While ‘EVERYBODY’S SECOND TEAM‘ (Producer Jay Stratford, 89 mins, 2019) may not become everybody’s second favourite football documentary, there should be enough to engage the generally curious and not just West Ham United supporters at whom it is aimed.
The inference of the title is set out early in the film during an interview with Alvin Martin, one of six former players (the others being Alan Devonshire, David Cross, Ray Stewart, Phil Parkes and Stuart Pearson), who in the talking heads format, discuss how they came to be at the club.
Each then goes on to give an account of how West Ham, a second division club at the time, won the FA Cup in 1980 – the last team from outside the topflight to do so.
What sets the documentary apart from the usual ‘highlights/’here’s what happened’ voice-over technique, is the recollections are joined together by animations drawn by Canning Town Len, with not a single piece of match footage used throughout the piece.
Once attuned to this somewhat unusual way of revisiting events, now over forty years old in some cases, it becomes quite engaging – although does run the risk of non-West Ham supporters soon losing interest or deciding one viewing is enough.
The animations are not restricted to football, also depicting aspects of UK social fabric as the 1970s draw to a close. Politicians, industrial strife, newspaper front pages, and the discontented winter of 1978-79 are all used to set the scene, along with faces on the Upton Park terraces – the illustrator showing a keen eye for detail in recreating hairstyles and fashions as the 80s fast approach.
As each of the six players cast their minds back (all of them coming across as affable characters with a deep affinity for the club), two recurring themes emerge; their bond with the supporters and a deep respect for manager John Lyall, who they all speak of in glowing terms.
From Lyall they receive insight into what it means to play for West Ham and represent such a passionate crowd, this topic nicely articulated by Cross in particular. Not that Upton Park was home to much merriment when the story begins, the 1977-78 season culminating in a 2-0 home defeat against reigning European Champions Liverpool – a result that consigned The Hammers to second division football for the first time in twenty years.
The premise of West Ham being ‘everybody’s second team‘ has already been set out by Martin (the notion never referred to again), in the background of him signing for the club – his first season in the senior side ending in relegation.
‘I signed for West Ham in 1974 a month after Bobby Moore had left the club,’ he explains, ‘and the fact he had played for West Ham and been England’s World Cup winning captain made them known and respected around the world. Because of him and the other West Ham World Cup winners Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters and the West Ham way of playing attractive football, it made them everybody’s second favourite team.’
Central defender Martin and striker Cross (signed in December 1977 from West Bromwich Albion) speak candidly about the impact of being relegated, their comments not as pointed, however, as those of team-mate Alan Devonshire.
‘I know why we went down, some of the players weren’t putting it in,’ states Devonshire, ‘in training or in games. John Lyall realised that and moved a few on, knowing he had some good youngsters coming through – but the most important thing was keeping people like David Cross, Trevor Brooking and Billy Bonds.’
With an evident blend of youth, talent and experience, West Ham were expected to make an immediate return to Division One, but after a good start the nitty-gritty of second division life took hold, their free-flowing football stuttering against combative opposition.
They carry on spending like a top club, splashing out £565,000 on signing Parkes from QPR (a then world record fee for a goalkeeper) and continue to be seen as a big fish in a small pool, but at the season end they are fifth – an eventuality which causes Cross to reflect:
‘All through that season we thought ourselves a first division side in the second division. Then it ended and the fixtures come out again and you think “hold on a minute lads, we are a second division side“.’
Before commencement of the 1979-80 campaign, they spent lavishly again, paying Dundee United £430,000 in making full-back Stewart the most expensive teenage signing in British football with £220,000 invested in Pearson, who they bought from Manchester United.
But once again this highly talented group of players, boosted further by these expensive additions, fail to make their expected impact on Division Two, this reviewer present when they are given a 3-0 chasing by his hometown team at Gay Meadow in mid-December – but their next visit to the Midlands, an early January third round FA Cup trip to West Bromwich Albion, is when the documentary really starts gaining momentum.
Parkes receives fulsome praise for his part in securing a 1-1 draw at The Hawthorns, first division Albion subsequently beaten in the Upton Park replay. Leyton Orient and Swansea City are then dispatched, the quarter-final draw pairing West Ham with visiting Aston Villa – who are overcome with a late penalty from Stewart, whose reputation as a spot-kick king is already developing.
For the semi-finals West Ham are in the hat with Everton, Arsenal and Liverpool. There is relief at Goodison Park and in East London when West Ham are drawn against Everton, both clubs sensing that in avoiding the other pair a road to Wembley has opened up.
Meeting first at Villa Park, a second half equaliser from Pearson secures a 1-1 draw, the sides meeting again at Elland Road four days later. The replay is deadlocked at 90 minutes, but West Ham strike the first blow when Devonshire puts them ahead – although parity is restored when Everton hit back to level.
At this point Martin offers his recollections. ‘I had tonsillitis so didn’t play in the replay and listened to it on the radio in bed. When we scored the second I was kicking my legs under the covers – and then thought the commentator got the scorer wrong as he kept saying Frank Lampard had scored with a header. I kept thinking it can’t be Frank as he wouldn’t be that far up the field – it didn’t make any sense. It still doesn’t.‘
There are some amusing, insightful (and poignant) anecdotes surrounding the final against Arsenal, ranging from family stories, a tactical masterstroke by Lyall and the headed winning goal by England international Brooking.
While the animations depicting the final are interesting enough, what they cannot convey is the intense heat at Wembley that day, to which all six interviewees attest – the scorching conditions my lasting memory of a match attended with a West Ham supporting friend.
‘Everybody’s Second Team,’ is an agreeable film and even if the graphics will not be everyone’s cup of tea, it deserves praise for being original not to say quirky – ideal in that respect for a story in which Shrewsbury Town complete a league double over West Ham United and a second division team win the FA Cup.
‘EVERYBODY’S SECOND TEAM‘ is available on Amazon Prime Video.
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NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of ‘MONTY’S DOUBLE‘ – an acclaimed thriller now available in paperback and an Amazon Kindle book.
