As he celebrates his 48th birthday on 18 January, former West Ham United midfielder, captain and development squad head coach Steve Lomas remembers his favourite matches in Claret and Blue...
MAINE MAN
The first game I'm going to focus on is our FA Cup fourth-round tie against my former club Manchester City at Maine Road on 25 January 1998.
Born in Germany into a services family and raised in Northern Ireland, I’d spent six years at City between 1991 and 1997, my first club in English football, and made more than 100 league appearances, so it was a club I liked and respected.
West Ham United had signed me in March 1997 for £2.5 million and we had collected eight points from our final five matches to stay up in the Premier League.
We were going well in the league when we went to City in the FA Cup, having beaten Barnsley 6-0 a couple of weeks before.
It was a good cup tie. I remember playing against Georgi Kinkladze, who scored their equaliser after Eyal Berkovic had put us 1-0 up.
The ball then fell to me at the edge of the box with about 15 minutes to go and I hit it on the half-volley and it went past the old Northern Ireland goalkeeper Tommy Wright.
Maine Road was a big old ground so to go back and do well against my old club was good, and to score the winner was the icing on the cake.
We had a pretty good run in the FA Cup that year, beating Blackburn away in the fifth round and then going out on to Arsenal on penalties in the quarter-finals.
I thought that was our year, I really did, but Alex Manninger saved a penalty from Eyal in the shootout and they went on to win the Double that season.
TRYING TO TAME GINOLA
My second game was in November 1998, when we went to White Hart Lane and beat Tottenham 2-1 to go second in the Premier League.
Harry Redknapp asked me to do a man-marking job on David Ginola, and he scored that day, but we managed to win the game!
Ginola was not only skilful, but he was 6’2 and built like a tank. He could go inside and outside and, even though you knew what he was going to do, you couldn’t stop it. It was difficult.
The old White Hart Lane was always a difficult place to go, but Trevor Sinclair was on fire for us that season and he scored both goals for us.
I could play in a few different positions and, at the end of the day, if you’re in the team and you’re captain, sometimes you have to do a job and the manager asked me to do it.
My versatility was to the detriment of my career at times, but I wanted the team to do well and if I had had to sacrifice sometimes, that was the way it had to be.
AN ENJOYABLE ADVENTURE
We finished fifth in the Premier League in 1998/99, but we didn’t qualify for Europe automatically, so we had to go the long way around through the Intertoto Cup.
Obviously the lads were a bit gutted because it meant cutting the summer break short, but once we got into it we went to some great places and beat Metz in France to qualify for the UEFA Cup.
If you ask the fans who went, I think they’d say going there and winning was one of their most enjoyable occasions. We had a little run in the UEFA Cup after that, beating Osijek of Croatia and facing Steaua Bucharest of Romania, which the supporters also enjoyed, apart from the fact we lost!
It might not have gone down too well at the start, but by the end of it the lads were also loving it.
We also started the Premier League season really well, picking up 13 points out of a possible 15, so it certainly helped us with our fitness at the start of the season, too.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS
We hosted Charlton Athletic – managed by Alan Curbishley – at the Boleyn Ground on Boxing Day 2000. Everything came together for us that day and we won 5-0.
The only disappointing thing was that we were meant to play Chelsea two days later, full of confidence, but the game was called off because of a frozen pitch.
I really enjoyed being part of that squad. Harry Redknapp had put together an exciting squad with a core of British players and a sprinkling of foreign guys coming in, the likes of Paolo Di Canio and Freddie Kanoute, and it seemed to work all right.
Harry got us all playing together. We were a family, we trained hard and, on a Saturday, we produced good football and I think the fans enjoyed that time.
RETURNING TO ACTION
I suffered a couple of long-term injuries during my time at West Ham, the first to my knee and then one to my toe, when I was hurt in a tackle with Steffen Freund.
To come back again, having been out for a year, then a further three months, was difficult mentally.
I was getting a bit desperate, but I knuckled down and got myself back in January 2002 and then scored in a 5-3 defeat by Manchester United at Upton Park a couple of months later.
That Manchester United midfield, along with Arsenal’s in the early 2000s, were up there with the best I ever played against.
They had Beckham, Giggs, Keane and Scholes in their prime. I relished it because I wanted to play against the best and they were the best team around at the time.
HAPPY MEMORIES
Sadly, we were relegated in 2002/03, despite getting 42 points, but I liked being a West Ham player and I stayed with the Club in the old Division One.
Although I didn't play every game, I was part of the squad which won promotion in 2004/05 through the Play-Offs and am proud and happy that I made 227 appearances for the Hammers.
To be appointed captain of an historic Club like West Ham was really special and when I look back on my time in east London, the overwhelming memories are happy ones.
I returned to the Club in 2011 and spent a few happy months as development squad manager, working with some really exciting young players.
I had spells in management at St Johnstone in Scotland and Millwall and do media work, commentating on Northern Irish football among other things, while I also thoroughly enjoy working as a matchday ambassador at London Stadium.