London Evening Standard correspondent Ken Dyer, who began following West Ham United as a fan in the early 1960s and has been reporting on the Club for nearly 50 years, gaining the respect and friendship of many Hammers players and managers along the way, reflects on his experience of reporting on the 1980 FA Cup Final as a local newspaper reporter in Essex, including a very special post-match celebration in the victorious dressing-room at Wembley…
In 1980 I was working for a local evening paper in Essex, the Evening Echo in Basildon. Part of my job was to cover West Ham – the club I supported as a boy. I had stood on the Wembley terraces in 1964 to see the Hammers lift the FA Cup but missed the 1975 final because I was working elsewhere. In 1980 I was reporting on the match but manager John Lyall also invited my wife Cheryl - whose family home in rast London was close to that of ex-West Ham boss Charlie Paynter - to Wembley with me. Just before we left the house I spotted, on the kitchen worktop, an empty bottle of champagne. Just three weeks earlier, I had climbed down from the team bus at Upton Park in the early hours of a Thursday morning, still clutching the bottle, after watching Frank Lampard’s late goal beat Everton in a dramatic semi-final replay at Leeds’ Elland Road stadium. Somehow, the empty bottle seemed an optimistic sign. It felt like an omen of things to come and maybe, just maybe, the bubbles would again be flying high, later that day.
I’m not sure why I felt that confidence. After all, West Ham were a Second Division team and the Gunners, one of the best in the land, were firm favourites among many. Yet Terry Neill’s team had been battling through a testing fixture log-jam, including four semi-final matches, before they overcame Liverpool. Arsenal finished fourth in Division One that season while West Ham missed out on promotion back to the top tier, ending their league season in seventh spot. Yet, I felt, Lyall’s team had match-winners in Trevor Brooking, Alan Devonshire, and Stuart Pearson, one of the best goalkeepers around in Phil Parkes and a strong core defence of Lampard, Ray Stewart, Alvin Martin and their indomitable captain, Billy Bonds. They also had a 17-year-old bundle of energy in Paul Allen, who would provide one of the enduring images of that special day.
I watched the game from the press box high up under the roof of the old Wembley Stadium. Soon, I realised that John Lyall had changed something. What was it? Down on the sunlit pitch, Arsenal manager Neill and his defenders were wondering the same thing. They had expected Pearson to be partnering David Cross up front but Lyall had pulled the former Manchester United striker back into a more withdrawn role. That seemed to unsettle David O’Leary and his fellow defenders and, in the 13th minute, West Ham took full advantage when after a typically surging run down the left from Devonshire, some pinball stuff in the box ended with Trevor Brooking deflecting home a header. To be honest, I don’t recall too much of what went on after that, only that the scribblings in my note book became ever more frantic.
Arsenal, with the elegant Liam Brady always probing , pressed but this was West Ham’s day. With three minutes to go Paul Allen, the youngest player to appear at a Wembley Cup Final, broke clear and looked likely to make it 2-0, only to be scythed down from behind by Arsenal’s Willie Young, a nailed on red card these days but back then, a yellow, a hand-shake and a knowing smile from both players. And then it was over, the Hammers fans were in raptures and I, with a smile from ear to ear, was making my way down to the concourse and the room reserved for the press conference.
John Lyall was, as usual, under-stated and considered in his replies to questions. But I knew just what it meant to the man who had been of so much help to me in my early journalistic career. At the end of the conference, he beckoned me to follow him and we descended into the bowels of the famous old stadium – and into the West Ham dressing-room! There were no restrictions then and I filled my boots! It was a typically generous gesture from John – and one which I have never forgotten. I can remember Ernie Gregory, the former West Ham goalkeeping legend and then coach, in tears. I also recall sharing some time with Pat Holland, who was injured, bravely trying to hide his devastation and not being fit enough to play. Four days later, with many West Ham fans only just sobering up, Arsenal lost to Valencia on penalties in the final of the Cup Winners’ Cup. The Gunners would go on to have much happier weeks but this was West Ham’s time – and how their fans enjoyed it! That empty champagne bottle is long gone now – but the memories of that day are as effervescent as ever.
