December 17 – Goals, Goals, Goals

FOR those of us too young to have seen Bobby Moore play, the ’66 skipper is seen as an almost mythological figure and one of the greatest defenders ever to play the game. It’s therefore pretty hard to believe that one of his defence’s was ever taken to the sword, but that’s exactly what happened today in 1966, as his West Ham side conceded five goals on the way to a five-all draw, setting a record for the highest scoring draw in English football.

Local derbies can often be dull foul-fests but when these two London sides met at Stamford Bridge it proved to be a textbook see-saw affair. When the half-time whistle went one of West Ham’s other England heroes had helped the Hammers to a 2-1 lead, but in the second half the fireworks really began go off. Chelsea soon found themselves 3-2 ahead, but bottled their lead and were 5-3 down with ten minutes to go.

Chelsea’s Bobby Tambling took it upon himself to be a hero and bagged two goals in the last ten minutes and the history books were re-written. Their record was untouched for 18 years, when Newcastle went to Loftus Road to play QPR and found themselves 4-0 up at the break. God knows what QPR manager Alan Mullery said at half time, because the Rs came right back at them, pulling it back to 4-3. As West Ham were all those years ago, Newcastle were 5-3 up within sight of the finishing line, but in time-honoured Geordie tradition, their defence capitulated and QPR bagged another 5-5 draw. And this was even before the days of Titus Bramble or Claudio Cacapa.

With the Chelsea West Ham game being from that bygone era when the talk of player-cam and interactive red buttons was the stuff of madmen, there’s not a lot of footage, so we’ll leave you with the end of QPR’s comeback, 1980s haircuts and all. There’s more action tomorrow as we head up North for a good old fashioned sacking.