Nearly Reach the Sky

by Brian Williams

  Stewart, wearing the No. 4 shirt normally worn by Bonds, picked up the ball that had been left unattended on the edge of the area while the Villa players debated with the ref and bounced it once before striding forward to place it on the spot that referee David Richardson had pointed to moments beforehand. Nine paces backwards, a moment to compose himself, a short run-up and then the explosion of power that lifted the young Scotsman off his feet and left Villa keeper Jimmy Rimmer grasping at emptiness as a blur of leather hurtled past him. It was a highly individual style of taking penalties that I would see again and again over the following ten years. I never tired of it. And I never doubted it.

  If anyone had any questions about Tonka’s ability to keep calm under the most intense pressure, he answered them a year later at Wembley in the League Cup final against the team who a few weeks later would win the European Cup. The game was deep into the second half of extra time when Liverpool opened the scoring with a hugely controversial goal. The fact that a red-shirted Liverpudlian was lying in an offside position when the ball flew past Phil Parkes cut no ice with referee Clive Thomas, a man who was not renowned for doing West Ham any favours. We were left with two minutes to put right this terrible injustice.

  As in the Villa game, we won a last-gasp corner which was again aimed at Alvin Martin’s head. This time Martin made contact – and the ball arrowed towards the top corner. A hand got to the ball … but it wasn’t the keeper’s hand. It was a penalty!

  The 120 minutes were up when Stewart put the ball on the spot. There was not a West Ham supporter in the world who dared to breathe at this moment. I was listening on the car radio, having failed to successfully negotiate a day-release pass, and wondering if failing to inhale while in charge of a motor vehicle contravenes the Highway Code. We knew Ray would smash it – but would he keep it on target? Was this the one that would go over the bar, or come flying back off the post? Nope. This was the one Tonka chose to stroke down the middle, as cool as an autumn day in Dundee. One-one, and a totally deserved replay.

  In all, Stewart took eighty-six penalties for West Ham, missing ten. Of those that didn’t go in directly he converted two on the rebound after the spot kicks had been saved (versus Luton and Lincoln) and another – against Burnley – was turned in by Paul Goddard after the ball had been parried by the keeper. Ray himself doesn’t consider those three to be ‘missed’.

  For me he was at his brilliant best – both as a player and a penalty-taker – in the climax to the fantastic ’85/86 season, when West Ham actually came within a hair’s breadth of winning the League. In the run-in we played seventeen games in fifty-six days, and the excitement grew with each match. No one dared admit they were thinking of the title the night we hammered Newcastle 8–1. Stewart scored in that game (who didn’t?) but more memorable was the generous way, when we were awarded a penalty, he handed the ball to big Alvin so the central defender could complete an unlikely hat-trick.

  A week later, when some of us were starting to dream dreams about finishing top of the pile for the first time ever, Tonka scored from the spot late on against Man City to keep those hopes alive. A break of just two days and we’re back at Upton Park for a crucial game with Ipswich. They take the lead; we equalise; then, with time running out, Mark Ward goes down in the penalty area in front of the North Bank. From where I’m sitting in the West Stand it looks like he’s dived. I may not be convinced but the referee is and he’s the man who counts. Step forward Ray Stewart, once more shouldering the crushing responsibility he has borne on so many previous occasions. A deep breath to quell the rising panic (that’s me, not Tonka) then BAM! … the ball is in the back of the net and West Ham are going into the final game of the season second in the table.

  Although I had missed Tonka’s debut, I was there for his final game as a West Ham player. It was against Charlton in 1991, when they were playing their home games at Selhurst Park. By then, injury had taken its toll and Stewart was definitely past his best. My two distinct memories of that game were Mad Dog’s goal (we were bang in line with his right foot shot and knew precisely where it was headed the moment he struck it) and the heavy-handed approach of the south London police, who insisted on filming us with hand-held cameras throughout the game.

  It was a clear infringement of our civil liberties (yes – even football supporters have civil liberties) and our friend Simon was outraged. Mind you, by then he knew a thing or two about security in football grounds.

  The worst-kept secret at Upton Park is the coded message to stewards that there is an incident somewhere in the ground that needs their immediate attention.

  There is an almighty cheer every time it is announced that Mr Moon is in the stadium – and an equally loud one when it is revealed that he has left again.

  It’s such a natural occurrence – like the rising of the tides and the setting of the sun – that regulars don’t think to mention it to newcomers when they introduce them to the delights of a Saturday afternoon at the Boleyn Ground. I certainly didn’t give it a moment’s thought when I persuaded my close friend and best man to come along and see his first home game. Perhaps I should have. Simon’s surname is Moon.

  We were sitting quietly in the West Stand – me studying Hammer, him soaking up all the atmosphere the second division could offer in the ’80s – when the oh-so-familiar announcement was made. As is the custom, the crowd roared as if a pantomime villain had suddenly appeared before us. I roared. My wife roared. My father-in-law roared. And my mate nearly jumped out of his skin.

  It takes a lot to rattle a man who has been brought up near Wigan and educated by a sadistic bunch of head-bangers called the Christian Brothers who came over to the north-west of England from Ireland with the primary intention of beating the bejesus out of as many young boys as they could in the hope of educating them in the ways of the Catholic Church. But Mr Moon was clearly shaken by 20,000-plus people cheering the fact he had taken the trouble to come to the ground that day.

  His look of utter astonishment will live with me ’til the day I turn up my toes and find out whether or not the Christian Brothers are right after all. Then his expression changed slightly. He clearly thought I had something to do with it! All right, I was helpless with laughter and my denials must have lacked a certain amount of sincerity – but how could I have pulled that one off?

  I admit he did have grounds for suspicion. What else is a best mate for if it’s not to be on the wrong end of a practical joke from time to time? Simon and I worked on the Daily Express back then, and one of our colleagues was an obsessive long-distance runner. He wanted to put together a team to represent the paper in the London Marathon and was looking for volunteers. Somebody (it might have been me) let it slip that my mate had been a champion fell runner in his native Lancashire and would be an ideal candidate for the team. The only problem was that he was ridiculously modest about his achievements and would deny them if pressed. But don’t be put off, I told our athletic workmate, you’ll talk him round in the end. And, whatever you do, don’t tell him where you got your information – he’ll never forgive me if he finds out it was me who divulged the glories of his past.

  My modest friend did deny his achievements, just as I had predicted. That might have been because I had made them up – I’m not sure they even have fells in Lancashire, to be honest. But that didn’t deter Marathon Man, who pestered Simon for weeks, leaving him increasingly baffled about why his pursuer wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  I readily accept this isn’t the funniest prank that anyone has played on a mate, but it amused me. (I like a running gag.) The Real Mr Moon only found out the truth a few days before his first trip to Upton Park, and he was convinced that I had concocted a far more elaborate practical joke than the one he had just endured.

  I am happy to report Simon came to see the funny side in time, but none of us who were at Selhurst Park to see Tonka’s farewell game were laughing when those cameras were turned on us for no reason whatsoever. In the unl
ikely event the police still have that footage, they might like to look at it again; I think you’ll find we were not amused.

  Twenty years after I saw Tonka take a penalty for the first time we were back at Upton Park for another quarter-final against Villa. This time it was the League Cup, and we shouldn’t have been there at all. We’d already beaten them to book our place in the semis, then it turned out we’d fielded an ineligible player in the first tie.

  His name was Emmanuel Omoyinmi, although that was generally shortened to Dear Manny in the death threats he received from irate supporters when it emerged he’d already turned out for Gillingham in the same competition and was therefore Cup-tied. He’d come on for the last few minutes of extra time and barely touched the ball … but rules is rules and West Ham had broken them.

  That first game was a shocker. After eighty-eight seriously forgettable minutes it is 1–1 – then the visitors appear to win it with a Dion Dublin volley. One last foray into Villa territory brings us a penalty … which Paolo Di Canio strokes home with all the insouciance of an Italian gigolo on the pull in an old folk’s home in Rome. Half an hour later the scores are still level and it’s penalty shoot-out time. Five West Ham players step up to the spot – and five West Ham players score. Hard to believe, I know, but true nonetheless. Of the five Villa players who try their luck, however, only four are successful. Gareth Southgate, who England followers will recall has some previous in this department, fails to trouble the scorers and the mighty West Ham United are in the semi-final of a major Cup competition with every chance of going all the way. Or so we thought.

  We might have had more chance of getting away with it if two months previously we hadn’t played Croatian defender Igor Stimac in a UEFA Cup tie, even though he still had a two-game ban to serve dating back four years to his time at Hajduk Split. UEFA accepted responsibility for the oversight on that occasion. But the Football League weren’t so lenient and they ordered a replay – which we lost 3–1 after extra time. After years of failure this was the first time in West Ham’s history that we had actually managed to win a penalty shoot-out in a competitive game and then go on and lose the tie. You can see why a lifetime spent following the Hammers gives you a rather jaundiced outlook on life.

  The penalty kick itself was devised by an Irishman named William McCrum who played in goal for his village side Milford FC in the Irish Football League. Judging by his first season, in 1890/91, he may not have been the greatest keeper the world has ever seen. Milford finished bottom of the League with no points from fourteen games, having conceded sixty-two goals. However, the village had been built by his millionaire father, who also just happened to run the local linen business, so it was unlikely he was ever going to be dropped.

  This was the time when the game was played by amateur ‘gentlemen’, who never cheated. Only they did – and McCrum, as a keeper, was perfectly placed to see them do it. To counter some of the violence that was taking place in front of him (which could be startlingly brutal at times) he came up with a proposal that went before the International Football Association Board for consideration.

  What the man known locally as Master Willie suggested was:

  If any player shall intentionally trip or hold an opposing player, or deliberately handle the ball within 12 yards from his own goal line, the referee shall, on appeal, award the opposing side a penalty kick, to be taken from any point 12 yards from the goal line, under the following conditions: All players, with the exception of the player taking the penalty kick and the goalkeeper, shall stand behind the ball and at least 6 yards from it: the ball shall be in play when the kick is taken. A goal may be scored from a penalty kick.

  You will notice that the infringement had to happen 12 yards from the goal line, rather than in the penalty area. There is a simple explanation for this; before McCrum came up with the idea of a penalty there was no need for a penalty area, so it didn’t exist. Interestingly, a penalty would only be awarded after an appeal – in the way a cricket umpire cannot give a batsman out without first being asked – and the kick could be taken from any point 12 yards away, not necessarily a central spot.

  The idea did not go down at all well at first – particularly with his fellow players who dubbed it, among other things, the ‘death penalty’. However, a year after the proposal was first made it was approved, with a couple of amendments, and became the Law 13 we know and love today.

  Penalties I can live with. But the penalty shoot-out really is a devilish invention. As a way of settling drawn games it is preferable to the heads-or-tails lottery of the coin-toss that preceded it. But only just. First introduced in England in 1970, the shoot-out began life here in the late, but not-so-lamented, Watney Cup. (West Ham were to lose the first of many shoot-outs in this particular competition when Bristol Rovers proved they were better than us at taking penalties in 1973. Plus ça change, as they say in Bristol.)

  Sorry, did someone say this would be an ideal opportunity to analyse the penalty-taking techniques of the lads who came up so desperately short in the shoot-out after Stephen Gerrard’s last gasp equaliser for Liverpool in the 2006 Cup final? Relive that heartache – are you mad?

  This isn’t just a West Ham thing. There cannot be an Englishman worthy of the name who doesn’t dread a penalty shoot-out. I don’t care what team you support, I simply don’t believe that anyone who considers George the dragon-slayer to be their patron saint actually believes their team will come out on top if it goes to pens.

  It’s anybody’s guess what Master Willie would have made of the bastard offspring of his noble idea. One man who might have an inkling is my colleague Robert McCrum, a highly distinguished writer on The Guardian’s sister paper The Observer, who is William’s grandson. I thought about asking him but we’re all pretty busy at work these days and I didn’t think it right to waste his time with silly questions like that.

  In the unlikely event my life depended on West Ham winning a penalty shoot-out, and I had to choose five players from any era to take them, I’d go for Tonka, followed by Julian Dicks, Paolo Di Canio, Sir Geoff and Mark Noble. I was tempted to include George Kitchen, who didn’t let the fact he was a goalkeeper put him off and scored five times from the penalty spot between 1905 and 1912. (Apparently he is the only keeper ever to have scored on his debut. No kidding?) However, he also missed three – including one in a game against Brighton on Bonfire Night in 1910 in which he also scored. This all sounds a bit flaky to me, and as it is my life we’re talking about here I’m not going to risk it.

  The mighty Julian Dicks scored fifty times in his 264 appearances for West Ham, which came in two slices. The unlikely filling in this sandwich was a spell at Anfield, where he will always have the distinction of being the last Liverpool player to score in front of a standing Kop before they made them all sit down. The Terminator reckons that of all his penalties he only ever tried to place two: one hit the post and the other missed altogether. The rest he simply blasted with a ferocity that was staggering to behold. In all, he converted thirty-five of his thirty-nine spot kicks while wearing claret and blue.

  Di Canio, of course, was a law unto himself when it came to taking penalties, just as happy to wait for the keeper to dive and cheekily chip the ball into the space he had vacated as place it unerringly in the corner; Hurst – despite the heart-breaking miss against Stoke – was brilliant from 12 yards; and mighty Mark Noble has the assurance of a professional assassin when he puts the ball on the spot. Save a plinth in the West Ham hall of fame for this man – the day he hangs up his boots his place alongside the club’s all-time greats is assured.

  Marlon Harewood, on the other hand, will have to wait a little longer for an invitation to take his place among the legends of E13.

  Quite how he got to take a penalty in a crucial relegation clash against Watford in the Great Escape season when Carlos Tevez was on the pitch is beyond me. But that is in the second half, and we have an opposition penalty to deal with first. Geoff and I are in the T
revor Brooking Lower, in much the same place I had stood all those years beforehand when my son’s illustrious namesake was foiled by the Banks of England. Less than a quarter of an hour has passed when Anton Ferdinand pulls back Darius Henderson in the area for a nailed-on pen.

  Funnily enough, I never have the same feeling of doubt when we concede a penalty as I do when we’re awarded one. I am always convinced our keeper is going to save it. And in all my years of going to Upton Park I cannot recall anyone better at saving penalties than Robert Green. This time, however, my confidence is misplaced and Henderson’s effort beats Green’s flailing right hand and finds its way into the bottom corner.

  We proceed to bombard the bottom-placed club and come close on a number of occasions. Then we get our chance from the spot. Curiously, we have had to wait until February for our first penalty. For reasons of illogical superstition that escape me now, I decide to look away when Marvellous Marlon steps up to do the honours. It is the first time I have ever opted not to watch as we take a pen.

  By the nature of things, it is rare to turn your back to goal at a football match (we don’t do the Poznan at Upton Park) and it is an interesting experience when you do. If nothing else, it gives you a rare opportunity to study the people who share your obsession. Like you, they will be exultant if this ball finds its way into the net. Similarly, they will be plunged into the gloomy depths if it doesn’t. You can work out for yourself which emotion we are left to deal with as we go on to lose 1–0 and sink deeper into the relegation mire.

  Having tried it, I won’t look away again. Neither will I shut my eyes. From Hurst to Harewood, West Ham will always leave me on the edge of a nervous breakdown when a ref points to the spot. But, unlike them, I will never miss another penalty.

  Chapter 17

  1966 and all that

  WHEN BOBBY MOORE wiped the mud off his hands on the velvet cloth draped over the edge of the royal box and prepared to receive the Jules Rimet trophy from the Queen at Wembley on a glorious July day in 1966 I couldn’t have been happier. England were world champions, and the nation’s global triumph had been achieved with the considerable help of three players from the club side to which I had given my young heart two years earlier.