West Ham v Villa FAC R6 1979-80

[Damo70]

As a kid in the days before Soccer Saturday and teletext I used to watch the wrestling and see the scores come up underneath on ITV, I was gutted when it said 1-0 right at the death. Ken Mcnaught handball wasn't it? Ray Stewart was the Le Tissier of the time when it came to penalties. My first Upton Park experience was a few years later and I still think it was the most intimidating away ground.

[Big Dick Edwards]

I went to that. It was a very intimidating afternoon. There should have been an inquest into that match because I saw club stewards letting West Ham fans into our end.

I avoided a kicking by good fortune that day. I remember going there again either shortly before or shortly after and not being so fortunate.

[Dave Clark Five]

I sat in a car behind the South Bank for quite a while before kick off and watched hordes of West Ham fans, clad in green flying jackets, climbing over the turnstiles with nobody making any attempt to stop them.   

[pooligan]

I was at this game with my father and brother and remember to this day how bad it was. Villa had been given the whole end and there must have been thousands of us. Was in the ground early and remember a villa fan who worked in London saying he had heard that the ICF had tickets for the Villa end and there was going to be some aggro and more.Did not take any notice untill around 2pm when suddenly in front of where i was standing a big mob of west ham started a big fight. The so called best police force in the world the Met soon calmed things but to our amazement let the west ham fans stay in the villa end for all the game. All hell was let loose when west ham got that late dodgy pen. The villa fans gave the west ham fans in our end a real good hiding but as soon as the final whistle went we had the rest of the west ham fans charging across the pitch trying to get into the villa end. Did not help that everyone was in claret and blue. The walk back to the car was one of the worst i can ever remember. Vowed never to go there again and never have.

[Pat McMahon]

Big Dick Edwards, you are right. One of the West Ham main hooligans, Bill Gardner, was either a steward or had got himself a steward's jacket for the day. He let 100+ ICF blokes in and it just kicked off all afternoon in a Vietnam style ambush. Most Villa fans who went to that game either got some aggro or a very close observation of it. Horrible.

Very rarely talked about is the revenge from Villa. West Ham played at Blues at either Easter or May bank holiday whilst we were away to Man City. We had a ridiculously small away following as loads of Villa fans were at New St waiting for ICF. And at first hand I saw the most violent, angry Villa mob I have ever seen when we played the Hammers at home in October 1981, our first encounter since that cup game. Everybody under the age of 40 seemed to go mental and a lot of West Ham fans took some very serious hidings - it really was brutal. The fighting seemed to go on for an hour and around 60 Villa fans were arrested.

[Dig the new breed]

Been away a few years [not inside] .This is the most violent game i have been to. Got dropped off late by the coach and when asked a copper on the way in where the coaches would be he simply turned his lapel over to show a west ham badge and said " do you think i am going to f--king tell you ". Cheers mate !!