West Ham

FA Cup Final 2006 – West Ham vs Liverpool

The anticipation of the FA Cup Final was stomach churning. The week before produced some amazingly realistic dreams of glory whereby I clearly saw the West Ham boys charging down the pitch in celebration and claret and blue dominating my peripheral vision…then I would awake to the realisation that we still had the mammoth task of beating Liverpool!

Nine of us headed to Cardiff in a brilliantly chavesque stretch hummer and spirits were high, on the way we watched the DVD of West Ham winning the FA Cup final 26 years before and hoped to be celebrating the same victory later in the day. Unfortunately weakest bladder rules and there was a lot of ale consumed on the way, though the pit stops at service stations are always good and the atmosphere was starting to build, Membury services was reverberating with this chant sung to the tune of ‘Oh Pretty Baby’:

Oh Christain Dailley you are the love of my life
Oh Cristian Dailley I’d let you S**G my wife
Oh Cristan Dailley…
I want curly hair too…

Hopes and fears... we are always keen at the start

And on to Cardiff where we congregated in the Great Western pub on the corner, the upstairs bar, where we’ve gathered for our previous two trips to Cardiff for the play-offs. A handful (OK, more than a handful) of beers and novelty ciders were then drunk (the Magners had run out early) and we headed down the high street towards the ground, flag waving and chanting all the way.

We were split up in the crowd en route but finally managed to all get in the ground and start the voice loss inducing singing. Out of thousands of people, as usual someone we know, who we were in Portugal with for Euro ’04 was just in front of us…it usually happens but it still amazes me that we seem to bump into people we know either following England or West Ham, amongst thousands of fans!

The atmosphere was fantastic though when play started there was an underlying feeling of anxiety among the fans though the West Ham boys settled down early and showed no sign of nerves, passed well and displayed fantastic team work. If you’re reading this then you’re probably a football fan and so watched one of the best FA Cup Finals ever (so no need for a match report here) suffice to say the game was amazing and the sheer joy when West Ham scored is something so hard to explain, as is the desperation when Gerrard scored an historic goal from 35 yards out in the dying seconds of the game…all I remember is looking to the official holding up the board saying 4 minutes injury time and before I could check my watch the Liverpool end were roaring in a sea of red and we just stood staring in amazement and disappointment not speaking, just staring!

The boys fought on valiantly and nearly clinched it in extra time when Reina pulled off an amazing save and the ball landed at the feet of the injured Harewood who couldn’t quite get on the end of it. The rest is history…one of the greatest FA Cup Finals ever was settled on the lottery of penalties (West Ham don’t get a lot of experience at penalties under that kind of pressure) and I really felt for them, the tears of Anton Ferdinand and Yossi Benayoun said it all really and I joined them in crying, all of them played their hearts out and made their fans extremely proud.

Happy days - our first FA Cup final for 26 years

The Hammers fans hung around to see Liverpool lift the cup and to cheer on our boys then we went back to the pub to celebrate the fight that the Hammers put up, apart from the obvious disappointment and going over the near misses and ‘if onlys’ over and over again, generally the mood was a proud one.

After a few emotional phone calls from hammers, Liverpool mates, well wishers and my nephew Jacob who was at home crying his hammers face paint off, we headed for the car and the long journey back to London.

Our car was parked on the Liverpool side of the city and along the way we congratulated the scousers and they were equally complimentary about the way West Ham played and how close it was, a number of them also commented on how brilliant the West Ham fans had been, which was good to hear.

At one point we passed a pub that was absolutely packed to the rafters with celebrating Liverpool fans, Andy managed to nip past the bouncer who tried to stop him, to go and shake a few hands. I followed him in was instantly hoisted onto the shoulders of a large Liverpool fan and handed a bottle of champagne…The reds then continued to cheer and applaud Andy and myself all decked out in claret and blue amongst a pubful of red and for a moment I could imagine what might have been.

All told it was a very special day that will be remembered and talked about for years to come and one that, despite the result, I’m so happy to have been part of!