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...
How to describe Paul Ince? Ask West Ham fans of a certain vintage and they’ll give you an array of adjectives, not all of them positive.
Sixteen years earlier he’d committed what some supporters saw as the ultimate betrayal, wearing a Manchester United shirt in a national newspaper despite still being a West Ham player (and my favourite one too). Nothing quite prepares a ten-year-old fan for that sort of heartbreak. It’s a mixture of deep sorrow and confusion. At that age, you’re convinced that your chosen club is the pinnacle of professional football. The league table was nonsense. A temporary blip. Yes, we were comfortably the worst team in the First Division and relegated with a whimper. But why would Ince want to leave? Surely he wanted to lead the mighty West Ham United back to the top tier? It made no sense.
Since that moment I’d sworn to enjoy every single moment of vengeance. Unfortunately, the next time I saw my former hero he bundled in a last-minute equaliser for United on a Saturday afternoon to forget at Upton Park in 1994.
A year later, finally, came the ultimate moment of karma. Luděk Mikloško producing a heroic performance to deny Ince and the Reds the Premiership title. I saw the crushing disappointment on the midfielder’s face and my heart sang. By that stage I was 16 and should have been above that sort of pettiness. But I wasn’t. And I probably never would be.
That’s the thing about being a football fan. You never have to grow up. You never have to explain yourself. Your petty vendettas against teams or individuals can last a lifetime. I’ve never forgiven Oldham for our 6-0 League Cup semi-final shellacking in 1990. I’ve had no sympathy for their subsequent tumble through the football pyramid. I should do, but I don’t. The scars of 35 years ago are too deep. The memories too fresh. I still pray for every cup draw that we’ll get a home game against the Latics, win 7-0, and claim an aggregate victory 35 years in the making.
Anyway, back to Ince and the early days of January 2005. By then he was at Wolves etching out one last payday as a professional footballer. They were 19th in the Championship, whilst we were clinging onto the Play-Off places. The team needed the three points to stay in the mix. I needed the three points to satisfy my lifelong quest.
Neither of us got what we wanted.
The game was 72 minutes old and we’d put in the sort of performance that summed up our entire season. Two defensive errors were counterbalanced by some fine attacking play, and two quality finishes from Bobby Zamora.
Having restored parity we were now pushing for the winner until the unthinkable happened. A Wolves break. A loose ball. A late run from Ince, who drove home the fifth goal of a topsy-turvy contest. I switched off Soccer Saturday immediately. I’d lived this sort of disappointment a thousand times before. I didn’t need to prolong my suffering any longer. When I heard Wolves had notched a fourth to secure the win, it mattered not. West Ham had lost. Ince had scored. Unbelievable Jeff.
The defeat saw us drop out of the Play-Off places, and the pressure on Alan Pardew was rising.
To his credit, the gaffer wasn’t shirking responsibility for our poor performances. But he wasn’t showing any signs of stopping them either. The excitement of league games at Upton Park was slowly being replaced by an existential dread. Thankfully our next opponents were Derby County, a side we’d enjoyed habitual success against in the past.
Unlike Ince, there were no blood feuds affecting my judgement of the Rams, though I was still partly miffed that they pocketed Paolo Wanchope from us for £3.5m in 1999. The Costa Rican had all the tools to be a cult hero. He was strong, skilful, unpredictable. But I’d never seen anyone so capable of moments of incredible ingenuity and ineptitude within the same games. Predicting which one was going to turn up was like mapping out a moth’s flight path. Sadly it never quite clicked for Wanchope in east London.
The Rams had a new forward who was on everyone’s lips: Gregorz Rasiak. The sort of name that gives Paul Merson sleepless nights. And, of course, he proved to be a nightmare for our dozy defence. With less than ten minutes on the clock, we left the tall Polish striker completely unmarked in our six-yard box to nod the visitors in front. Carl Fletcher swiped home an equaliser but more appalling defending gifted Rasiak a second - and Derby the win.
Afterwards Pardew pointed to a dreadful refereeing decision not to send off the Derby goalkeeper for a clear foul on Marlon Harewood, but the time for excuses was running out. We were now ninth in the table, our lowest position since the early-season days of August.
We’d lost three league games on the spin, conceded eight goals, and Paul Ince had scored.
2005 was proving to be a real stinker so far.
Sid has a new book out: ‘Highs, Lows and Di Canios: The Fans’ Guide to West Ham United in the 90s’. Visit www.thewesthamway.com, or head into the official West Ham store for a rollercoaster ride through one of the most turbulent decades in Claret & Blue history.
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of West Ham United.
