Guest Post by Julian
Over the past few weeks the optimism of a potential new approach to how we play coupled with some exciting signings has turned in to fear and trepidation at what the pre-season performances mean for the upcoming season, so I thought I would take a trip down memory lane and look back at our best ever season of 1986.
I was 20, had been released by Southampton due to a triple leg break in a reserves match against Chelsea ending a promising career, and had decided to go and work on a campsite in Southern Germany. Now that is an interesting story but not for this article, so back to our best ever finish.
How many of you who followed the fortunes of the team that year remember that we only won 1 of our first 5 games, a 3-1 home win against QPR that witnessed the first two ever goals for the club by one Frank McAvennie. He wasn’t even our first choice strike partner for TC but was played initially in midfield and only moved up top alongside Tony when Paul Goddard became injured; but, as they say, the rest is history.
By the end of September we were in 13th place, however come the end of Dec were had turned our increasingly impressive performances in to third place having won all of our games in September and November with Franky Boy the league’s stop scorer with 17. The style of play was the very antithesis of what we are having to suffer under Allardyce; no matter how many the opposition could score we could score more; we had Cottee and McAvennie, who just needed to poke the ball in the direction of the goal and it would fly in!
By the end of March we had put Manchester United out of the FA Cup, were fifth in the league, 10 points behind leaders Liverpool but with 5 games in hand.
However it was April that will go down in the annals of West Ham as one of the club’s most memorable months ever. It started with a 2-1 loss to Nottingham Forest but that was it, thereafter we went on an 8 match winning streak that included the memorable demolition of Newcastle 8-1, which even witnessed a hat-trick by one Alvin Martin, one of a small group of defenders to have scored a hat-trick in the top flight of English football. We were back up to third, 4 points behind Liverpool but with 1 game in hand; it was still all to be played for, but we needed Liverpool with one Ian Rush up front to mess up.
On the final Saturday of the season we went to the Black Country and put West Brom to the sword 2-3 but those party poopers in the North West just had to go and win their final game which left us having to beat Everton in a rearranged game to finish in second 1 point behind Liverpool. Unfortunately we went down 3-1 leaving us finishing in third, but what a glorious and exciting third it was, filled with performances, creativity throughout the team that we can only dream about under Allardyce.
Liniker finished as league’s top scorer with 30, with Frank not far behind on 28 and Tony with 26;since when have we ever seen anything like that from our strikers in the intervening 28 years. A strike force that scored 54 goals between them just blows the mind and has you weeping with the majority we have had to endure ever since.
For Hammers fans who weren’t either alive in 1986, I am sure you have grown up with not only the traditions of our beloved Bobby et al but of the boys of 1986, a West Ham team to be truly proud of, including 3 players who came up from the Academy in Cottee, Orr and Martin.
We won 26 of our 42 games, 81% win ratio at home and 43% away, losing only 10% of our home games and 38% of our away ones,finishing with 84 points and scoring 34 more goals than we conceded; oh for these to be the stats we look back on at the end of the upcoming season.