back from 3-0 down at half-time against AC Milan in the Champions League Final. On 54 minutes, they had their equaliser, Gerrard pouncing on a loose ball from a Peter Crouch knockdown to fire home. But back came the Hammers, Konchesky’s speculative cross finding the far corner of the net past a stranded, grasping, desperate Reina. 3-2 with 64 minutes played. Dreamland: revisited.
The next 26 minutes seemed like an eternity – longing for the whistle as our heroes in white battled for every ball, doing us proud with every tackle, every pass, every block. With the 90 minutes in their dying embers, the ball was kicked out by West Ham to allow a Liverpool player treatment. The Reds returned the ball from the throw but Scaloni was put under pressure – instead of shepherding it out for a goal-kick or coaxing a foul, Scaloni whacked it with neither direction nor distance. It fell eventually to John Arne Riise who played a ball forward which was, again, cleared but only as far as Gerrard, 35 yards out. The PA announcer declared there were four minutes of added time – keen to see out every last second and not be left aimlessly wondering when the whistle would sound, I looked to my watch for a split-second. When I looked back up, the ball was travelling like an exocet into the corner of Hislop’s goal. I hadn’t seen Gerrard’s boot connect with the ball but I saw the net bulge and the red wall behind the goal rise in relief. I slumped in my seat, dejected – the first time I’d sat down since getting out of the car in Oxford all those hours before.
On to extra-time – again the Hammers plucked up their spirits and were the more likely winners. Nigel Reo-Coker helped on Yossi Benayoun’s free-kick, only for Reina to turn the effort onto the inside of the post, the ball rebounding to a struggling Harewood who couldn’t capitalise on the gift. The 125th FA Cup Final went to penalties – Bobby Zamora missed the Hammers’ first but Sami Hyypia saw his effort saved by Hislop, Teddy Sheringham scoring to level the shoot-out. The dream faded when Reina saved from Konchesky and finally died when the Spaniard kept out Ferdinand’s spot-kick, Liverpool winning the shoot-out 3-1.
Unlike many disingenuous losing fans in recent Cup Finals, the majority of the Claret and Blue Army stayed behind to watch the victors lift the Cup. Some of us even joined in a chorus of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ – it was that kind of day. Spilling out into the streets, Liverpool fans offered their commiserations, shaking our hands and informing us that, had we had their number eight, the trophy would have been London-bound.
Obviously, 11 years on, the result still hurts. But the disappointment is outweighed by a pride in West Ham United that day – we produced an incredible performance that will live long in the memory, not just of our club’s history, but in that of the best club competition in the world. They say no-one remembers the losers – I don’t think that’s true of West Ham in 2006. The day, the game and the experience were all totally magical and the fans and players of Liverpool had a decent part to play in that too.
Let’s see if Arsenal and Chelsea can serve up a similar feast later this afternoon…
Liverpool: Pepe Reina, Steve Finnan, Sami Hyypia, Jamie Carragher, John Arne Riise, Steven Gerrard, Mohamed Sissoko, Xabi Alonso (Jan Kromkamp), Harry Kewell (Fernando Morientes), Peter Crouch (Dietmar Hamann), Djibril Cisse.
West Ham United: Shaka Hislop, Lionel Scaloni, Danny Gabbidon, Anton Ferdinand, Paul Konchesky, Yossi Benayoun, Nigel Reo-Coker, Carl Fletcher (Christian Dailly), Matthew Etherington (Teddy Sheringham), Marlon Harewood, Dean Ashton (Bobby Zamora).