Firstly, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all West Ham Till I Die readers a very Merry Christmas!
Blast from the past
With Edward Elgar’s choral work The Dream of Gerontius having just received its first performance in Birmingham Town Hall and actor Alastair Sim being born four days previously, West Ham United took on Watford in a Southern League First Division fixture on the 13th October 1900. A 2-0 victory in front of 4,000 was recorded to give the Hammers their fourth win in six league games at the start of the 1900/01 campaign, their first as West Ham United having just turned professional and changed their name from Thames Ironworks.
Wing-half George Neil made his 19th and final appearance for the Hammers as goals from inside-forward Fred Corbett (pictured) and outside-left Freddie Fenton were enough to give the Hammers victory at the Memorial Grounds. Corbett was a “strong and determined” Stepney-born forward who scored nine goals in 23 matches in 1900/01 and would, in total, score 15 goals in 38 matches in a Hammers career which ended with a move to Bristol Rovers in 1902. Fenton was a product of Midlands football and was an extremely modest man who played with verve and flair on the left flank – he scored three goals in 19 matches in 1900/01, his only season as a Hammer. Fenton is in the history books thanks to scoring the club’s first FA Cup goal under the banner of West Ham United, against Olympic on 3rd November 1900.
West Ham United would finish the 1900/01 Southern League First Division season in sixth position, eight points behind champions Southampton, while Watford would end up in 14th. Liverpool won the First Division title and Tottenham won the FA Cup.
West Ham United: Tommy Moore, Syd King, Charlie Craig, George Neil, Charlie Dove, Roddy McEachrane, Fergie Hunt, Fred Corbett, Jimmy Reid, Bert Kaye, Freddie Fenton.
Club Connections
Former Hammer Domingos Quina is now on Watford’s books. Other players to have represented both clubs, divided by position, include:
Goalkeepers: Joe Webster, Billy Biggar, Ted Hufton, David James, Perry Suckling, Manuel Almunia, Jack Rutherford.
Defenders: Jon Harley, Calum Davenport, Chris Powell, Lucas Neill, James McCrae, Colin Foster.
Midfielders: Henri Lansbury, Alan Devonshire, Alessandro Diamanti, Stuart Slater, Jobi McAnuff, Jimmy Lindsay, Joe Blythe, David Noble, Jimmy Carr, Mark Robson, Valon Behrami, Carl Fletcher.
Strikers: James Reid, David Connolly, Jack Foster, Roger Hugo, Billy Jennings, Peter Kyle, Bertie Lyon.
Len Goulden played for West Ham and managed Watford, while Malky Mackay played for both clubs and went on to manage the Vicarage Road club. Glenn Roeder played for the Hornets and managed both clubs; Gianfranco Zola has managed both the Hammers and the Hornets.
Today’s focus is on a former Hammers forward who went on to play for the Hornets. Mauro Zarate was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on the 13th March 1987; he was the son of Sergio, a Chilean-born former footballer, and Catalina, who had an Italian background. Zarate, whose grandfather Juvenal and brothers Sergio, Rolando and Ariel were also all footballers, started his career with Velez Sarsfield in 2004 before moving on to Al-Sadd in the Qatari league in 2007. He moved on loan to David Sullivan and David Gold’s Birmingham for the second half of the 2007/08 season before moving to Italian club Lazio in the summer of 2008, initially on loan before making the move permanent. He spent the 2011/12 campaign on loan at Inter Milan before returning to Velez Sarsfield in the summer of 2013.
After a season back in Argentina, the 27-year-old Zarate signed for Sam Allardyce’s West Ham United in the summer of 2014 on a free transfer. He scored on his Hammers debut on the 23rd August 2014 in a 3-1 win at Crystal Palace. He would make only eight appearances in 2014/15, scoring his second and final goal of the season in a 2-1 defeat at Everton on 22nd November 2014. After falling out of favour with Allardyce, and with Andy Carroll, Enner Valencia and Diafra Sakho in good form, Zarate spent the second half of the season on loan at QPR.
Zarate returned to Upton Park with the Hammers under new management in the shape of Slaven Bilic – the Argentinian scored his first goal of the 2015/16 campaign in a 2-2 Europa League third qualifying round first leg home draw with Astra Giurgiu on 30th July 2015 before bagging the match-clinching second goal in a famous 2-0 win at Arsenal in the season’s opening Premier League match. Zarate scored again in a 2-1 League Cup third round defeat at eventual title winners Leicester on 22nd September 2015 and struck the opening goal in a 2-1 home win over Chelsea on 24th October, our last ever match against our west London rivals at the Boleyn Ground. Zarate’s final goal in claret and blue was a sumptuous, curling free-kick into the top corner in a 1-1 home draw against West Brom on 29th November 2015. His final match for the club was our 1-0 FA Cup third round win over Wolves on 9th January 2016. Zarate had made 29 appearances for West Ham United, scoring seven goals (all seven can be viewed on the WHTID Twitter and Facebook pages). He returned to Italy in January 2016, joining Fiorentina in a £1.6m deal.
After a year in Florence, the 29-year-old Zarate returned to the Premier League with Watford in the January 2017 transfer window; he made his Hornets debut in a 2-1 home win over Burnley on 4th February 2017. His third appearance for the Hornets was also his last – playing against the Hammers at Vicarage Road in a game which would end 1-1 on 25th February 2017, Zarate injured his cruciate knee ligament and was ruled out for the rest of the season.
Zarate spent a brief two-month loan stint with United Arab Emirates-based club Al-Nasr between October 2017 and January 2018 before joining Velez Sarsfield for a third spell. Now 31, Zarate is currently with Boca Juniors, having joined the Buenos Aires-based club in the summer of this year.
Referee
Saturday’s referee will be Lee Mason from Greater Manchester. Mason’s four games officiating the Hammers last season all ended in defeat. Most recently, he took charge of our 4-1 defeat at Arsenal in April; prior to that, he refereed our 3-0 home defeat to Burnley in March, while the other two matches were both 3-2 defeats: at Southampton in August 2017 when he failed to send off Dusan Tadic but did give Marko Arnautovic a red card, before awarding the Saints a match-winning penalty in added time; and against Newcastle at home in December 2017 when he awarded the Hammers a penalty only for Andre Ayew’s effort to be saved. Mason refereed the Hammers once in 2016/17 – the 1-0 home win over Hull when he awarded the Hammers a match-winning penalty – but took charge of two West Ham matches the previous season, those being the 0-0 draw at Swansea in December 2015 and the 3-0 win at West Brom in April 2016.
He refereed three Premier League matches involving the Hammers in 2014/15 – the 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa, the 1-0 home win over Sunderland and the 2-1 defeat at Old Trafford when he sent off Wayne Rooney, denied the Hammers a penalty when Morgan Amalfitano’s cross struck Radamel Falcao’s arm and disallowed Kevin Nolan’s last-minute strike for a marginal offside. Mason was also the man in the middle for our 1-0 FA Cup win at Bristol City in January 2015. He also officiated in four of our games in 2013/14, sending off two of our players (Mark Noble against Everton and James Tomkins at Cardiff) and disallowing a perfectly good Stewart Downing equaliser at Crystal Palace. He also sent off Mark Noble at Birmingham in December 2009.
Possible line-ups
For West Ham United, Ryan Fredericks, Winston Reid, Carlos Sanchez, Jack Wilshere, Manuel Lanzini, Andriy Yarmolenko and Marko Arnautovic miss out through injury. Lucas Perez could return to the squad.
For Watford, right-back Daryl Janmaat, centre-back Sebastian Prodl, midfielder Will Hughes and centre-forwards Andre Gray and Adalberto Penaranda could all be out injured.
Possible West Ham United XI: Fabianski; Zabaleta, Balbuena, Diop, Masuaku; Snodgrass, Rice, Noble, Anderson; Antonio, Chicharito.
Possible Watford XI: Foster; Femenia, Kabasele, Cathcart, Holebas; Sema, Quina, Doucoure, Pereyra; Deulofeu, Deeney.
Enjoy the game – Up The Hammers!