The basic storyline involves a music-hall song, a curly haired kid and an advert for soap. The sub-plot is that some eminent historians aren’t convinced it’s accurate.
Let’s start with what we do know to be true. ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’ was copyrighted in 1919 in the US and, after crossing the Atlantic, became a hit here in the early 1920s.
This was the time a young lad called Will Murray was making a name for himself at West Ham. Murray had been nicknamed ‘Bubbles’ by his headmaster, Cornelius Beal. He got the name because, in Beal’s eyes at least, he looked like the child whose angelic face had featured in advertising hoardings on a poster known as Bubbles. The Pears soap company, which was based in Canning Town, had acquired the rights to a nineteenth-century painting by Sir John Everett Millais of his five-year-old grandson watching a soap bubble float in the air and had added a bar of their own product. This was the Bubbles poster that was the centrepiece of a nationwide ad campaign.
What could be more natural than for a football crowd to adopt a popular song with obvious links to the club, first to hail one of its favourite sons, then to salute the team itself? A fascinating booklet, The ‘Bubbles’ Legend, is in no doubt that this is what happened. And its author is certainly well placed to make a judgement – he is Graham Murray, son of Will.
Historian John Simkin, who has been following West Ham for even longer than I have, is not convinced. He says:
There is a photograph in existence of Murray in 1921. He looks nothing like the Bubbles painting. Nor could he, as the painting shows a five-year-old boy, not a teenager. He has dark rather than fair hair. It is fairly curly, but nothing like the original painting or indeed the Pears adverts that were in existence in the early 1920s.
However, Graham Murray’s booklet contains a hand-written reference from Beal that talks of ‘W. Murray, the famous Bubbles, who is as good at his work as at his play.’ In fact, there are a number of photos of Will Murray in 1921, including one with his teammates of the triumphant Park School side – coached by their headmaster. ‘It was Corney Beal, as he was affectionately known, who linked members of his team to popular songs,’ says Murray Jnr, adding that Bubbles had acquired his nickname because of his supposed resemblance to the boy in the Pears posters.
But did the West Ham supporters make the same connection? ‘Will Murray never played for the West Ham first team,’ Simkin points out. ‘Is it really credible that the Upton Park fans would sing a song about a player who never made it into the first team?’
Bubbles Murray was certainly a promising youngster and could well have gone on to make a career as a professional if he hadn’t opted for the security of a job as a shipping clerk instead. He was a regular on the West Ham Boys sides of 1919–23 and huge crowds turned up at Upton Park to watch them play. ‘Perhaps the greatest occasion was in 1921 when they lost to Liverpool Boys 2–3 in the final of the English Schools Championship in the presence of the Duke of York, the future king George VI, in front of 30,000 spectators,’ says his son.
So William Murray was clearly a star at the Boleyn Ground when ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’ was being popularised in Britain by variety artist Dorothy Ward. When was the song first heard there, though? It is possible to confirm that the Beckton Gas Works Band played it at Upton Park before matches on occasions, although no one knows quite when. But Simkin makes the point that, contrary to popular myth, West Ham fans did not sing ‘Bubbles’ at the 1923 Cup final, which they surely would have if it had been adopted as the terrace anthem.
He thinks the answer to why we sing ‘Bubbles’ has been unearthed by fellow historian Brian Belton, who says the song became a morale-boosting favourite with the poor devils who were forced to take shelter in the air raid shelters and Underground stations as the East End took cover from Hitler’s Luftwaffe during the Blitz. Simkin says:
According to Belton, the first time the song was reported to be sung by West Ham fans was during the 1940 League War Cup final at Wembley. This was a game that the Irons won and maybe the fans took it as a good luck omen. Anyway, that appears to me to be the most logical reason.
I wish the legend were true. Will Murray had a famous cousin, Syd Puddefoot, who was unquestionably West Ham’s most glamorous star in the ’20s. In turn, Puddefoot had a nephew called Den, who became close friends with my father when they served together in the RAF during the Second World War. It was Den who introduced my dad to my mum, which eventually resulted in me. So, by an admittedly roundabout way, I would have family ties with my club’s anthem if young Will really had prompted it all.
But it’s hard to argue with John Simkin, founder of the Tressell publishing corporation, the brains behind the Spartacus Educational website and a man with three university degrees. The clincher for me is his point that there appear to be no newspaper reports of supporters singing it at all before the Second World War. And that’s why I’m kicking myself now. I spent years in the company of a man who could have answered the simple question – did you sing ‘Bubbles’ at Upton Park between the wars? Because Sid, my fabulous father-in-law, was there. I just never thought to ask him.
‘Bubbles’ has been heard in some unlikely places. Sheffield Wednesday supporters have taunted their city rivals with it. Apparently, Arsenal fans sang it at Highbury at the end of the 2005/06 season as we were paving the Gooners’ way into Europe at Tottenham’s expense by beating Spurs 2–1 in the ‘lasagne-gate’ encounter. (Always happy to help when we can!) And Tony Gale was the choirmaster when it was heard coming from the Blackburn dressing room as they celebrated winning the Premier League title in 1995 after we had denied Man Utd the win they needed at Upton Park. ‘I had to teach all those northern blokes the words,’ Gale told me. I could have asked Sid about ‘Bubbles’ then: I was sitting next to him in the Bobby Moore Upper.
The game produced a strange little incident that still makes me smile whenever it comes to mind. News of a Liverpool goal against Rovers, which was all part of the equation if United were to secure the title, sparked a wild celebration among the Manchester fans in what is now the Sir Trevor Brooking Stand just as the ball rolled out harmlessly on the halfway line. From where we were sitting, unaware of – and uninterested in – what has happening at Anfield, it appeared the entire opposition support was ecstatic at being awarded a throw-in. My father-in-law thought it was hilarious.
Sid never did lose his childlike sense of fun. Once, when clambering around in the loft, he put his foot through the ceiling and actually saw the funny side.
Sid was the sort of man who, when required to decorate a room, would paint a giant elephant on one of the walls before getting down to the real job he had been sent in there to do. He’d let his pachyderm dry before emulsioning over it, but even when he covered the wall in the same colour you could always make it out in relief after he finished – much to my mother-in-law’s annoyance. What do I mean he was ‘the sort of man’? He was the only man who ever left the image of an elephant in every room of his house. I can’t tell you how much I liked that bloke.
It’s a fair bet ‘Bubbles’ has never been sung anywhere less like a football stadium than St Bride’s Church in Fleet Street. The choir’s rendition is quite easily the most moving I’ve ever heard, although – as you’ll see if you bear with me for a while longer – I wish above all else that I’d heard them sing it in very different circumstances…
There are a number of West Ham fans who don’t like ‘Bubbles’ because of what they consider to be the defeatist lyrics. Geoff Ellen was one of them. I first met Geoff in 1989 – the year the Berlin Wall came down. Not that our meeting had anything to do with the momentous event that revolutionised Europe – I merely throw it in for a bit of historical context. While the Trabbies were heading west for the Brandenburg Gate in search of a better and brighter future, I had decided to do the same thing by going north across the River Thames – from the Daily Express’s building on the south side of Blackfriars Bridge to The Guardian’s offices in F
arringdon Road.
When I started my new job I thought I had made the biggest mistake of my working life. Unbeknown to me, one of my mates who had made the same transition the previous year had told my new, refined, broadsheet colleagues they were about to be joined by a bruiser from the tabloids who would seemingly be appointed to a fairly junior position but was actually there to sit among them for a month or so, observing their drunken ways, before taking up a senior managerial post and kicking their idle arses into shape.
He had done this a few days before I was due to arrive. Apparently the idea was to allow my new workmates to suffer for a bit, then let them in on the joke before I got there. Unfortunately for me, my ‘mate’ forgot all about his off-the-cuff prank almost as quickly as he had dreamt it up and failed to tell anyone that this was all just a hilarious gag.
When I turned up to start my new job, the reception I got was a good deal less than friendly. For the first couple of weeks I toiled away knowing there was a big black cloud over my head, but not understanding why it was there. Geoff was on holiday for those two weeks. When he got back he took one look at me and decided that the cuckoo-in-the-nest story was nonsense. Maybe he was an excellent judge of character. Perhaps it was the fact we were both lifelong Hammers. Whatever the reason, we became firm friends right from the off.
Geoff had a heart the size of a house – but he refused to listen to it when it came to having a punt. Bet with your head, not your heart, was Geoff’s maxim. While his preferred way of enriching the bookies was via the horses, he wasn’t averse to gambling on football matches either. And the fact he was actually prepared to back West Ham to lose really annoyed me.
Not that you could stay annoyed with Geoff for long. He was just too likeable. They say some people can start a fight in an empty room. Geoff was just the opposite. On a trip to Fratton Park one bitterly cold day he insisted that, rather than risk hypothermia by loitering outside for a couple of hours before kickoff, we should find ourselves a nice warm pub. The problem was the only pub we could find was rammed with Portsmouth supporters, who do not enjoy a reputation for being among the most hospitable. Geoff was talking to a group of them straight away, making no bones about the fact that we were there to support West Ham (with that Dagenham accent it would have been difficult to have done much else), but doing it in such a way that no one could take offence. By the time we left I swear he could have got the Pompey lads to have sung ‘Bubbles’ if he had chosen to do so.
His habit of calling everyone ‘mate’ helped. Even complete strangers were ‘mate’ to Geoff. What only a few people knew was he could never remember people’s names, so, by addressing friend and foe alike, no one cottoned on when he’d had a temporary lapse of memory. I have to admit, it’s a trick I have found myself using more frequently as the years roll on.
Come the start of the 1990/91 season, I was starting to feel quite optimistic about West Ham’s chances of securing promotion. The previous year in the second division had been one of turmoil at Upton Park (nothing new there, I hear the cynics at the back of the class say) and we had failed to even make the play-offs. Lou Macari had come and gone as manager; Paul Ince had left too – but not before being inducted into the Hall of Infamy by being pictured wearing a Man Utd shirt while still earning his money as a West Ham player. And the hopes of another Wembley appearance had been washed away in the pouring rain with a 6–0 drubbing at Oldham in the first leg of a League Cup semi-final.
But, as ever, a new season brings new hope and, as Geoff and I discussed the fixture list, I became increasingly bullish about our prospects. There was no one in the division to fear as far as I could see. Charlton, Sheffield Wednesday and The Hated Millwall had been relegated from the division above us, while the two Bristol clubs and Notts County had joined us from the one below. More to the point, Billy Bonds was about to start his first full season in charge as manager – and with Bonzo at the helm nothing could possibly go wrong.
‘We’ll go unbeaten until Christmas,’ I predicted confidently. Geoff looked at me scornfully over his pint of beer (he always wanted to know if I fancied going for ‘a pint of beer’, rather than just ‘a pint’) and shook his head. ‘I’ll give you odds of 100–1 that we don’t,’ he replied.
His lack of enthusiasm really got my hackles up. ‘Go on, then – I’ll have a tenner with you,’ I said, thinking he would have to back down in the face of that sort of risk. Geoff was a serious gambler and I didn’t have to tell him that my £10 would become £1,000 in the unlikely – but not impossible – event of West Ham justifying my faith in them. ‘You’re on,’ he said with a smile. ‘What’s more, I’ll give you League only – it doesn’t count if we get beaten in Cup games. Still fancy it?’
Damn right I did. In fact, I couldn’t wait for the first game to kick off the following Saturday. Deep down I suspected I’d have to give Judas his pieces of silver, but I really wanted him to sweat first. First up was Middlesbrough at Ayresome Park, and we came away with a point after a no-score stalemate. Then a Frank McAvennie goal secured a 1–1 draw against Portsmouth at Upton Park. The season had started relatively late that year (I think they wanted to give the nation some extra time to mend its broken heart after the World Cup disappointment of Italia ’90) and those two results meant I had at least got through August with my bet – and my pride – intact.
September offered more of a challenge. The first day of the month saw us beat Watford 1–0 at Upton Park, thanks to a goal from the mighty Julian Dicks. (Can I just clear something up for those of you who don’t support West Ham at this point: Dicksy was not ‘Mad Dog’ as so many of you seem to think. That was Martin Allen. Julian was ‘The Terminator’. Although, should you ever bump into either of them on a dark night, I suggest you stick with plain ‘Mister’.)
The following week we went to Leicester and won 2–1, with the help of an own goal and an effort from Trevor Morley. Interestingly – for West Ham fans at least – the Leicester strike force consisted of David Kelly, who had performed so poorly for us in the previous two seasons, and Paul Kitson, who would later do so much to help us avoid relegation when Harry Redknapp, to quote his immortal phrase, reckoned we needed snookers.
Next came Wolves, an early Alvin Martin goal from close range and a 1–1 draw. The highlight for me was watching another young hopeful make his initial appearance for West Ham. Between you and me, I have a bit of a fetish about debuts. The thought that the player you are watching for the first time could go on to be a claret and blue hero always gives me a bit of a tingle (but in a very masculine way, you understand). In this case it was a lad called Simon Livett. Anyone remember him? You do? To be honest, sir, I don’t believe you. This was his only League appearance for us. In fact he turned out just four times in West Ham colours and one of those was in a friendly against Panathinaikos at Highbury. Ah, you were at the Makita tournament, too. We must get together and swap memories some time. No, not now, I’m afraid – I’m rather busy just at the moment.
After the Wolves game came a midweek encounter with Ipswich, and we tonked them 3–1. Ian Bishop, Morley and Jimmy ‘the tree’ Quinn had us out of our seats that night.
Bonzo’s team wasn’t packed with the starriest names in West Ham’s history, but they were starting to play well. Despite my glowing (and gloating) reports of the matches I had been to, Geoff was showing no signs of panic. He was confident that the next two games would win him his money – we were away to Newcastle and then Sheffield Wednesday. I listened nervously to the radio as the results came in. Both games ended 1–1. First Morley, then Dicks, had kept our bet alive.
October’s fixture list was packed with winnable games, which is usually a worrying time for West Ham supporters. Oxford were dispatched 2–0 at home, then Hull were put to the sword in a mismatch that has gone down in East End folklore not so much for the remarkable scoreline, but for one of the scorers.
Steve Potts spent seventeen years at Upton Park, making a total of 506 appearances in all comp
etitions, and his one and only goal came in this game. I’d like to tell you it was a 30-yard match-winning screamer that left the keeper grasping thin air as the net bulged behind him. Sadly, the truth is rather different: yes, the shot was from distance, but your mum could have saved it. The Hull shot-stopper, however, failed to fulfil the terms of his job description and let it slip under his body. The ball trickled into the net and we went on to win 7–1.
The following Saturday we were away to Bristol City, who came up with the brilliant idea of trying to dissuade the West Ham support from travelling by organising a 10.30 a.m. kickoff. Nice try! In the event, 5,000 of us bombed down the M4 and saw McAvennie come off the bench to score in a 1–1 draw. The only trouble with starting a game at this time is that it gives a lot of thirsty supporters a chance to adjourn to the local pub afterwards (soft drinks only for designated drivers, of course). And not every city wants to entertain a bunch of chirpy cockneys who’ve got a few sherbets inside them. You won’t make that mistake again in a hurry, will you, Bristol?
I had hoped to satisfy my strange longings to see a debut performance at Ashton Gate, but Bonzo didn’t wheel out the newly signed Tim Breaker until the following week at Swindon, and we didn’t go to that game. Another effort from McAvennie ensured a 1–0 win, then, in midweek, Ian Bishop scored a blinder, which turned out to be the only goal against Blackburn at Upton Park, before we rounded off the October League programme with a 2–1 home win against Charlton, courtesy of two goals from Mad Dog. We were now second in the table and still unbeaten. Geoff was starting to look distinctly worried whenever I mentioned our bet. This was turning out to be fun!
Although League Cup games weren’t part of our financial arrangement, Geoff and I decided to go to the third round tie at Oxford for the simple reason that he lived there. It was just as well for me the game didn’t count – we lost 2–1. Even so, I hate to see West Ham lose and the drive back to Brighton was tinged with disappointment. Little did Di and I realise that the next time we would take our VW Golf to the city of dreaming spires, barely three months later, it would be in the saddest circumstances imaginable.
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