Blast from the past
5th October 1966 – the late Jim Reeves was number one with ‘Distant Drums’, Gunfighters of Casa Grande was in UK cinemas and future Prime Minister David Cameron was four days from being born. Meanwhile, at Highbury, Ron Greenwood’s West Ham United were sealing a 3-1 League Cup third round victory over Arsenal in front of 33,647 at Highbury.
Bertie Mee’s side were participating in their first League Cup campaign – having defeated Gillingham in a second replay the previous month, the Gunners came unstuck at home against the Hammers. The Irons had progressed to meet Arsenal by virtue of beating Tottenham in the previous round.
Micky Boot and John Woodward were making their debuts for Arsenal in this third round clash. Geoff Hurst (pictured above) bagged a brace for the Hammers less than ten weeks after his famous World Cup-winning hat-trick, with his fellow Wembley hero Martin Peters bagging the visitors’ other goal. David Jenkins scored Arsenal’s consolation with his first ever senior goal.
A month later, the Hammers would beat Leeds 7-0 at Upton Park in the fourth round before winning 3-1 at Blackpool in the quarter-final. The Irons would be defeated by West Brom over two legs in the semi-final though, losing the first leg 4-0 at The Hawthorns and drawing the second leg 2-2 at the Boleyn. QPR went on to win the League Cup Final of 1967, beating the Baggies 3-2 in the Final at Wembley.
Arsenal: Jim Furnell, Peter Simpson, Ian Ure, Peter Storey, Tom Walley, George Armstrong, John Woodward, Jon Sammels, Tommy Coakley, Micky Boot, David Jenkins.
West Ham United: Jim Standen, Dennis Burnett, Ken Brown, Bobby Moore, John Charles, Ronnie Boyce, Martin Peters, Peter Brabrook, Johnny Byrne, Geoff Hurst, John Sissons.
Aside from this third round win in 1966, West Ham’s remaining League Cup record against Arsenal is as follows:
1998 – West Ham 1-2 Arsenal (Quarter-Final)
2017 – Arsenal 1-0 West Ham (Quarter-Final)
Club Connections
Declan Rice returns to his old side, while Dinos Mavropanos and Lukasz Fabianski welcome their former club. A large group of players join them in having turned out for West Ham United and Arsenal:
Goalkeepers: Charles Ambler, Richard Wright, Manuel Almunia, Jim Standen.
Defenders: James Jackson, Matthew Upson, Nigel Winterburn, Carl Jenkinson, Steve Walford, Bob Stevenson.
Midfielders: Freddie Ljungberg, Jack Wilshere, Samir Nasri, Stewart Robson, Liam Brady, Yossi Benayoun, Archie Macauley, David Bentley, James Bigden, Roddy McEachrane, Alex Song, Henri Lansbury, Luis Boa Morte, Fred Kemp.Strikers: Davor Suker, Fergie Hunt, Harry Lewis, Bobby Gould, Jeremie Aliadiere, Dick Burgess, John Blackwood, Dr Jimmy Marshall, Kaba Diawara, Jimmy Bloomfield, Charlie Satterthwaite, Marouane Chamakh, Billy Linward, Lee Chapman, Tommy Lee, Ian Wright, Peter Kyle, John Hartson, Lucas Perez, John Radford.
Ron Greenwood was also assistant manager at Arsenal before becoming manager of West Ham.
Today’s focus is on an England international inside-forward who played for Arsenal before representing West Ham United. Stan Earle was born on the 6th September 1897, in Stratford. The third of six children, Stan’s father was a schoolmaster who had also played as a goalkeeper and centre-half for Millwall, Arsenal, Clapton and Notts County. The Earle family lived in Ridley Road in West Ham before moving to Cramner Road in Forest Gate; Stan played for England Schoolboys before signing as an amateur with Clapton. He served as a bombardier in the Royal Field Artillery and the Royal Garrison Artillery.
Earle played for Clapton with future Hammers team-mate Viv Gibbins but also turned out for Arsenal, still as an amateur, between 1922 and 1924. He played four games for Arsenal in two years, scoring three goals; he had made his league debut in a 2-0 defeat to Aston Villa on 18th March 1922. Stan married Jessie Logan in West Ham in December 1922. Despite such limited playing time with his club, the 26-year-old Earle made his international debut for England in a 3-1 win against France in Paris on 17th May 1924. He continued to play for Clapton, winning the 1924 FA Amateur Cup.
Three months after his England debut, inside-right Earle signed for West Ham United and scored six goals in 18 games in his first season. The creative forward, who stood at 6’1, made his debut in a 1-0 home win over Preston on 30th August 1924 and scored his first goal for the club in his next match, a 1-0 win at Blackburn seven days later. He played in 37 of the 42 league games the following season, 1925/26, and scored nine goals as the Hammers developed a fine forward line of Earle, Vic Watson and Jimmy Ruffell, the trio notching 41 goals between them that season. Earle scored a hat-trick in a 5-2 win against Aston Villa at the Boleyn Ground on Christmas Day 1925.
Earle’s best goalscoring season was 1926/27, a campaign which saw him notch 13 goals in 45 games as the Hammers finished sixth in the First Division. Six goals in five games between 3rd September and 1st October 1927 meant that the 30-year-old Earle (pictured above) had impressed sufficiently to earn his second (and final) England cap on 22nd October 1927, against Ireland in Belfast – England lost the match 2-0 but played most of the second half of the game with nine men. Hammers goalkeeper Ted Hufton was one of two players who were forced to withdraw through injury, the custodian being rushed to hospital with a broken bone in his forearm. Earle ended the 1927/28 season with 11 goals from 32 matches, but the Hammers slumped to a 17th-place finish. It was the last campaign in which Earle hit double figures.Referee
Wednesday’s referee will be Wiltshire-based Simon Hooper, who will take on only his tenth Hammers appointment. He first refereed West Ham in the 1-0 Championship home win over Coventry in January 2012 and he was also in charge of our 3-0 League Cup third round win over Bolton at London Stadium in September 2017 (pictured below). His first Premier League appointment involving the Hammers was our 2-0 defeat at Bournemouth in January 2019. Hooper officiated in three West Ham games in 2020/21, for our 5-1 League Cup third round win over Hull at London Stadium in September 2020, our 2-2 draw with Brighton in December 2020 and for our 3-0 win over Sheffield United in February 2021. He awarded the Hammers a penalty in two of his three fixtures officiating us that season.
Hooper refereed the Hammers for our 2-0 home win over Norwich in January 2022, our 1-0 defeat at Wolves in January of this year and, most recently, for our 2-1 defeat at Leicester in May. He has refereed seven matches so far in 2023/24 – five in the Premier League and two in the Championship. He has issued 31 yellow cards and two reds in those games.
There is no VAR in the League Cup until the semi-final stage.
Possible line-ups
West Ham United have Emerson back from suspension.
Arsenal are without the injured Jurrien Timber, Thomas Partey and Gabriel Jesus.
Possible West Ham United XI: Fabianski; Coufal, Kehrer, Mavropanos, Cresswell; Alvarez, Soucek; Benrahma, Fornals, Cornet; Ings.
Possible Arsenal XI: Ramsdale; Tomiyasu, Gabriel, Saliba, Kiwior; Jorginho, Vieira; Nelson, Odegaard, Trossard; Nketiah.
Enjoy the game – Come On You Irons!
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