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Only County Visit:	Wednesday 27th November 1996
Competition:	Coca-Cola Cup – (Round 4)
Result:	West Ham United 1 – 1 Stockport County
Attendance:	20,061
Away Trip:	80
Away Day:	337
County Line-up	1 Paul Jones; 2 Sean Connelly; 3 Lee Todd; 4 Tom Bennett; 5 Mike Flynn; 6 Jim Gannon; 7 Kieron Durkan (12 Tony Dinning); 8 Chris Marsden; 9 Brett Angell; 10 Alun Armstrong; 11 John Jeffers (14 Luis Cavaco); (Sub not used: 13 Neil Edwards)
Scorer:	Luis Cavaco
Manager:	Dave Jones
County Visits:	1

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We were of course heading for Upton Park for a League Cup game, after wins over Chesterfield; Sheffield United and Blackburn Rovers. The football we were being served up was great to watch, but in all honesty going to West Ham promised to be largely an experience of playing at one of the country’s traditional ‘big grounds’ rather than with any expectation of a result.

So off to the capital it was. From my early days of being interested in football, reading Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly and any other football mags I could get hold of, West Ham’s ground had always been Upton Park to me. But it wasn’t the ‘official’ name. Wikipedia tells me that 500 or so years ago Green Street House and grounds occupied the site and was more colloquially known as Boleyn Castle. Purportedly Anne Boleyn either visited or owned this – presumably in happier times before her appointment with the executioners axe on Tower Hill. So, the ground was also known as the Boleyn Ground, but it’s always Upton Park for me.

Nearly twenty-five years prior to the game in November 1996 I had visited Upton Park. A New Year break with a friend in Essex not only included a trip to Trafalgar Square to see 1972 arrive, but 15 hours later we found ourselves watching The Hammers take on Manchester United. I stood in almost the exact same spot as I was to occupy 25 years later, but the surroundings were different.

The South Stand then was terracing, and with nearly 42,000 shoehorned in it made for one of those experiences that are now long gone. Any attack at the goal nearest to us was accompanied by a shift on the terraces necessitating a real effort to keep one’s feet; the view was hardly of the best, and the humiliation of Frank O’Farrell’s team led to more than element of ill-humour both inside and outside the ground. West Ham won 3-0, and it could have been more.

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By November 1996 things had changed. The South Stand was now a double decker, built a couple of years previously and it was in there that the lower tier provided our seated accommodation. But step back 6 hours or so.

That season, 1996/97, Jeff and I had become fixtures on the Fingerpost Flyer and we set off around about 1 o’clock or so. Great progress was made, unlike so many other journeys to the metropolis and surrounding areas over the years. By 6 we were ensconced in a pub on Barking Road, no more than a couple of hundred yards from where the action was to unfold. Unlike the atmosphere back in 1972 there was a fair degree of bonhomie. Maybe because the rivalries of top division football were not in evidence – it was a good trip for us, and an opportunity for Hammers fans to see a team that were rarely on their radar. Some good banter ensued and it mainly centred around a fixture back in 1972.

That one took place on Wednesday 4th October 1972. A League Cup tie at Edgeley and a night writ large in County annals. A 2-1 win, thanks to goals from Malcolm Russell and a penalty by Tommy Spratt, with the Hammers only response being one from Clyde Best. County fans of that era still rejoice in the performance, and in particular a save at the death from Alan Ogley. A crowd of 13,410 turned up but sadly I wasn’t one of them.

That very night I was in the students union bar at Exeter University – my Dad had dropped me off earlier in the day to begin my three years there. So, 240 miles away but keenly awaiting news of the result. No internet then; no 24/7 sports news, but I recall tuning into the radio and hearing the ‘glad tidings of great joy’!! The game has become enshrined in a chant still heard at EP:
After the turn of the century in the clear blue skies over Edgeley,

There came a roaring and a thunder like you’d never heard,
When Stockport County had scored their third,
On the pitch, the boys in blue,
We beat Palace and West Ham too …

The chant goes on, but you get the drift!!

It was this game that featured in the pre-match banter but come 7 o’clock it was time to walk across to the ground. Crossing the car park, the rear of the West Stand looked imposing when compared to Gay Meadow where we had been 4 days previously. Turning to the left we entered the South, (Centenary) Stand and looked around the place.

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It had changed somewhat from my previous visit. The two covered terraces behind the goal had been replaced by double decker stands. At the far end was the Bobby Moore Stand, rising into the skies, and home to the vociferous West Ham supporters. To our right was the West, (Main), Stand, a fixture on the ground for many years, but with but 4 years of life left. And to our left the East Stand. It looked dated then, despite being only around 30 years old, and was to remain until the Hammers departed Upton Park, and headed to the London Stadium, which for me, (and admittedly only from watching on the television), has no soul; is hardly a football stadium, and one which I surmise cannot be well loved by West Ham fans, so used to a tight ground generating atmosphere.

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The tannoy told us the West Ham team. They stood 11th in the Premier League but were hardly in imposing form not having won for 4 games after beating Blackburn a month earlier. We were to face many household names; a couple of imports from manager Harry Redknapp’s extensive list of signings, and a youthful Frank Lampard, who was just breaking into senior football. We sat back to watch the action. It looked like it was going with the formbook as Florin Raducioiu (†) gave the home side the lead after 11 minutes. It was the second and last goal he scored in a particularly unimpressive spell before he returned to Espanyol. It remained that way at the break and half-time chat amongst the County support was that the performance had been decent and there was still much to play for.

The Portuguese drove forward, went past a couple of defenders in a slaloming run, and from just inside the area placed it beyond Miklosko’s reach. Pandemonium ensued in the South Stand. 1-1. And that’s the way it stayed. We were to host top division opponents at Edgeley Park. Just under three years previously QPR had been the visitors. We beat them ..could there be a repeat?

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It was a jubilant set of County fans that left the ground. Crossing back across the car park there was one of those moments. A more than big bloke came across with a fair degree of intent in his approach. I feared the worst until he grabbed my hand and said, (imagine a Cockney accent!), “Well played mate, you can be proud of your team, you gave us a proper game”. And that was one of the abiding memories of that game .. the spirit amongst the fans from the banter before the game to the reaction afterwards. Moments like that were few and far between in those days.

That was my one and only County trip to West Ham. It meant that in the space of 11 months we had visited Goodison Park; Ewood Park and Upton park. These were riches undreamed of for a Club which over the previous decade had plied its trade around the lower reaches of the football hierarchy. Little did we know that within the next three months we were to tick off The Dell and Riverside as well. But more of those anon…..

† Florin Raducioiu was one of 11 foreigners brought in by Redknapp by 1996. Tom Bowers seminal book ‘Broken Dreams, (published in 2003), addresses ‘Vanity, Greed and the Souring of British Football’. A fairly significant part deals with Redknapp and his wheeling and dealing. He had bought Raducioiu in 1996 for £2.4m. Bower quotes Redknapp as saying, “I followed his career for years before I signed him so I know what he can do”. Bower goes on to say “A few weeks after arriving Raducioiu was shopping in Harvey Nichols rather than boarding the team bus for Stockport for a match. Redknapp admitted ‘….. his displays were worth about two bob”. He was sold after six games at a loss of £1.2m.

I really commend Bower’s tome. It is a devastating critique of what was going on in football … and I surmise still is. A theme of mine has long been that the game is over-populated by mercenary overseas players taking big money out the game, and aided by agents who take equally as big a cut. A vast proportion of them add little – they are no more than average players and to my way of thinking actually act as a stumbling block or maybe even a barrier to the development of home grown players. And Raducioiu seems to me to be an early example of this genre.

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January 2021

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VISITS

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Day	Date	Competition	Tier / Round	Opponents	Res	F	A	Crowd	Away Day
Wed	27/11/96 (Highlights)	Coca-Cola Cup	Round 4	West Ham United	D	1	1	20,061	337

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ON MY JOURNEY WITH COUNTY AROUND 180 GROUNDS

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Previously – EWOOD PARK Next stop – THE DELL