Sid Lambert takes us back 20 years to the 2004/05 season, when Alan Pardew’s Hammers secured a rollercoaster return to the Premier League...
Alan Pardew started 2005 with two New Year’s Resolutions. Firstly, he was going to keep his job. Secondly, West Ham United were going to get promoted.
The problem was that a proportion of the fanbase had already decided we stood a better chance of the second objective if Pards was employed elsewhere. He’d ended 2004 under a chorus of boos and calls for his head. A miserable draw at rock-bottom Rotherham saw us drop out of the Play-Off places.
There were 20 games of the Championship season left. And every result felt crucial for the gaffer’s job prospects. Under that sort of pressure, the last thing he needed was a trip to high-flying Ipswich. The Tractor Boys were ploughing through the division and had made Portman Road a fortress. Joe Royle’s men had a stunning eleven wins and two draws from their 13 home games to date. They were unstoppable.
But the thing I’ve learned about this Club over the years is that it doesn’t make sense. Ever. Things happen on football pitches that defy the laws of probabilities and physics. How else to explain that three months in 1991 when Mike Small was the best striker in England? Or Samassi Abou missing from underneath the crossbar against Man United at Upton Park in 1998? It’s impossible. It’s just… West Ham.
And 60 seconds into the New Year, the Gods of Football Chaos were at it again. Ipswich’s star keeper Kelvin Davis foolishly tried to jink past Marlon Harewood, who tackled him and tapped into an empty net. We were one up. Against the league leaders. In the first minute.
What followed was 88 minutes of logic-defying madness. Ipswich were mauled by Alan Pardew’s powerhouses. We out-ran, out-thought, and out-fought the best team in the second tier. We were a relentless attacking force. A well-oiled machine of tactical and physical acumen. And when Matty Etherington scored a second in the 89th minute, it was the least our dominance deserved.
We were utterly magnificent. And to the outside world the result was utterly inexplicable. But to those of us who had spent many years searching for deeper meaning in the mystifying world of Claret & Blue, it was entirely predictable.
As did the following game at home to Sheffield United, a team who hadn’t won at the Boleyn in over 30 long years. You could trawl the Oxford Dictionary and not find enough adjectives to describe how awful we were. So, so terrible. A 2-0 defeat was generous. We barely completed a pass in 90 minutes and only mustered one shot of any significance. Afterwards a bemused Pards proclaimed, “I’m not going to stand here and keep defending our inconsistency.” Whilst I appreciated his honesty, saying otherwise would have been like the Titanic refusing to admit the iceberg won.
Two games into the New Year and both of Alan Pardew’s resolutions looked fanciful at best. The mood at the final whistle, not helped by the broad smile on Neil Warnock’s face, was the sort of toxic mix of anger and abject misery that can only co-exist in a lifetime of following the Hammers. We’d gone from heroes to zeroes in 48 hours. Even if by some act of great fortune we did make the Play-Offs, it was hard to see us getting into the final unless we were selling hot dogs.
Thankfully, the existential dread of another year in this division was interrupted by the FA Cup. We’d been drawn at home to Premier League side Norwich City. And the gaffer made four changes from the previous week’s monstrosity. The most interesting was a first start for a local lad from the Academy. He’d made a couple appearances as substitute earlier in the season. But at just 17-years-old and weighing about 10st soaking wet, he’d not been risked in the hurly-burly of Championship football. Still, it was nice to see young Mark Noble get a game.
The little lad looked neat and tidy from the off. What was noticeable was his immediate desire to get on the ball and influence the game. There were times this season when our midfield had passed the ball like it was a hand grenade. Noble’s quality was a delight to watch.
As was our performance. We matched the Canaries in an entertaining first half when Luke Chadwick looked particularly lively. As the game wore on, and our legs tired, the visitors had their best spell. Jimmy Walker, in a rare outing in goal, made three good saves to keep us level. Then, with ten minutes remaining, Chadwick’s pass found Harewood and the big striker struck a winner.
After the delight at full-time there were plenty of scratched heads in the pubs of east London. The last ten days had been baffling, even in this most topsy-turvy of seasons. We’d scraped a draw at the league’s worst team, smashed the best team in the division, been outclassed by a Play-Off rival, and then knocked a Premier League side out of the FA Cup.
Welcome to the world of West Ham United. Where nothing makes sense.
