DISASTROUS 2002-03 MICHAEL LEE REFLECTS ON WEST HAM’S FROM THE PREMIER LEAGUE... SEASON WHICH SAW THEM RELEGATED
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Castigated as a cost-cutting measure, the difference between Redknapp and Roeder was stark.
Redknapp had built a team in his own boisterous image, full of enigmatic individuals, inconsistent defending and enough talent to beat anybody on their day. Roeder, while a respected coach, came across so wooden in comparison you would feel inclined to touch him for luck.
expectations were high going into the 2002/03 season.
The starting line-up contained three members of England’s 2002 World Cup squad (David James, Joe Cole and Trevor Sinclair) while Jermain Defoe and Michael Carrick were tipped as future England starters. Stalwarts such as Freddie Kanoute and Paolo Di Canio were highly coveted by other teams – Di Canio had rejected a move to Manchester United in January 2002.
While the signing of Gary Breen, who had impressed at the World Cup for Ireland, later became a portent of doom there was no real sense of what was to come.
set the tone for the season. Champions Arsenal were undefeated in 2002, but after 60 minutes classy goals from Cole and Kanoute had put West Ham 2-0 ahead.
Despite Thierry Henry pulling a spectacular goal back for Arsenal, West Ham were quickly awarded a penalty after Joe Cole was tripped by namesake Ashley.
Kanoute’s effort was hit with the power of a heavy smoker attempting saved by David Seaman. The game league match at home until late January.
All the hallmarks of a relegation season soon became apparent. A miserable saw only three league wins before Christmas.
The team conceded numerous decisive late goals alongside several hammerings. A lack of team spirit was evident, as was the constant inability to defend. Several players were accused of acting like ‘prima donnas’, none more so than Di Canio who publicly argued with Roeder when substituted at West Brom in February and was subsequently exiled from the squad.
The club were badly affected by the newly introduced transfer window which saw them left throughout the Christmas period. Roeder’s solution was to move centre-back Ian Pearce up front – while Pearce scored two goals, West Ham conceded ten throughout a winless December.
The only consistency West Ham showed was effortlessly transporting their league form into a miserable 6-0 defeat at Manchester United in the FA Cup. Breen, the sole summer signing, played a starring role in the defeat at Old Trafford and became a byword for haplessness.
Alongside this was the belief, widely
held throughout football, that the club had too much talent to be relegated – that West Ham were ‘too good to go down’.
After a 3-0 home defeat to Liverpool in February, Guardian journalist Kevin McCarra noted that ‘there is a seeming calmness at Upton Park that masquerades deep paralysis’ as complacency took hold.
While other teams around them such as Bolton and West Brom were portrayed as limited scrappers, it still seemed scarcely believable that West Ham’s squad was struggling so badly.
Therefore, the club failed to realise the jeopardy they were in. Home defeats to West Brom, Birmingham and Southampton were moments where Roeder would have been sacked in 2020. However, the board failed to take decisive action and publicly backed their manager. This decision would prove fatal.
Against the odds, West Ham found January signings Les Ferdinand and Rufus Brevett plugged gaping holes in attack and defence, a teenage Glen Johnson emerged as a talented rightback while underperforming players performed to their abilities. The less said about the impact of another January addition, Lee Bowyer, the better.
The team went undefeated until a pivotal 1-0 defeat at relegation rivals Bolton in mid-April – had West Ham managed to avoid defeat that day, Bolton would have been relegated in their place.
painfully lacking earlier in the season, a mental image of a Cockney Scrappy Doo.
However, this was not the full story. After a home win over Middlesbrough on Easter Monday, Roeder collapsed in It later transpired that he had suffered a minor stroke and would be unable matches.
Suddenly, the pressures of a relega - tive. Club legend Trevor Brooking took with survival looking improbable.
Dramatically, Brooking came within an ace of achieving just that. Late winners away at Manchester City and at home to pre-Abramovich Chelsea meant level on points with Bolton, albeit with a much worse goal difference.
This meant that while the Hammers drew 2-2 at Birmingham, Bolton’s win over Middlesbrough ensured relegation
This was a team talented enough to – demonstrating Champions League form.
Alternatively, this was also a team during the winter, evidence of a capacity to perform well within their abilities.
With a typically glass eye for the sensitives of the supporters, chairman Brown mused that it was simply the club’s ‘turn’ to go down. Rubbing salt - ager Redknapp was promoted to the Premiership with his new club Portsmouth.
The squad was quickly decimated. Defoe, who insists he was ill-advised by his agent, submitted a transfer request the day after relegation. While this was turned down, Defoe eventually left the following January for Tottenham after receiving three red cards in his half-season in Division One.
Johnson and Cole were sold to newly rich Chelsea, following Kanoute, Di Canio and Sinclair out of Upton Park. Within had also departed.
Through carelessness, mismanagement and incompetence West Ham had managed to sell off the ‘family silver’ – something Brown had promised would not happen. Never again has the playing squad had quite as much potential.
While all these players demonstrated their potential throughout the Premier League, amassing numerous honours, West Ham struggled in the second tier. Promotion was eventually achieved under Alan Pardew in 2005 with an almost
entirely different squad, but the feeling of a lost opportunity permeated the club for years.
Future plans also had to be revised. West Ham had a verbal agreement with a striker from French club Guingamp to join in the event of the club’s survival. Instead, he chose to join Chelsea the following year. His name? Didier Drogba.
Alongside this, the club had to shelve plans to complete the redevelopment of Upton Park. Ambitions to rebuild the East Stand to create a 42,000-seater stadium were abandoned due to the ed, it would have been the biggest club stadium in London at the time. Looking ahead, it could have ensured the club would never have moved to the Olympic Stadium in 2016.
Something else less tangible was also lost in 2003. Throughout the season, match reports were laced with praise for what West Ham stood for as an institution.
McCarra praised the club’s ‘tasteful restraint and footballing ideals’. After an FA Cup win against Nottingham Forest, Guardian journalist Paul Weaver argued that ‘most football folk have a soft spot for West Ham, a palpably decent club with noble traditions’.
However, this also created a culture of indulgence towards the club. During the relegation run-in, rivals Bolton were infuriated by media coverage that implied neutral supporters would prefer West Ham to survive in their place.
numerous articles emphasised West Ham’s history and traditions, coming across as simpering sentimentality. It should be noted that Bolton also demonstrated Champions League form in the run-in and deserved to survive.
In future years, in the wake of the Tevez saga, Gold and Sullivan’s ownership and the Olympic Stadium, West Ham are no longer respected by neutral supporters but widely seen as a laughing stock. In some ways, relegation saw the death of this image of West Ham United in wider footballing circles.
Ultimately, the old myth that the the squad had evident potential, they horrendously underperformed until it was too late.
The team was underpinned by a generation of homegrown talent to rival Manchester United’s Class of ’92, as proven by their subsequent successes elsewhere.
Relegation saw the squandering of these players, as well as shelved plans to redevelop Upton Park and the loss of West Ham’s idealistic reputation.
BBC writer Tom Fordyce said it best: “West Ham’s was a relegation that should never have happened. Perversely, it was also richly deserved.”
There is no other conclusion than that the mismanagement of the club proceeded to throw away a priceless opportunity to challenge the elite.
IN THE 1960s it wasn’t easy to beat Santos. They were arguably the best team in the world, and rockstars wherever they went. But Cruzeiro beat Santos – Pele and all – in 1966 in the biggest national competition at the time.
Cruzeiro, a club with Italian roots, are a team in Belo Horizonte, the capital of south-eastern Brazil’s Minas Gerais state.
In ’66, they had a young side for the journey they were about to take. Only three players were aged over 27: goalkeeper Tonho at 28, defender William at 33 and striker Ilton Chaves, who was 29.
In fact, their best player was still under 20 at the time, being a 19-year-old striker named Tostao, who would go on to help his country win the World Cup in 1970.
He was one of the smartest players in Brazil, known for his hard work, anticipation and timing in the penalty area.
He was also an adept playmaker, contributing many assists with his great vision. Think Andres Iniesta.
Tostao led Cruzeiro in goals, which helped him to be the state’s top scorer three years in a row starting in 1966.
To have a great side you have to start with a great goalkeeper. Cruzeiro had one for the ages in Raul Plassmann. He won nine Minas Gerais Championships (1966-69, 72-75,
77) and the Copa Libertadores in 1976.
He played 549
and it went down as an own goal. The goals kept coming after that.
ceu received another pass from Evaldo and directed it to Natal. Natal dibbled past Ze Carlos and coolly put the ball in the back of the net to make it 2-0.
On 20 minutes, it was three as the inspired Dirceu scored from distance.
By the break, Cruzeiro, remarkably, had added two more with Dirceu notching his second and Tostao getting in on the act by scoring from the spot.
Piazza had marked Pele off the park, something that was rarely, if ever, done.
period. Toninho Guerreiro pulled two goals back in the opening ten minutes to give them a lifeline. However, Cruzeiro rounded off a famous victory when Dirceu knocked home a rebound in the 72nd minute to complete his hat-trick and seal an astonishing 6-2 victory.
The second leg was a week later at the Pacaembu Stadium in São Paulo. Santos opened the scoring on 23 minutes as Pele dribbled past William net.
A couple of minutes later, Pele threaded the ball between Procopio and William to Toninho, who stuck it away to make it 2-0 and cut the aggregate
However, those who thought Cruzeiro’s young guns might buckle under the pressure were mistaken.
Dirceu and Tostao began to show their pace in the second half and it was minute to stun the hosts.
And it was virtually all over when they struck again nine minutes later, Natal aggregate.
Santos did not want to give up the Tostao raced past Lima and Ze Carlos and threaded a ball to Dirceu to net the aggregate – no one could argue with that.
The mighty Santos team had been taken down. This was the start of a golden era for Cruzeiro.
NOW all depended on Alf Ramsey - England’s unbeaten home record against continental opposition was on the line.
The Rest of the World team were 4-3 up and England had just been awarded a somewhat dubious penalty kick in the last minute of play. Would the Spurs right- back keep his nerve and save England’s proud tradition?
The match, on October 21, 1953, had been organised to celebrate the Football Association’s 90th anniversary.
Although supposedly representing the whole of FIFA, England’s multi-national opponents were really a Rest of Europe team as there were no South Americans in their makeshift squad with expense, no doubt, being the main consideration.
FIFA’s starting XI comprised of three Austrians, three Yugoslavs, two Spaniards, an Italian, a Swede and a West German. Their captain was the formidably able Ernst Ocwirk of Austria.
A crowd of 97,000 had gathered to witness this feast of football.
This match was just the latest of several challenges to England’s supposed superiority on home turf.
Of course, England had lost 2-0 to the Republic of Ireland at Goodison Park on September 21, 1949.
But that didn’t seem to count. The Irish weren’t really foreign, were they? Anyway, most of their players came from English teams. No, the record was about seeing off the continental challenge.
in November 1950 when Yugoslavia held England to a 2-2 draw at Highbury. They avoid defeat in England in a full international.
But an even greater threat came in the match against Argentina at Wembley in May 1951. Despite dominating the game, England were a goal down with just 11 minutes remaining. Thankfully, late goals from Stan Mortensen and Jackie Milburn saved England’s blushes.
France also drew 2-2 against England at Highbury the following October. They would have won but for a late, desperate save from Bert Williams.
Yet an even greater threat came with the match against Austria on November 28, 1951. It’s hard to imagine nowadays but Austria were then considered the strongest side in Europe.
After all, they had just taken away Scotland’s unbeaten home record to continental sides.
In another 2-2 draw, most observers thought the Austrians were by far the better team. The aforementioned Ramsey was key to saving England from defeat.
He scored from a penalty and provided a goal for Nat Lofthouse with a perfectly placed free-kick.
So the writing had been on the wall for some time when the England and FIFA teams lined up to be presented to Field-Marshall Viscount Montgomery prior to kick-off.
A special cheer went up when Monty shook hands with Stanley Matthews. The veteran winger had been restored to England’s attack at the age of 38.
His team-mates would need a soccer El Alamein to keep England’s home record intact.
FIFA, playing in vivid blue shirts, made the better start. In fact, it took scoring.
Inside-left Bernard Vukas, of Yugoslavia, was put through on goal and