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Firstly, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all West Ham Till I Die readers a very Happy New Year!
Blast from the past
West Ham United recorded a rare win at Goodison Park on the 14th December 2005. The Pussycat Dolls were number one with ‘Stickwitu’, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe topped the UK box office and, the following evening, Sir Trevor McDonald made his final ITN news broadcast after over 25 years.
Paul Konchesky had seen an effort saved by future Hammers goalkeeper Richard Wright before James Beattie flashed James McFadden’s cross beyond Roy Carroll to give Everton a ninth-minute lead in front of 35,704. The Irons were level ten minutes later when Tomas Repka’s innocuous cross from the right was turned past his own goalkeeper by Toffees centre-half David Weir.
West Ham seized the initiative in the second half and Marlon Harewood was inches away from connecting with Matty Etherington’s left-wing cross. Etherington was involved in the Hammers’ winning goal, jinking in from the left touchline, beating two players before firing in a shot which Wright could only parry into the path of Bobby Zamora (pictured above) who tucked home the loose ball with 23 minutes left to play. My video below contains the action from this match, as well as interviews with Irons manager Alan Pardew, centre-half Anton Ferdinand and matchwinner Zamora.
Pardew’s Hammers went on to finish in ninth place in the top flight that season, while David Moyes’ Everton finished 11th. Harewood was the Hammers’ top goalscorer with 16 goals from 46 matches – Danny Gabbidon was voted Hammer of the Year, with Harewood runner-up. Chelsea won the league title in 2005/06 and Liverpool beat the Irons on penalties to win the FA Cup.
Everton: Richard Wright, Tony Hibbert (Mikel Arteta), Joseph Yobo, David Weir, Nuno Valente, Simon Davies, Phil Neville, Leon Osman, Kevin Kilbane (Duncan Ferguson), James McFadden (Marcus Bent), James Beattie.
West Ham United: Roy Carroll, Tomas Repka, Anton Ferdinand, James Collins, Paul Konchesky, Yossi Benayoun, Hayden Mullins, Carl Fletcher, Matty Etherington (Christian Dailly), Bobby Zamora (Shaun Newton), Marlon Harewood.
Club Connections
David Moyes sends a side to face his former club. He is joined in representing both clubs by:
Goalkeepers: George Kitchen, Richard Wright.
Defenders: Lars Jacobsen, William Wildman, George Eccles, David Burrows, Bob Young, Lucas Neill, John Russell, Alex McCartney, William Kelly.
Midfielders: Harry Dawson, Thomas Hitzlsperger, Don Hutchison, Joe Blythe, Mark Ward, Ray Atteveld, Niclas Alexandersson, Danny Williamson, Ian Bishop.
Strikers: Tony Cottee, Chas Crossley, Tony Weldon, Alex McDonald, Mike Newell, Enner Valencia, Nikica Jelavic.
Slaven Bilic played for both clubs and managed the Hammers. Sam Allardyce has managed both the Toffees and the Irons.
Today’s focus, though, falls on a player who spent a season at Upton Park in between two spells with Everton. David Unsworth was born in Chorley, Lancashire on 16th October 1973 and began his career at Everton. He scored on his debut at the age of 18 for Howard Kendall’s Toffees, bagging the equaliser in a 3-3 draw at Tottenham on 25th April 1992, Gary Lineker’s final match for Spurs at White Hart Lane. Unsworth was part of England’s Under-20 squad that finished third at the 1993 World Youth Championships in Australia and also made seven appearances for the Under-21 side.
Unsworth became a first team regular under first Mike Walker, then Joe Royle, in 1994/95 and won the FA Cup with the Toffees at the end of that season. Terry Venables handed Unsworth his only full England cap on 3rd June 1995, in a 2-1 win over Japan at Wembley. Playing as a left-back or central defender, Unsworth won the Charity Shield with Everton in 1995 and also became the Toffees’ penalty taker – he scored from the spot against West Ham’s emergency goalkeeper Julian Dicks after Ludek Miklosko had been sent off in a match the hosts would win 3-0 at Goodison Park on 11th December 1995. After four consecutive bottom-half finishes, Unsworth helped Everton to a top-six place in 1995/96; the Toffees slumped back down to 15th the following season. Unsworth scored twelve goals in 123 appearances for Everton in his first spell at the club.
Less than two months after Kendall returned to Everton as manager, the 23-year-old Unsworth joined West Ham United in August 1997 in a swap deal with Academy product Danny Williamson. He made his debut, ironically, against the club he’d just left in a 2-1 Hammers defeat at Goodison Park on 23rd August 1997, becoming the first ever Hammer to have a surname beginning with the letter ‘U’ (only Matthew Upson has since joined Unsworth in West Ham’s ‘U’ club). He played on the left side of three central defenders under Harry Redknapp, often alongside Rio Ferdinand and fellow new signing Ian Pearce as the Irons progressed from strugglers the previous season to an exciting, upwardly-mobile outfit also boasting Eyal Berkovic and John Hartson.
Unsworth scored his first goal in claret and blue in a 4-1 home victory over Crystal Palace on 3rd December 1997. His second and final goal for the club was the winner in a 2-1 triumph over Chelsea on 14th March 1998. The 6’1 defender also converted spot-kicks in the Hammers’ FA Cup penalty shoot-outs at Blackburn in the fifth round replay and in the quarter-final replay home defeat to Arsenal. Unsworth was sent off in his penultimate match for the Hammers, a 3-3 draw at Crystal Palace on 5th May 1998. His final game in claret and blue was the 4-3 home win over Leicester on the final day of the season five days later. Unsworth had helped West Ham to an eighth-placed finish in 1997/98, their highest end-of-season standing since 1985/86. He made 41 appearances for the club, scoring two goals – both of these strikes can be seen in my video below.
With his family failing to settle in London, Unsworth moved to Aston Villa for £3m in the summer of 1998 – however, this transpired to not be close enough to the North West and Unsworth returned to Everton without even playing a competitive game for Villa. He made his second debut for the Toffees, now managed by Walter Smith, in a 2-0 defeat at Leicester on 22nd August 1998. After Everton finished one place above the relegation zone in his year away from Goodison Park, Unsworth helped the Toffees to 14th and 13th place in his first two seasons back on Merseyside.
Unsworth scored a penalty for Everton in front of the Bobby Moore Stand in a 2-0 win against West Ham on 31st March 2001; David Moyes took over from Smith as manager a year later. After a seventh-place finish in 2002/03, Unsworth scored his last goal for Everton in a 3-1 home win over Tottenham on 9th April 2004 and played his final match for the club in a 1-0 defeat to Blackburn at Goodison Park on 24th April 2004. He had scored 27 goals in 202 games for the Toffees in his second spell, taking his totals for the club to 39 goals in 325 appearances.
After six years back at Goodison Park, Unsworth was released by Moyes in 2004 – the defender teamed up with his former Hammers boss Redknapp at Portsmouth. Unsworth spent the second half of the 2004/05 season on loan at Ipswich after Redknapp’s departure from Fratton Park. A permanent move to Championship side Sheffield United followed in the summer of 2005 – he helped the Blades to promotion the following season but was released halfway through their 2006/07 Premier League campaign.
Unsworth signed for Wigan in January 2007, returning to Bramall Lane on the final day of the season to convert the penalty which kept the Latics up and relegated the Blades. It would prove to be Unsworth’s final game for Wigan and he returned to the Championship in August 2007, signing for Burnley at the age of 33. Unsworth turned down the chance to stay with the Clarets at the end of the season and moved to Huddersfield with whom he ended his career in 2009.
After retiring, Unsworth joined Preston as Development Coach. He was promoted to First Team Coach following the departure of current Hammers assistant Alan Irvine, and appointed caretaker manager for a week in the winter of the 2010/11 season. Unsworth was again appointed caretaker manager in December 2011 but was dismissed on the appointment of new manager Graham Westley. In December 2012 Unsworth returned to former club Sheffield United as Head of Academy Coaching; he was named Assistant Manager to caretaker boss Chris Morgan in April 2013. He was appointed Assistant Manager of the Everton Under-21 team in September 2013, becoming manager of the team in 2014. Now 47, he has had two spells in caretaker charge of the first team, most recently in the autumn of 2017.
Referee
The referee on New Year’s Day is Kevin Friend. The Leicester-based official has been involved in top-flight matches since 2009 and took charge of the Hammers in our historic 3-0 victory at Liverpool in August 2015. He sent off Liverpool’s Philippe Coutinho and West Ham’s Mark Noble in that match at Anfield, with the latter’s dismissal rescinded on appeal. Last season, Friend refereed the Hammers in our 3-0 defeat at Burnley in November 2019, for our 2-0 loss at Manchester City in February and our 4-0 win at Norwich in July. He most recently took charge of a West Ham match in our 2-1 defeat at Liverpool in October.
Friend is also remembered for the soft penalty he gifted Hull in our 1-0 defeat at the KC Stadium in September 2013 when Joey O’Brien was adjudged to have shoved Robbie Brady. He compounded the error by later denying the Irons a clear penalty when Jake Livermore handled in the area. Don’t expect much from Friend in the way of handball decisions – he also denied the Hammers a penalty in a match at Everton when Aaron Cresswell’s cross was handled by Seamus Coleman.
Possible line-ups
Everton’s Lucas Digne, Jean-Philippe Gbamin, Fabian Delph, Allan and James Rodriguez are out injured but Richarlison is available for the visit of the Hammers. Everton beat West Ham 4-1 at Goodison Park earlier this season in the League Cup fourth round, with Dominic Calvert-Lewin scoring a hat-trick – the striker is one goal shy of matching his total of 15 from last season but has gone five games in all competitions without scoring.
For West Ham United, Arthur Masuaku is on the sidelines. The Hammers are winless in four league matches, drawing three of them.
Possible Everton XI: Pickford; Holgate, Mina, Keane, Godfrey; Doucoure, Gomes, Sigurdsson; Iwobi; Calvert-Lewin, Richarlison.
Possible West Ham United XI: Fabianski; Coufal, Diop, Ogbonna, Cresswell; Bowen, Soucek, Rice, Fornals; Haller, Antonio.
Enjoy the game – Up The Hammers!