Blackpool 4 West Ham 0 - FA Cup 1971

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FA Cup 3rd Round; Saturday January 2, 1971.

Blackpool 4 West Ham United 0

Blackpool: A.Taylor, J.Armfield, H.Mowbray, F.Kemp, G.James, D.Hatton, M.Burns, T.Green, J.Craven, T.Coleman, T.Hutchison. sub: B.Bentley.

West Ham: B.Ferguson, B.Bonds, F.Lampard, P.Eustace, T.Taylor, B.Moore, J.Ayris, J.Lindsay, C.Best, J.Greaves, B.Howe. sub:B.Dear.

Match Report: This 3rd round FA Cup tie pitted together two teams struggling at the wrong end of the first division. Despite being at home Blackpool, 21st in the table, were generally considered as underdogs against a side just two places higher in the league.

West Ham were a team with a highly erratic cup record at this time, however, and if a Blackpool victory could be considered a shock then the omens were good for one.

The Hammers were without their attacking fulcrum Geoff Hurst and a bone hard, icy surface might be considered a leveller. Many northern football fans regarded West Ham as something of a soft touch in these sort of conditions.

Blackpool would undoubtedly be up for it in front of a freezing but partisan crowd of nearly 22,000 at Bloomfield Road particularly as they were under the charge of a new manager, Bob Stokoe, who had taken over at the club just five days earlier.

The wintry feel was enhanced by a thick mist rolling in from the sea (grateful thanks to Paul McCartney for permission to use that phrase) and if their were any faint hearts, or sore heads, within the Hammers' ranks then they would surely be exposed.

In truth neither side looked much like mastering the conditions during a tense, tentative start during which neither defence was seriously troubled.

Tony Coleman tried his luck from distance for Blackpool before Jimmy Lindsay responded in similar manner for West Ham. Both efforts were wild, however, and never threatened to call either keeper into action.

The most notable feature of a mundane first 20 minutes was the absolute ease with which the Blackpool defence was holding the West Ham attack.

The burly Bermudan Clyde Best was completely ill at ease on the treacherous surface while Jimmy Greaves, who might have been expected to thrive, looked a mere shadow of his former self.

In fairness to Greaves he was receiving little to no service and the young winger, Johnny Ayris, who was similarly rationed had the appearance of a little boy lost out on the flank.

Encouraged, Blackpool began to assert some authority and pretty soon the game was being dominated by one man.

Blackpool's wingers, Mickey Burns and Tommy Hutchison, were doing enough to keep the Hammers excellent young full backs, Billy Bonds and Frank Lampard, busy but it was Tony Green in midfield who was really calling the shots.

Green was the one man on view who seemed to find no difficulty with the surface. He was happy in possession, perfectly able to turn one way then another to spray passes to his wing men and, more importantly, totally at ease running with the ball and committing defenders.

This was Green's great strength. A talented player whose career was ruined by injury he had both energy and skill in prodigious quantities. Wherever he found himself on the pitch if there was space in front of him he would attack it.

Quick and nimble he was a one man counter attacking machine who consistently drove his team forward vast distances with the ball at his feet.

With his confidence soaring Green was soon shredding the Hammers' midfield with his swift bursts and drawing uncomfortable defenders towards him who would much sooner have stayed at home.

Even Bobby Moore looked uncomfortable and the memory of his famous tackle on Jairzinho in the scorching heat of Mexico just a few short months earlier seemed a distant memory as he floundered on this grey afternoon in Lancashire.

Blackpool needed a goal to confirm their growing dominance and on the half hour it arrived from the most predictable source.

Coleman slipped a simple ball into Green around the halfway line and he was off again, instantly breaking clear of the Hammers' midfield to run at a petrified defence.

Further and further towards their own goal the West Ham defence retreated, unwilling to risk a tackle, but their caution was futile. Approaching the edge of the area, when the defenders could scarcely back off any further, Green shimmied his way beyond a couple of half hearted challenges and slipped a low shot precisely into the bottom corner.

The goal had been coming for a while but the excited home crowd didn't have to wait long for another to arrive.

The persistence of John Craven retrieved possession for Blackpool when the West Ham defence should have cleared and when Mickey Burns' centre was headed just clear of the penalty area by Peter Eustace, Green arrived right on cue to despatch a crisp volley beyond Bobby Ferguson.

Half Time: Blackpool 2 West Ham 0

A rousing response might have been expected from West Ham as they came out for the second half. Some kind of response would have been thought a certainty yet they remained dormant.

There was no area of the pitch where they had gained superiority. In midfield the discrepancy remained the most profound.

Amazingly the Blackpool gameplan had centred around Green using his boundless energy to help curtail the threat posed by Greaves who liked to drift into deeper areas when the play was not in and around the penalty area.

Green had long since extinguished that danger and was still engaged in wreaking havoc at the other end. He had willing assistants in Coleman and Fred Kemp and the centre of the pitch was exclusively Blackpool's, Peter Eustace fighting a lone, losing battle to keep West Ham in the game.

Burns created the first chance of the second half within seconds of it starting and Coleman was only marginally off target with his stinging drive.

Two minutes later Green nicked possession away from the sleeping Bobby Howe and again made straight for goal. The defence was caught out of position and unable to intervene and although Green was forced wide as he rounded Bobby Ferguson the hat trick chance was still inviting.

Green, on a day when almost everything he did was perfection, ignored the possibility of personal glory and squared the ball to Craven, alone in front of an open goal some six yards out.

It was the proverbial tap in but Craven, and Blackpool, were not in that kind of mood and the centre forward leathered the ball into the empty net with everything he had.

This goal allowed Blackpool to relax their pounding of the West Ham defence although Kemp was only inches away from increasing the lead from 25 yards as the Tangerines kept a firm grip of things in midfield.

West Ham mustered a couple of half hearted attempts on goal before Greaves finally found a ball dropping invitingly for him inside the box. His instinct around goal was as sharp as ever as he snapped a volley away only for Alan Taylor's reflexes to prove just as sharp as he reacted to make an outstanding save.

The poacher supreme trudged across to the sprawling keeper and offered him a rueful pat on the head as acknowledgement for a stunning save.

Ten minutes from time the Hammers misery was complete as Blackpool scored a fourth.

Tony Coleman tapped a free kick, seemingly out of range, sideways and Henry Mowbray stepped forward from left back to smash the shot of a lifetime into the roof of the net.

It had been that kind of a day.

Blackpool were roared from the field by their giddy supporters but this would prove a false dawn. There would be no cup glory, only a limp defeat at Hull in the next round, and an emphatic relegation from the first division as the club won only one more game all season.

West Ham slumped from the field suitably disconsolate after having been totally outplayed and the reaction to their defeat would be hysterical and prolonged.

The captain Bobby Moore, as is usually the case with the best player, bore the brunt of the flak.

The Balckpool assistant manager Jimmy Meadows was so caught up in the euphoria that he lost his senses and referred to Moore as "the worst defender in the world" during a ludicrously over the top interview after the game.

His manager and his club quickly distanced themselves from these comments, offering an apology to Moore and quickly terminating Meadows' contract with them.

Moore would, more importantly, fall foul of his own club in the aftermath of this defeat.

It would emerge, a few days later after an irate fan contacted the press, that Moore, along with Greaves, Best and the substitute Brian Dear, had gone out drinking on the night before the game.

It was true and although Moore always maintained it was nothing more than a social drink at the club of his long time acquaintance, the boxer Brian London, the reaction to the story was suitably outraged.

It is possible that none of the four players involved ever truly recovered from the episode and while the exploits of Moore and Greaves prior to this game will always remain among the greatest in the history of English fotball little of note was accomplished by the quartet from that point on.

The fuss over this incident, remembered to this day, went a long way to overshadowing a memorable victory for Blackpool and, more unjustly, one of the truly great individual performances of that era by Tony Green.

Full Time: Blackpool 4 West Ham United 0

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