TO THE GROUP STAGES
Viborg FF 0 West Ham 3
These early European games are currently welcomed with open goal-celebrating arms in a season where West Ham have yet to win a league game, as September approaches.
The Viborgian Danes certainly didn’t embarrass themselves last Thursday at London Stadium, and nor did their travelling hundreds of fans who found themselves unexpectedly making up almost ten per cent of the attendance.
With an unparalleled second successive European adventure in the offing for the first time since the season England won the World Cup, Hammers fans have travelled to Denmark, also in their hundreds. Sadly, unless they’re ready to fork out a tenner to subscribe to Premier TV to watch the game, all West Ham’s landlubbing supporters will have to listen to a monosyllabic captioning account provided on the club’s website. Some enterprising fans who have forked out for the live feed promise to post video clips of the key events.
Few Hammers’ fans in September 1965 would have made the journey to Athens to see their side’s first European excursion defence of the newly won Cup Winners Cup trophy against Olympiakos. They had already won the first leg 4-0, thanks to a first half brace from Geoff Hurst, and second half goals from Budgie Byrne and Peter Brabrook, but travel opportunities were few and far between for the ordinary fan in those days. Watching the game on television was even less likely in the days of scant coverage, even for relatively high profile games such as these. The second leg, for the record, finished 2-2, with two goals from Martin Peters, and Hammers progressed to the quarter-finals. The Russian referee that night was Tofiq Bahramov, a man who, as linesman, would play a key part in England’s World Cup victory just nine months later.
67 years later, in a world of unparalleled universal sports coverage, I am following this game on the West Ham website with coverage of a standard barely equalled by Ceefax in the 1980s. We have a 3-1 lead, but what’s that worth in this ludicrously unpredictable season?
In the 1970s, despite limited finances, the UK was keen to join the world overseas broadcasting stage, and the BBC would often cover significant away games with Bryon Butler the travelling correspondent on the mike, his rich baritone carrying the finer points of the game to all of us in Blighty. And so it was on the 16th December 1975, a weekday in history when West Ham came up against the Dutch ‘giants’ Den Haag’ for a first leg knock out Cup Winners Cup fixture. Sadly the BBC could only afford to cover the second half, so when the station went live to the BBC’s Butler, we found ourselves greeted with the news that at half time West Ham were already on the receiving end of a 4-0 score line. Butler informed us that two questionable penalties and a poorly communicated drop ball were to blame, as a trip to You Tube now proves. A giant H in the top right hand corner of the screen witnesses the replays that display the injustice, for forensic analysis (short for ‘Herhaling,’ the Dutch for ‘replay’).
At home that night, I was almost in tears. Given a rare opportunity to follow my team abroad on the wireless, this was how it was going to be. In the event, it proved a delicious second half for West Ham in that they, and Billy Jennings, scored two goals to send the team back to London with just a two goal deficit and at least some hope of turning the tie around in the home second leg.
It’s almost 47 years since that broadcast, and yet I can’t even find a UK radio station that’s broadcasting commentary. I settle in the end for the titbits sent out by the generous fans recording and sharing goal clips from their hastily purchased Premier TV feed.
Hammers revert to something similar to their first leg line-up, with Scamacca and Cornet starting, and this time no sign of Jarrod Bowen. The third kit looks like a set of old Johan Cruyff outfits that got accidentally dumped in the hot wash. No Red Devil fever, however, as with just 22 minutes on the clock Scamacca dispatches Souček’s low ball in at the near post to increase Hammers’ advantage to three.
Early in the second half comes the goal of the game. Or so it says on the clip, which is odd as there are still 40 minutes to go. A header on by Scamacca finds Cornet whose deft flick sends Benrahma through to plant the ball in the far corner of the net. Souček then makes it three ten minutes later, firing home with the goalkeeper prone after Kehrer’s header is blocked. Cornet then has the best chance of all, before the end, blazing over the open goal when a cool head would have made it four. No matter. Hammers are through to their second successive major European adventure for the first time since England won the World Cup.
West Ham proceed to the draw of 32 and, better still, have secured seed status, which should go a long way to helping them avoid the toughest team’s in tomorrow’s draw. There is also the joy of knowing that the next time Hammers play across the channel I will either be there, transport and tickets willing. or watching in front of a live television broadcast, and for that, this Hammers’ fan is very grateful.
Come on you Irons!
13 Alphonse Ariola, 2 Ben Johnson, 3 Aaron Cresswell (captain), 8 Pablo Fornals, 12 Thilo Kehrer, 14 Maxwel Cornet, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 28 Tomas Souček, 10 Manuel Lanzini, 7 Gianluca Scamacca, 22 Saïd Benrahma
Substitutes: 4 Kurt Zouma, 40 Armstrong Oko-Flex, 32 Conor Coventry, 12 Flynn Downes, 9 Michail Antonio
Goalscorers: Gianluca Scamacca, Saïd Benrahma, Tomas Souček
