[Lord Snooty]

West Ham United v Huddersfield Town
The Premier League
Monday September 11th - 20:00 ko
at the London Stadium

Huddersfield Town travel down to play West Ham Utd at the London Olympics Stadium on Monday night, in front of the Sky Sports cameras again. It'll be the Hammers' first home game of the season, delayed due to the World Athletics Championships taking place there and the time needed to return it to a football ground. Them shot putt divots must take some sorting out!
Town of course, are now part of football's Northern Powerhouse, along with Manchester Utd, Liverpool and Manchester City, we make up the Premier League's Top 4. Us and Man U are the only teams yet to concede a goal.
The Hammers go into this match under tremendous pressure and bottom of the Premier League, having lost their first three games, away at Man U, Southampton and Newcastle. Not just defeated though, their performances have come under heavy criticism, especially the last game when they flopped up at Sid James' Park against equally under pressure Newcastle. As with some of our earlier matches, this would seem to be the ideal time to be going to play West Ham.

During the international break, while West Ham's players had "a few days off", the Town players who weren't on international duty, went over to Hamburg for a friendly match with Altona 93. The two new signings Abdelhamid Sabiri and Florent Hadergjonaj both played well and will definitely be in contention for this match. As will Laurent Depoitre, who scored twice.

Seven of Town's first team squad were away on international duty. Aaron Mooy played in Australia's home match against Thailand on Tuesday, after he missed the game in Japan with an illness.
Mathias Zanka and Jonas Lössl were both in the Denmark squad for their World Cup qualifiers, but neither of them got on the grass. Phillip Billing played twice for the Danish u21s.
Kasey Palmer played and scored for the English u21s in a 3-0 win against Lithuania. Ryan Schofield played in goal for the u19s in both games against Poland and Germany.
But Elias Kachunga, despite being called into the DR Congo squad, was somehow strangely deemed to be ineligible. Also strangely, there hasn't been any news of leading scorer Steve Mounié, who was supposedly away on international duty. And if he wasn't away, why wasn't he playing in the friendly in Germany?
Ou est le Mounié?

A brief history of West Ham United: In 1966, West Ham won the World Cup. Goals from West Ham's Geoff Hurst (3) and West Ham's Martin Peters in the final against West Germany were enough for West Ham and England skipper Bobby Moore to lift the Jules Rimet Trophy.
This short period of the 1960s were the Hammers' glory years. After winning the FA Cup in 1964, they followed that up by beating 1860 Munich in the final of the European Cup Winners Cup 2-0, both goals scored by Alan Sealey.

Hurst, Moore and Peters of England

They were formed in 1895 as Thames Ironworks and became West Ham Utd in 1901. They moved into their long time home, the Boleyn Ground at Upton Park, in 1904, but it wasn't until 1919 that they were admitted into the Football League.
1923 was the year they came of age, gaining promotion to the 1st division and reaching the FA Cup Final, the famous "White Horse" final at Wembley, where they were beaten 2-0 by Bolton Wanderers.
They have gone on to win the FA Cup three times, that aforementioned 1964 final was a 3-2 win over Preston North End. They won it again in 1975, beating a Fulham side that had the veteran Bobby Moore skippering them. And then finally in 1980 they beat Arsenal with Trevor Brooking heading the only goal of the game. They did make the final again in 2006, but lost on penalties after a 3-3 draw to Liverpool, Steven Gerrard scoring a famous injury time equaliser.
They won the Play Offs in 2005, beating Preston and then again in 2012, since when they have stayed in the Premier League. That last win was against Blackpool 2-1. Carlton Cole and Ricardo Vaz Tê scoring for them with Tom Ince getting the Blackpool goal.
And that's about it really. Those glory years in the mid 60's are just a highlight in a sea of relative mediocrity, considering the perceived size of this massive club. So massive they had to move into the London Olympics Stadium! Notice they have never won the league. Their highest placing was 3rd in 1985/86. Huddersfield Town, the small club, have three league titles and have twice finished runners up.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Alf Garnett!




Head to Head



Town lead in the overall head to head with 22 wins to West Ham's 10, with 7 draws.

The image of the programme above is from what I remember as the best match I ever saw at Leeds Road. It was an FA Cup 5th round match and came strangely in the middle of the dross being served up during our relegation season of 71/72. This was when the FA Cup meant something and the Hammers still had all their star names turning out. Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Harry Redknapp, Billy Bonds, Clyde Best and Frank Lampard (snr) were all in their line up.
I stood on the big east terrace down the Cowshed corner with my dad as Town absolutely pummelled them. The score was 4-2, but that flattered them. Goals came from Jimmy Lawson, Terry Dolan, David Smith and Frank Worthington, who was the star player on this day.
This was also my first experience of football hooliganism. I was 12 year old and watched the fighting as a group of skinheads tried in vain to take the Cowshed. Nobody takes the Cowshed End!

David Smith also scored in the league victory over them at Leeds Road that season, one of our last wins in the top flight until now. We lost at Upton Park 0-3.

The season before, we had won down there in the last match of the season, another 1-0 win and another Jimmy Lawson goal. It was a 1-1 draw at home, Steve Smith scoring for Town.

There was another famous win over the mighty West Ham back in 1960. This time it came in an FA Cup replay down there after Denis Law had scored in a 1-1 draw up here. We went down there and beat them 5-1 on a hard, frosty pitch, which would never have been played on by today's standards. Obviously the southern softies didn't fancy it as Les Massie (2), Bill McGarry and John Connor (2) scored the goals as we stuffed them.

West Ham 1-5 Town in 1960

The most recent encounter was in 1997 against a star studded West Ham team, with the likes of John Hartson, Rio Ferdinand, David Unsworth, Iain Dowie, Paul Kitson and Frank Lampard (jnr). We went down to Upton Park with a 1-0 lead for the second leg of a League Cup tie, courtesy of an Alex Dyer goal, but were beaten 3-0 on the night with Hartson bagging a hat trick.

The first meeting of the two teams came back in our crisis cum promotion season of 1919/20. We won 2-0 at home on the 20th of December, the day after the club had been threatened with a winding up order, with goals from Jack Swann and Billy Smith. Then following home and away fixtures against Rotherham County on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, our brave boys travelled down to London for a match on the 27th at West Ham, the 3rd consecutive day playing, and drew 1-1 with Sam Taylor scoring our goal.



So what's happening at the London Stadium?  Managed nowadays by Slaven Bilić, the notorious World Cup cheat. Born in Split in 1968 in what was then Yugoslavia, he started out with the local team, Hajduk Split. First came to West Ham in 1996, signed by manager Harry Redknapp for £1.3m. He stayed there for 2 seasons, being runner up to Julian Dicks in the Player of the Season competition in his 2nd year, before moving to Everton.
Whilst at Everton, he represented Croatia at the 1998 World Cup, but was then released by the Toffees at the end of the 98/99 season and returned to Split. At that World Cup, in France, he became notorious as a f***ing cheat, play acting to get the French captain Laurent Blanc sent off in the semi finals.

Notable players in their squad:- Joe Hart, is probably the best known of their squad. He's on loan from Manchester City and means that for the second match running we will be up against one of the current England international goalkeepers, after we faced Southampton's Fraser Forster. We may even have an England goalkeeper of our own on show, having recently signed the 2010 World Cup squad goalie, Rob Green from dirty Leeds.
Hart started his career in the Conference with his home town club Shrewsbury in the season they won back their Football League place. Made the big money move to Man City in 2006, played one game then was sent out on loan to Tranmere, then Blackpool. He kept a clean sheet at the McGalsmiths Stadium for Blackpool as they stole a 2-0 win over us in 2007.
The following season, after a couple of League Cup matches, he soon became established as City's number 1 and by the end of the season he was also England's number 1.
It wasn't all plain sailing though. He found himself back on the bench when City signed Shay Given and spent the 2009/10 season out on loan at Birmingham City. Back at City the next year though and has since won the Premier League title twice with them. Then it all went wrong with the arrival of current City boss, Pep Guardiola, who didn't fancy him. He sent him on loan to Torino last season and now he's at West Ham.

There are others in their squad who you may have heard of. Andy Carroll, the bustling, bun bonced centre forward, who once paid £22,000 for a wristwatch.
Pablo Zabaleta, another ex Man City player, scored against us in the FA Cup replay last season.
Ex Man Utd star, Javier Hernandez, commonly known as Chicharito. The Mexican has been at Real Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen since leaving Old Trafford and scored his first 2 goals for the Hammers in the recent defeat at Southampton.
Michail Antonio, a tricky winger who has footballing giants Tooting & Mitcham, Colchester Utd, Cheltenham Town and Sheffield Wednesday on his CV.
Sam Byram, a full back signed from dirty Leeds.
Marko Arnautović, a club record signing for £25m in the summer form Stoke City, is suspended after his red card at Southampton.
Defender James Collins has over 50 caps for Wales.
Angelo Ogbonna, ex Juventus, was born in Nigeria but plays internationally for Italy, emigrating there as a child. Played for them in Euro 2016.
Ex Tranmere Rovers full back, Aaron Cresswell, has 2 England caps.
Irish kid, Declan Rice, is only 18 and made his full debut in the recent defeat at Southampton.
The skipper is Mark Noble. He has more West Ham Premier League appearances than anybody else, having been there since his youth career started in 2000.
Striker André Ayew cost the club a then record fee of over £20m when he joined from Swansea last year.
Swiss midfielder, Edimilson Fernandes, also signed for the Hammers last year.
New Zealand international, Winston Reid is the club's vice captain.
Adrián was first choice goalkeeper, but has sat on the bench so far this season since the arrival of Hart.
Manuel Lanzini is an Argentina international.
Cheikhou Kouyaté and Diafra Sakho are both Senegal internationals.
And José Fonte was a member of Portugal's Euro 2016 winning squad.

Recent form: Town are 3rd in the Premier League with 7 points. The Hammers are in 20th and bottom of the Premier League with zero points.

Crystal Palace 0-3 Town (Ward og, Mounié 2)
Town 1-0 Newcastle Utd (Mooy)
Town 2-1 Rotherham Utd (EFL Cup) (Billing pen, Lolley)
Town 0-0 Southampton

Manchester Utd 4-0 West Ham
Southampton 3-2 West Ham (Hernandez 2)
Cheltenham Town 0-2 West Ham (EFL Cup) (Sakho, Ayew)
Newcastle Utd 3-0 West Ham


Hammers line up at Newcastle:

25 Hart
5 Zabaleta
19 Collins
21 Ogbonna
3 Cresswell
41 Rice
16 Noble
30 Antonio
20 Ayew
31 Fernandes
17 Hernández

Substitutes:
4 Fonte
8 Kouyaté
10 Lanzini
13 Adrián
14 Obiang
15 Sakho
26 Masuaku