to a ‘bobble’. It was an expression that was to pass into the lexicon of TV commentary. Before Brooking, ‘bobble’ wasn’t a word you heard all that often – unless it was a reference to that knobbly bit on top of woolly hats.
I do understand that there is nothing worse than hearing a previous generation banging on about how good the players were in their day. I’m sure when Brooking made his debut there was some old boy in the Chicken Run explaining to the bloke next to him that there would never be another Vic Watson. Such is life.
But Brooking really was different gravy and, unlike good old Vic, there is the video footage to prove it. Just take a look at the highlights of the two legs of the Frankfurt game and you will understand why he is so deeply admired by all those who saw him in the flesh.
Before you do that, though, let me tell you how I gave the world the song that really sums up how so many people feel about this man – ‘Trevor Brooking Walks on Water’. Yep, that was me.
To be frank, I’m expecting a fair amount of controversy over this particular claim. I can already hear the legions of West Ham stalwarts with bus passes harrumphing that they were singing ‘Trevor Brooking Walks on Water’ long before Highbury 1975. Honestly, though, over the years I have racked my brains endlessly in an effort to recall a previous occasion when I had heard those words and I really can’t come up with anything. Should anyone produce some concrete evidence to prove me wrong – newspaper reports, old videos of Match of the Day ; sworn affidavits – you can slap my wrist and call me Geraldine. Until then, I’m claiming the copyright.
For reasons that need not detain us here, I was unable to make the great man’s final game at Upton Park in May 1984. Apparently, many of those who did go stayed behind for the best part of an hour to salute him, using the hymn of praise I had composed some years earlier. Had I been there, I suspect modesty would have prevented me from telling those around how I’d been the first toput the new lyrics to ‘Deck the Halls’, but I feel the time has now come. Future generations of historians need to know this stuff.
West Ham were in the Cup Winners’ Cup because we had won the FA Cup the year before. (The nation’s dealings with Europe were so much simpler then.) The final itself, against Fulham, is remembered more for the fact that Bobby Moore turned out in white instead of claret and blue than for the quality of football – but some of the performances leading up to Wembley had been sensational. Best of all was the quarter-final against Arsenal, which I went to with the wife of a close friend. Sadly they are no longer married so, to spare their blushes, I will change her name to Claire. Why don’t you join us in the Clock End at Highbury on an overcast day in the March of 1975 and I’ll give you the full story?
Come to think of it, join us an hour earlier as the Tube pulls into Arsenal station. The Piccadilly line train is rammed with claret and blue – it’s standing room only. But the platform is deserted: everybody in north London knows the Gooners are at home to West Ham that day. Everybody except the solitary figure standing on the platform, cradling what can only have been a framed picture bought from one of the local antiques shops. The look of horror on his face as he realised what was about to befall him even before the Tube doors had opened will remain with me for the rest of my life. (Those of you familiar with The Scream by Edvard Munch will know what I’m talking about here.)
I can’t be 100 per cent certain it was a painting because it was wrapped in brown paper, but it’s hard to imagine something that shape could have been anything else. I hope, for his sake, it wasn’t a masterpiece. One minute he was standing like a contented human easel, cherishing the artwork nestled in his arms. The next momenthe was twisting like a whirling dervish,
I do understand that there is nothing worse than hearing a previous generation banging on about how good the players were in their day. I’m sure when Brooking made his debut there was some old boy in the Chicken Run explaining to the bloke next to him that there would never be another Vic Watson. Such is life.
But Brooking really was different gravy and, unlike good old Vic, there is the video footage to prove it. Just take a look at the highlights of the two legs of the Frankfurt game and you will understand why he is so deeply admired by all those who saw him in the flesh.
Before you do that, though, let me tell you how I gave the world the song that really sums up how so many people feel about this man – ‘Trevor Brooking Walks on Water’. Yep, that was me.
To be frank, I’m expecting a fair amount of controversy over this particular claim. I can already hear the legions of West Ham stalwarts with bus passes harrumphing that they were singing ‘Trevor Brooking Walks on Water’ long before Highbury 1975. Honestly, though, over the years I have racked my brains endlessly in an effort to recall a previous occasion when I had heard those words and I really can’t come up with anything. Should anyone produce some concrete evidence to prove me wrong – newspaper reports, old videos of Match of the Day ; sworn affidavits – you can slap my wrist and call me Geraldine. Until then, I’m claiming the copyright.
For reasons that need not detain us here, I was unable to make the great man’s final game at Upton Park in May 1984. Apparently, many of those who did go stayed behind for the best part of an hour to salute him, using the hymn of praise I had composed some years earlier. Had I been there, I suspect modesty would have prevented me from telling those around how I’d been the first toput the new lyrics to ‘Deck the Halls’, but I feel the time has now come. Future generations of historians need to know this stuff.
West Ham were in the Cup Winners’ Cup because we had won the FA Cup the year before. (The nation’s dealings with Europe were so much simpler then.) The final itself, against Fulham, is remembered more for the fact that Bobby Moore turned out in white instead of claret and blue than for the quality of football – but some of the performances leading up to Wembley had been sensational. Best of all was the quarter-final against Arsenal, which I went to with the wife of a close friend. Sadly they are no longer married so, to spare their blushes, I will change her name to Claire. Why don’t you join us in the Clock End at Highbury on an overcast day in the March of 1975 and I’ll give you the full story?
Come to think of it, join us an hour earlier as the Tube pulls into Arsenal station. The Piccadilly line train is rammed with claret and blue – it’s standing room only. But the platform is deserted: everybody in north London knows the Gooners are at home to West Ham that day. Everybody except the solitary figure standing on the platform, cradling what can only have been a framed picture bought from one of the local antiques shops. The look of horror on his face as he realised what was about to befall him even before the Tube doors had opened will remain with me for the rest of my life. (Those of you familiar with The Scream by Edvard Munch will know what I’m talking about here.)
I can’t be 100 per cent certain it was a painting because it was wrapped in brown paper, but it’s hard to imagine something that shape could have been anything else. I hope, for his sake, it wasn’t a masterpiece. One minute he was standing like a contented human easel, cherishing the artwork nestled in his arms. The next momenthe was twisting like a whirling dervish,
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