My Day at West Ham

Yesterday BN published a photo of the FA Cup game at West Ham in 1972. This prompted Hereford United historian Ron Parrott to remember his day trying to watch the game.

Long story but the country was on a three-day week due to the power strike so floodlights couldn't be used for an evening kick-off so it was played on a Monday afternoon at 1415hrs. Hereford United pleaded with West Ham to make it an all-ticket match but they refused and long after the game was over, they faced accusations of having orchestrated the whole affair. The argument was that they knew what fantastic support Hereford had and didn't want 15,000 of us all together to create an atmosphere detrimental to their players. Whether that's true or not, we'll never know but I do know that they opened the gates at Upton Park at 1030hrs on the big day and with no one at work, the ground was nearly full before most United fans had even arrived in London. I know, because I was one of them. I remember my overwhelming feelings of disbelief and then of anger and frustration when I realised that I was not going to see the game after following my team right through all the rounds, including marathon trips to Kings Lynn, Northampton, West Bromwich and Newcastle.

We were milling around aimlessly outside the ground then someone shouted that they'd found a way onto the roof of a nearby tower block of flats and we needed no second invitation. The lifts were heaving so we ran up endless flights of stairs to reach the rooftop, where we managed to find a spot from where we could see most of the playing surface. This worked well, uncomfortable, a long way from the opposite end and not ideal but hey, who cared? We'd beaten the so and so's who locked us out and we were going to enjoy the game come what may! But no, we spoke too soon, because during the half-time break, a team of policemen turfed us off shouting something about the 1972 equivalent of "health & safety". We were devastated and had no choice but to listen to the rest of the game on the radio back in our car!

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