{"id":290233,"date":"2023-09-10T19:34:45","date_gmt":"2023-09-10T19:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tellmysport.com\/?p=290233"},"modified":"2023-09-10T19:34:45","modified_gmt":"2023-09-10T19:34:45","slug":"the-amazing-tale-of-east-ham-7-west-ham-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tellmysport.com\/soccer\/the-amazing-tale-of-east-ham-7-west-ham-8\/","title":{"rendered":"The amazing tale of East Ham 7 West Ham 8"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>MATT BARLOW: The amazing tale of East Ham 7 West Ham 8&#8230; as fans paid just 45p to watch George Best, Bobby Moore and Jimmy Greaves in action for 15-goal thriller in London<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>East Ham United took on West Ham United back in 1965 in an iconic match<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The proceeds went towards East Ham and Frank Lampard&#8217;s testimonial\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Legends such as Bobby Moore, Jimmy Greaves and George Best all played\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Terence McMillan was a Labour councillor, the mayor of Newham when it was first formed by the fusion of East and West Ham in 1965, and the modest stadium named in his honour near Canning Town hosted school sports and amateur football.<\/p>\n<p>George Best was one of the most recognisable footballers in the world when he appeared there. It was a Sunday afternoon, two years after his final appearance for Manchester United and eight days before his arrival in Los Angeles to confirm he was joining the Aztecs in the NASL.<\/p>\n<p>He was 29 and maybe looking for a bit of match practice. Although, equally, he probably just agreed to help a mate and fancied a kick-about and a few drinks when he agreed to pull on the East Ham United stripes.<\/p>\n<p>His presence boosted the crowd for a game against West Ham to raise some cash for the hard-up London Spartan League club and launch Frank Lampard\u2019s testimonial year.<\/p>\n<p>Best had played only fleetingly since his exit from Old Trafford. There was a four-game venture to South Africa for the Jewish Guild in Johannesburg, before appearing for Dunstable Town, where Barry Fry, an old pal from their days together in the Manchester United youth ranks, had taken his first managerial job.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/10\/20\/75270467-12501897-Fans_paid_just_45p_to_watch_East_Ham_take_on_West_Ham_in_a_past_-a-1_1694372514578.jpg\" height=\"762\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Fans paid just 45p to watch East Ham take on West Ham in a past and present match<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/10\/18\/75270465-12501897-image-a-46_1694367529367.jpg\" height=\"251\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>George Best, Bobby Moore and Jimmy Greaves all featured in the iconic match<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/10\/18\/75270469-12501897-image-a-48_1694367589154.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Best&#8217;s presence boosted the crowd for a game against West Ham to raise some cash for the hard-up London Spartan League club<\/p>\n<p>Not only did Fry convince Tommy Docherty to release Best\u2019s registration to play in two friendlies he also secured United as opponents in the first. Creasey Park was bursting at the seams. Thousands more were locked out as Dunstable won 3-2. Legend has it that Best gave back \u00a325 of his \u00a3200 appearance fee to help the sixth-tier team buy new nets.<\/p>\n<p>Best appeared in testimonials for Jeff Astle and Peter Osgood, made a brief comeback at Stockport County in Division Four \u2014 four games including the friendly against Stoke organised to help him settle in \u2014 and played three times for Cork Celtic.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018George would play for nothing,\u2019 recalls Fry. \u2018When he played for Dunstable his car broke down on the way. He called from Knutsford services and said, \u201cBaz, you\u2019re not going to believe this\u2026\u201d I thought, \u201chere we go\u201d because he had a reputation for not turning up but he said, \u201cDon\u2019t worry I\u2019ll jump in a cab\u201d, and he made it.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018That was George. He loved playing football and he loved helping friends. He was warm, generous, witty, intelligent and brilliant company.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018He stayed with me in Bedford after the match and I drove him the next day to Michael Parkinson\u2019s house where he used to spend time when he was lying low.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/10\/18\/75270461-12501897-image-a-49_1694367662078.jpg\" height=\"639\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Jimmy Greaves, 35 years old and then playing for Chelmsford City in the Southern League, turned out and scored a couple<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/10\/18\/75270477-12501897-image-a-50_1694367693929.jpg\" height=\"687\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>West Ham United and England legend Bobby Moore also played in the match<\/p>\n<p>Even in later years, when Best was a fading force, struggling with alcoholism, he made the turnstiles click. His final competitive games on these shores were with Bournemouth in 1983. By then, his determination to make kick-off had diminished.<\/p>\n<p>Diligently, they fixed signs outside Dean Court ground warning, \u2018George Best is not playing today\u2019 when he failed to turn up. A crowd of 4,250 saw him play for East Ham in February 1976, with admission set at 45p. West Ham lost at Coventry the previous day, during a poor run of league form that almost dragged them into relegation trouble in a season when they reached the European Cup-Winners\u2019 Cup final.<\/p>\n<p>Still, nobody paused to wonder if permission from boss Ron Greenwood might be required. They regularly met for impromptu games in the summer near Hainault Forest before an evening in The Retreat pub. This, they decided, was no different.<\/p>\n<p>Bobby Moore played, FA Cup hero Alan Taylor scored three and goalkeeper Mervyn Day two as the Hammers won 8-7. Jimmy Greaves, 35 years old and then playing for Chelmsford City in the Southern League, turned out and scored a couple. Trevor Brooking got the other.<\/p>\n<p>Best left for the States and relished his first summer with the Aztecs before returning to spend a season in Division Two with Fulham, the opposition for Lampard\u2019s main testimonial match, in the autumn of the same year.<\/p>\n<p>Best and Moore both played in that game for Fulham in front of 16,597 at Upton Park. By the end of the year, Best was back into the Northern Ireland team and sparkled against the Netherlands, Europe\u2019s greatest team of the era, in a World Cup qualifier.<\/p>\n<p>With the ball, 1976 proved a good year for him. It all started at Terence McMillan, now home to Clapton FC of the Eastern Counties, and led to Rotterdam, where he delivered on a promise to nutmeg Johan Cruyff in a 2-2 draw. Looking back from an era when Cristiano Ronaldo is leading a procession of post-prime footballers to Saudi Arabia it is impossible to shake the feeling that they simply had a bit more fun playing football back then \u2014 and they really would not have swapped it for the money.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2017\/08\/02\/636x90_facebook_ad_sport.png\" width=\"636\" height=\"90\"><br \/>\nSource: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/football\/article-12501897\/East-Ham-United-West-Ham-Bobby-Moore-George-Best-Jimmy-Greaves.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MATT BARLOW: The amazing tale of East Ham 7 West Ham 8&#8230; as fans paid just 45p to watch George Best, Bobby Moore and Jimmy Greaves in action for 15-goal thriller in London East Ham United took on West Ham United back in 1965 in an iconic match The proceeds went towards East Ham and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The amazing tale of East Ham 7 West Ham 8 - Tell My Sport<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tellmysport.com\/soccer\/the-amazing-tale-of-east-ham-7-west-ham-8\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The amazing tale of East Ham 7 West Ham 8 - Tell My Sport\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"MATT BARLOW: The amazing tale of East Ham 7 West Ham 8&#8230; 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