Opinion
I can still vividly recall creeping into my parents’ bedroom on the 11th of May 1980.
I think it was around 8am and I was desperate to discover if West Ham United had won the FA Cup Final against Arsenal just a few hours earlier.
I’d not been able to stay the course and watch the game live in the wee hours. I was simply too young and too exhausted after a Saturday running around competing in sport myself. Yet I simply had to know whether the boys in claret and blue had gotten the job done against what was a formidable Gunners team.
The history books will tell you that they did, with Hammers’ legend Trevor Brooking scoring the only goal of the game in front of 100,000 people at Wembley.
West Ham were not a First Division club at the time; an astonishing achievement for a group that would soon be back in the top flight and competing with the big guns on a weekly basis.
The trophy would join the 1964 and 1975 FA Cups in the cabinet, alongside the 1964-65 UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup, still the club’s greatest achievement.
Those were the glory years for the team affectionately known as the ‘Irons’. The working class roots of the club emerged from the Thames Ironworks in 1895.
By the 1960s, the first team was littered with stars and future legends. Captain Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst were all to be members of the victorious 1966 English squad at the World Cup, with Peters and Hurst scoring against Germany in the final and the latter becoming the first man to score a hat-trick in a World Cup decider.
England captain Bobby Moore kissing the Jules Rimet trophy as the team celebrate winning the 1966 World Cup final against Germany at Wembley Stadium. His teammates are, left to right, George Cohen, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters, 30th July 1966. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
I was pretty chuffed that cool morning in May of 1980. Despite disappointment at not having seen the contest, I can still distinctly remember thinking that it would not happen again and the next trophy to be lifted would be seen live in all its glory.
What an idiot I am.
For the next 43 years, West Ham managed to win not a single trophy. Nada. Zippo.
As I entered the middle stages of life, the realistic possibility that I would never see another domestic trophy held aloft by the Hammers, let alone a European one, was a stark reality and a reminder that my parents should have at least given me some caffeine to get me through that night all those years ago.
West Ham United fans are tragic people, suckers for punishment. The club has been relegated four times since 1980, as recently as 2010-11, before enjoying the last 11 years in the top flight.
The nearest the club came to success was a 2005-06 loss to Liverpool in the FA Cup Final on penalties. A match where West Ham led twice and one that I would prefer not to talk about. Steve Gerrard inspired the Reds and ruined my week.
But now and after a semi-final appearance in the Europa League last season, West Ham United have finally conquered a mountain. It is not the high peaks of the Premier League, Champions League or even the second tier Europa League, but the Europa Conference League.
The Irons scored late via Jarrod Bowen to seal to the win against Italian club Fiorentina. To say the fans who had travelled to Czechia to watch the game went bananas is simply a gross understatement.
(Photo by Lukas Kabon/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
There were likely to be people in attendance with 50-plus years of frustrated supportership of one of the most harmless and ineffective English football teams.
Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City are not exactly shaking in their boots when the Hammers pay them a visit. In fact, in terms of the Premier League since inception, they have been mostly a non-entity.
Yet perhaps now, with a trophy on board and an apparent intention to bring in some quality players to bolster the ranks, West Ham is about to transform into a top-six club and become a real threat?
No.
Club captain and England international Declan Rice is about to depart for a bucket load of money, David Moyes is still out-witted against the top teams and to top things off, Harry Maguire is rumoured to be a transfer target of the club.
The Hammers will continue to battle away, produce talent from its academy, have it poached and then flounder in mediocrity. But at least the fans now have a second European trophy to somewhat ease the pain.
Hopefully that will get us through the next 43 years as we wait for the next one.
Despite David Moyes guiding West Ham to a European quarter-final, a large portion of the fan base thinks there needs to be a manager change.
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