The Rat, Hammers fans and One Man Went To Mow

@Mikey47's comment on my last blog (My First Match) reminded me of his first match (a 4-0 win over West Ham for an Everton team containing Peter Beardsley, who scored on the day). A match that didn't stop him becoming a Liverpool fan. Oh well.

But it got me thinking about other Everton - West Ham matches I've seen. I've had a lot of time for West Ham since watching the heroics of Billy Bonds on the ITV highlights programme back in the Gerald Sinstadt day. But I have mixed memories of West Ham fans. Here’s the bad and the good.

I blogged a long while back about watching Everton play West Ham in the match that decided 2^nd place in the 1985/86 season. Yes, the "Lineker" season Everton when should have won the double – and looked nailed on to do it at Easter – but Liverpool did it, reeling off a 10 game winning streak in the League and overturning a 1-0 deficit in the cup final. Me, bitter?

The Everton captain in the 1986 game was Kevin Ratcliffe nicknamed, unsurprisingly, The Rat. The Rat was Everton’s most successful ever captain, lifting two league championships, one FA Cup and the club’s only European trophy, the European Cup-Winners’ Cup, long since amalgamated with the UEFA Cup in what is now the Europa League. In my previous blog I referred to the Hammers knocking channel balls for their two strikers, Frank McAvennie and Tony Cottee. A chap in the crowd behind me kept saying “you’re not faster than him” as The Rat beat them to the ball every time. McAvennie in particular was lightning quick, but The Rat was very quick too and read the game very well.

I was with my father-in-law, but 65 year at the time, which I remember thinking was quite old! Even then his knee wasn't that great, albeit it got a lot worse. So, at the end of the match we stayed in our seats in the top balcony, towards the Park End, waiting for the crowd to disperse. Well, actually, until the police came and moved asked us to leave as we had unwittingly become targets for coin throwing Hammers fans, cooped up behind the Park End goal until the police would let them out. We hadn’t noticed but indeed there were pinging noises as the coins hit the steel work above our heads. Sadly his was football in the 1980s.

 A better recollection of the Hammers fans at Goodison was in the premier league era, in May 1999. A fond memory as Everton won 6-0, “super” Kevin Campbell bagging a hat-trick. But what I remember most is the entertainment the away supporters gave us. It didn’t seem like that at first, as the Hammers fans set to singing “One Man Went To Mow”. On and on and on. I had always found that song intensely irritating. But eventually it got past boring and began to get funny. Meanwhile the Everton goals were steadily going in. Quite late in the match, with the score at 5 or 6 nil, the Hammers fans finally went quiet for a while. Then they let out a crescendo of noise. And then went quiet again. After half a minute or so, another crescendo of noise and then quiet again. There were puzzled looks around the home fans as a third crescendo built up. It dawned on us that the away supporters were watching a fantasy version of the match, in which their team were scoring goals and getting back in the game. When the final and loudest crescendo, noting that West Ham were now in the imaginary lead, died down, the home fans gave the West Ham fans an enormous round of applause. Everyone around me was smiling. The West Ham fans that day contributed to a memorable match on a sunny day and, despite a heavy defeat, they had a ball.

Didn't realise till grabbing the image that they have "London" on their badge.....