Head of talkSPORT and Hammers Season Ticket Holder Lee Clayton will be a regular contributor to the Official Programme and whufc.com throughout the season...
Every West Ham supporter should recognise the work of David Cross.
Readers of a certain age will know what I mean... and the rest can find evidence on YouTube.
A record signing, prolific marksman, FA Cup winner, Second Division title winner and a scorer of four goals in a single game twice, including once away to Tottenham!
In one short of 600 league games across England and the United States, Cross scored 233 goals and his most prosperous time in front of goal was in the Claret and Blue of West Ham.
He also scored the only West Ham hat-trick in European history, which helped start my love a air with radio that continues today. Handy, given the job that I now do, too!
West Ham versus Castilla in the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1980/81 saw our heroes trailing 3-1 from the first leg in Madrid.
David takes up the story. “It was my first game in Europe, in the Bernabeu Stadium! It was a big thing and we didn’t perform.
“They were Real Madrid’s development team, a young bunch but with a handful of players who went on to become Spanish
internationals. They were no fools.
“There was also a bit of bother in the first game with our fans and a discussion that we might be thrown out of the competition altogether, or at least forced to play the second leg in a neutral city, such as Paris.
“But we got the go-ahead to play at our stadium, without any supporters. The attendance was 262. We won 5-1. I scored a hat-trick, but it was an odd experience.”
It was odd to listen on radio as well. There was no television coverage of the tie and we could only imagine the scenes as the voices of the players echoed around the near-empty stadium.
That night on BBC Radio 2 the commentators gave a masterclass, explaining perfectly how Alan Devonshire, Trevor Brooking, Billy Bonds and the rampaging David Cross saw o the Spanish invaders as West Ham marched through 6-4 on aggregate. This European adventure would end with a 4-2 aggregate loss to Dinamo Tbilisi in the quarter finals.
Cross carried on scoring for West Ham, though, totalling 97 goals in 224 appearances, before leaving for Manchester City in the summer of 1982 – a move he admits ‘did not work out’.
Before that, he had scored 33 times as West Ham won promotion in 1980/81, revealing that he had a financial incentive to keep on hitting the back of the net.
He recalls: “I had never scored more than 20 goals in a season. I would come back fitter than most having worked hard in the summer and start well, but I would run out of steam in February. So, John Lyall and I had a bet. He offered me £5 for every goal I scored past 20. And for every goal below 20, I would pay him £5.
“Anyway, I scored 29 goals and he’d had to cough up. We then played at Grimsby to win promotion [on 11 April 1981], beat them 5-1 and I scored another four.
“He had to ask one of the directors for the money because John didn’t have enough with him! I split a fiver each between the lads who set up my chances.”
For a striker who they called Psycho, he was, and still is, a very nice man.
*Follow Lee Clayton on Twitter @LeeClayton_