Middlesbrough 1      West Ham United 3
Fitzsimons                  Dick, Musgrove, Keeble

Football League Second Division, 26 April 1958, Ayresome Park

Middlesbrough: Taylor, Robinson, Stonehouse, Birbeck, Dicks, Holliday, Taylor, Clough, Peacock, Fitzsimons, Harris

West Ham United: Gregory, Bond, Cantwell, Malcolm, Brown, Nelson, Grice, Smith, Keeble, Dick, Musgrove
 

A jubilant crowd of 1,000 Hammers fans waited imperiously on the King's Cross railway station platform late on the evening of Saturday 26 April 1958 to greet a West Ham United team that had just steamed back to the First Division for the first time since 1932.

Middlesbrough had been defeated 3-1 at Ayresome Park as Ted Fenton's side secured the Second Division title and promotion after 26 years.

The final game of the 1957/58 campaign saw top scorer Johnny Dick set Hammers on their way with a deft backheel to claim his 21st goal of the season, before Malcolm Musgrove's ninth and Vic Keeble's 19th of the term secured the title.

The champions headed back from Teesside having won 23 and drawn eleven of their 42 Second Division games, scoring 101 goals along the way.

"This is, indeed, a wonderful moment for us," confessed proud chairman Reg Pratt. "It is said that if you want something badly enough you'll get it in the end. We have waited for this occasion for a very long time, and now regard our present success not so much as an end but as a new beginning, a challenge, a spur to greater efforts."

These were prophetic words for the club were about to embark upon a 19-season run in the First Division, which was destined to incorporate those successful campaigns of the mid-1960s and Moore, Hurst and Peters representing West Ham United during both the Club's and England's finest sporting hours.