This superb article brought these West Ham United and Newcastle United memories flooding back

G’day from Australia, absolutely superb article on today’s match, what a superb write up on our club, supporters and Northumberland, from West Ham United and Joe Dixon.

It brought back great memories of the match in the mid 80s when we played them at Upton Park and they beat us 8-1.

Newcastle had three goalkeepers during that match one of which was Peter Beardsley (When I am writing or talking about a match, I seldom if ever Google the game concerned, as it can influence my comments).

Martin Thomas was our goalkeeper and even when he was warming up, you could tell he was injured and should not in my mind, be playing.

The highlight of the match once again were our fans.

With approximately 10 minutes to go, some of us were singing –

“You only sing when you’re winning”

“Can you hear the hammers sing, we can’t hear a f…… thing”

“We always win 8-9”

West Ham ffans were laughing hysterically at us during that time, telling us that we were mad and should be locked up. Or words to that effect.

On the way out, we met some Hammers fans who told us that we were the best away fans that they had ever seen. They subsequently invited us for a few beers.

At the time, West Ham fans were like Millwall fans, remember when we beat them at home in the 90s?

We should have been given free beers / tickets and tee shirts with “I went to Upton Park / The Den And survived!?!”

Frankly, going into an away pub like the teams mentioned, scared the hell out of me. But what the heck, we went to their pub and as it turned out, we were not allowed to buy a drink all night.

Took the next day off, as I was well over the drink drive limit.

In my 74+years as a supporter and a very regular attendee at our matches for well over 30 years, it was one of my most memorable.

Once again Joe, thanks for a fabulous article.