West Ham have an interesting and varied history with the FA Cup, here are 10 facts about West Ham’s appearances in the final:
1 # West Ham played Bolton in the first ever final to be played at Wembley Stadium in 1923. Such were the crowds on that day it is widely accepted as being the record attendance at an FA Cup final. The official attendance is logged at 126,047 but, somewhere in the region of 300,000 people are thought to have attended the game. The crowd were kept under control by a policeman mounted on a white horse and the final is now widely known as the White Horse Final, while a bridge on the approach to the stadium is now named the White Horse Bridge to commemorate the event.
2 # The White Horse was, in fact, a grey horse named Billie, whose rider was PC George Scorey.
Scorey was a First World War veteran having served in the army for 21 years and had seen action at Ypres, Mons and Arras. Scorey was offered tickets for every cup final after the White Horse Final because of his actions on the day, but the policeman always turned them down as he had no interest in football at all.
3 # During West Ham’s first FA Cup win in 1964, Preston’s Howard Kendall became the youngest player to play in the final aged 17 years and 345 days.
4 # Ronnie Boyce scored West Ham’s winner in the final and played his entire career for the Hammers, he would also go on to be employed as a scout, a coach and even took charge of the first team for one game following the dismissal of Lou Macari in 1990.
5 # West Ham’s 1975 FA Cup win is the last time a team containing players only from England won the trophy.
6 # Striker Alan Taylor scored 2 goals in the Quarter Final, Semi Final and Final, having been playing in English football’s bottom division with Rochdale only 6 months earlier.
7 # West Ham’s last cup win in 1980 was the last time a team from outside the top flight have won the trophy.
8 # West Ham’s winner that day was scored by Trevor Brooking, West Ham’s opponents were Arsenal, cup holders and huge favourites on the day, the game was only West Ham’s 5th game at Wembley.
9 # West Ham’s next final was in 2006 and was the last FA Cup final played at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. The game is widely remembered as the Gerrard Final because of the Liverpool captain’s extraordinary performance on the day.
10 # The 2006 final was only the second final in history to go to a penalty shootout and is at the time of writing the last time the final was settled by penalties, the first being the year before in 2005.
