Guest Post by Neil Clack
The best goal I ever saw at Upton Park was against Chelsea on Valentine’s day 1981. Infact, the best two goals I ever saw at Upton Park were on that day. By the same player!
Most games back then were not televised in any shape or form, so, as far as I’m aware, no footage exists of those two magnificent goals, both scored from outside the penalty area, but I had a birdseye view, as I was standing with some of my other 13 year old mates from school, right behind the goal in the North Bank, the end at which both were scored.
Think of Trevor’s famous goal for England in Hungary in 81, where the ball got stuck in the stanchion… well, these two against Chelsea, three months earlier, were similar, but even better, because he beat a couple of players, before curling the ball into the net. The second one I remember so vividly, as it was almost like watching a replay of the first goal. First, when Trevor received the ball, he did that little shimmy thing where he lets the ball run across his body, then he swerved, beating two Chelsea defenders (I think their captain Colin Pates was one of them?), and then he ran forward with the ball, looked up and saw the Chelsea goalkeeper, the late Petar Barota, off his line. From the outside of Brooking’s foot, a kind of chipped swerved-shot, the ball sailed beautifully over Barota’s outstretched arms into the top corner of the goal. The Yugoslavian international goalkeeper actually turned round and applauded Brooking, something I’ve never seen before or since, while in t he North Bank everyone was going crazy, as it made the score 4-0!
That match had an edge to it too. This was a raucous London derby, in front of a packed 35,000 noisy crowd. There had been some fighting in the South Bank before the game, and some of the crowd down that end had spilled onto the pitch during half-time, but I still maintain that period from 1980 to 1984, with Brooking and Devonshire at their peak, is the best football I’ve ever seen in my life.
Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t think the 1970s midfield pairing of Brooking and Billy Bonds was that great, as Bonds was too attack-minded, and ran all over the pitch – watch old re-runs of goals against us in the 1970s, and they’re often the result of a gaping hole in midfield, which the opposition had the freedon to run through. No, I think it was that early 80s period, when the unsung Geoff Pike or Paull Allen would play as authentic defensive holding midfielders that allowed Brooking to do his stuff further up the pitch, that brought the best out of him and the team. They were great times.