The build-up to Saturday’s game at Upton Park – can Sunderland actually win two in a row? – continues. Our guest Hammer, Gordon Thrower*, from the admirable West Ham site, Knees Up Mother Brown, has one personality defect: he cannot get October 19 1968 out of his mind. Sunderland fans of a nervous disposition should skip his recollections of the day our players felt such a sense of injustice at an opening goal from the hand of Geoff Hurst (correction: he said it was his fist) that they thought “why not concede a whole lot more?”. Gordon – some impertinent Hammers are speculating on which of the characters in the photo he might be – predicts another, more modest Hammers victory on Saturday …
Salut! Sunderland: Which West Ham greats did you watch play, and which do you regret being too young to have seen?
I’m lucky enough to have started during the Moore, Hurst and Peters era so I’ve pretty much seen all of our greatest players. There was an incredibly unlucky player called George Foreman who played for us well before I was born. Few would have heard of him, though he scored 154 goals in 156 games. Unfortunately his tenure at the club lasted from 1939-1946 and I believe that the country was a bit preoccupied with non-football matters for most of that time.
