West Ham United celebrates its 125th anniversary on 29 June – and as part of our celebrations we're counting down to the date with the Club’s #50GreatestMatches – brought to you by Monster Energy!
Since the Hammers were formed as Thames Ironworks FC in 1895, we have played in excess of 5,500 matches – reaching five FA Cup finals - and one women's FA Cup final, lifting European silverware and competing across the globe and enjoying thousands of memorable moments.
With your help and recommendations, we've whittled down that list of 5,500 matches to a top 50, featuring landmark goals, trophies held aloft, heroic individual performances and remarkable collective efforts.
We continue the #50GreatestMatches countdown with a game that showed the Boys of '86 at their best...
West Ham United's Boys of '86 produced no end of performances that continue to live strongly in the minds of Hammers fans everywhere.
En route to a record-high league finish of third, John Lyall's men steadily climbed the table during the autumn months and maintained their form over the mid-part of the campaign.
That took them up to an Easter Saturday trip to Chelsea on 29 March 1986 with the east Londoners right in the mix.
Chelsea would also finish in the top six that season, but they were simply blown away at Stamford Bridge by one of the Hammers' finest all-round displays in the club's history.
On a muddy quagmire of a pitch, the Hammers turned on the style to swat the Blues aside.
Alan Devonshire opened the scoring with a rocket of a 25-yard shot, before the visitors ran away with it after the break.
Tony Cottee scored twice in the space of nine minutes - the first to complete a sweeping counter-attack led by George Parris and the second a clinical finish from Frank McAvennie's square pass - before McAvennie himself completed the rout by smashing Cottee's mis-hit high past goalkeeper Tony Godden.
The victory took West Ham up to sixth, and they would follow that with nine wins from their final 12 games to end in third.
Scottish striker McAvennie, who scored 28 goals that season, looks back on that afternoon with great fondness.
"We went to Chelsea in March 1986 and I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed myself so much on a football pitch as I did that season," said McAvennie. "Every game, I knew either myself or Tony, or both of us, was going to score.
"We went there and everyone was talking about them being the Kings of London and all that nonsense, but we absolutely battered them.
"My biggest memory of that game was that it made me realise how good Alan Devonshire was. The pitch was basically mud and when we came off at half-time he only had a couple of splashes on him, whereas I was covered in the stuff. The balance of the man was unbelievable.
"He scored an unbelievable goal, then he was running by people when they were trying to scythe him down. It was fantastic to watch.
"Every one of our four goals that day was brilliant. I’ll never forget them to this day.
"I got my volley near the end when Tony sliced his shot, even though he swears he was passing to me!"
On Friday we'll be looking back at #18 - a glorious afternoon at the Millennium Stadium
