Since the death of the Old Division One and the ensuing inception of the Premier League, no team from outside the top flight has been able to lift the FA Cup. This is despite the appetite for the competition seeming to have waned in recent years? Indeed if you offered the clubs, players and fans the choice, some would prefer to finish 4th in the EPL to capture a Champions League spot? However, I must say I am not in that camp. The top clubs still seem to be dominating the competition however, despite fielding weakened teams in the earlier rounds to rest star players. I presume we all know that our club, West Ham, were indeed the last team to win the FA Cup from the lower leagues? It is now 37 years since that wonderful day in the sun at Wembley in 1980 when the Hammers beat Arsenal 1-0.
I sometimes reminisce back to the great day. It was one of the best days of my life. When I was picking my hypothetical “Best West Ham Team Ever” for the WHTID profile site, my selections included six players from the team that played in that 1980 Cup Final. I think Parkes, Bonds, Martin, Lampard, Brooking and Devonshire would be on most fans radar to be considered for their own best team? However, what on earth were this group of players doing in the old second division? After our relegation in the 77/78 season we would have to wait until the season after our Wembley win before we graced the top flight again. Certainly in today’s game, no team would be able to keep quality players of this ilk in the lower leagues?
The day itself started with a sense of being robbed. A newspaper strike on the Saturday meant that the day was not starting with that special feeling of reading all about your teams great achievement of reaching the Final – and knowing everyone else would be reading the same. The day before Brian Clough had made the headlines, twisting a famous Muhammad Ali quote. Cloughie wrote that Trevor Brooking “floated like a butterfly – and stung like one too”. Trevor certainly made “old Big Head” look a little foolish after his winning goal the following day. In that day and age we were starved of football on the TV. Two one hour shows on the weekend, Match of the Day on Saturday night and The Big Match on Sunday afternoon were the only televised football shows that were available. Sometimes you could get midweek highlights but live TV matches were very rare. The Cup Final was the exception. Every football fan could feast on the experience that included hours of build up from mid-morning. Weeks before the game, flags and banners would drape the windows of houses and cars as the anticipation was something quite special, even if you were not a supporter of either club contesting the final. People who did not even follow football would make an exception to watch the game on television. When I first came to Australia I was really surprised to listen to people who had little interest in soccer who would still stay up until 2am in the morning to watch an FA Cup final. If you were lucky enough to get a ticket to the final it would be a day you would never forget.
The scenes were quite amazing walking up Wembley Way. As I got close to the stadium I could already see many fans without tickets risking their lives climbing the walls to get in. Once in, the singing started almost immediately. “He’s only a poor little Gunner” echoed around the old stadium as a sea of claret and blue flags, banners and scarves waved at the tunnel end.
Onto the match and the Hammers played a 4-5-1 formation with David Cross playing as a lone striker with Stuart Pearson working in behind. It was not a fantastic game but it was a fantastic result with two main highlights from the game. Brooking’s goal in the 13th minute was made more exceptional by the fact he scored it with a header. Heading the ball was one thing that he did try to avoid for most of his career. The other flash point was when Willie Young hacked down Paul Allen late in the game when clean through with only the keeper to beat. A certain send off in the modern game but back then a mere yellow was considered enough. Considering how late in the game Young’s professional foul was, the fact he remained on the pitch made little difference although it certainly influenced a change in the games rules regarding goal scoring opportunities. Manager John Lyall had his tactics spot on for the day. Arsenal were red hot favourites. Liam Brady was at the peak of his career and the Gunners were due to play the in the ECWC final just days later. Paul Allen, breaking Howard Kendall’s record of being the youngest player ever in a Cup final (ironically against us in 1964), man marked Brady and Pearson was given a hard working role between the midfield and Cross. Brooking and Devonshire showed their quality with the support of the industrious Pike and Bonds, Martin, Lampard and Stewart were brilliant in front of Phil Parkes in goal. That 1980 Cup final winning side made the quarter finals of the ECWC the following year and also went on to win promotion back to the top flight. It was quite some team.