On This Day – 3rd January
Today’s ‘On This Day’ comes from 1998 and an FA Cup tie between West Ham United of the Premiership and Emley of the Unibond Premier League.
18,629 fans were at Upton Park to witness the small Yorkshire club pit their wits against The Hammers.
West Ham went into the cup tie after an impressive run in the league, having won 5 of their last 7 league games. They were 8th in the Premiership table.
Emley on the other hand were on their longest ever Cup run having surpassed their previous record of reaching the First Round. On that occasion, they had lost 3-0 to Third Division Bolton Wanderers.
Their Cup run had started back in September when they beat Workington Town. The Yorkshire team had progessed through all four qualifying rounds and then the First and Second Round Proper.
In the Second Round, they had been drawn against Lincoln City, who were two divisions above them in the Third Division. They were also top of the league. Emley forced a replay and because their ground was too small, the modern McAlpine Stadium, home of Huddersfield Town was used instead.
The draw had already been made and the Emley fans knew that if they could create an upset and beat Lincoln, then they would have a trip to Premiership West Ham. They got the result that they prayed for, beating Lincoln 4-3 on penalties.
West Ham had almost a complete first team playing to avoid any chances of a slip up. Their line up was as follows:
Craig Forrest, Tim Breacker, Steve Potts, David Unsworth, Rio Ferdinand, Ian Pearce, Stan Lazaridis, Frank Lampard, Eyal Berkovic, Paul Kitson, John Hartson
There had been quite a few games called off because of the weather but the game went ahead despite there being a lot of standing water on the pitch.
After only two minutes, Paul Kitson hit the Emley bar with a shot from the edge of the box before now-Chelsea manager Frank Lampard opened the scoring on four minutes later.
It seemed as if that would be the start of Emley getting an absolute hammering but it wasn’t to be.
West Ham had a few chances to add to their but missed each of them and Emley even had a half-chance from a corner but it was hit well wide.
At the start of the second half, Emley came out an bombarded the West Ham goal with several efforts. Emley’s Ian Banks swung a shot at goal that hit the underside of the bar before bouncing clear. This caused panic in West Ham’s defence and Emley won three corners in quick succession.
The third corner was taken on 56 minutes by Ian Banks (who had hit the crossbar minutes before), whipped in a corner and Paul David powered in a header to equaliser for the tiny Yorkshire club.
There were over 3,000 Emley fans in the crowd behind the goal (the population of Emley at the time was less than 2000!) and they celebrated wildly.
Amazingly, David’s goal was Emley’s 23rd FA Cup goal of the season!
West Ham’s players were shocked and so were their fans. I remember going to Arsenal vs Port Vale on the same day at Highbury and we saw a West Ham fan on the Tube. We asked him what the score was of their game and he replied “I left at 1-0, we were rubbish”!
The West Ham fan that I spoke to on the Tube had missed the equaliser and then the rest of the game, which was mostly West Ham trying to break the part-timers down and get a winner.
Sadly for football romantics everywhere, John Hartson headed in a winner for West Ham after a cross from the left by Australian winger Stan Lazaridis.
The goal came on 82 minutes, with only eight minutes remaining but for just over 25 minutes, Emley were level with a Premiership team.
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