Bobby Moore with the FA Cup
May 2, 1964: The FA Cup Final is held at Wembley Stadium in West London.
West Ham United Football Club, despite its name, is located in the East End of London. Since 1895, when they were founded as Thames Ironworks FC, "the Hammers," a.k.a. "the Irons," have represented that part of town with grit and courage, if not with much success.
Through the 1962-63 season, the closest they had come to a major trophy were the London Combination in 1917, the Football League War Cup in 1940 (and both of those were won under unusual wartime conditions), and the championship of the Football League Division Two in 1958. In 1923, when Wembley Stadium opened, and hosted its 1st FA Cup Final, West Ham reached it, but lost to Manchester-area team Bolton Wanderers. It would take until 1964 for them to get that far again.
At this point, they weren't even known for having the most fearsome "hooligan firm" in the British Isles, the Inter-City Firm. That would come later. They were best known as the country's ultimate working-class team, and for their song, "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles."
The song was written in 1918. The music was written by John Kellette. The lyrics were written the next year, by 3 men: James Kendis, James Brockman and Nat Vincent. The song debuted in a Broadway musical, The Passing Show of 1918, where it was first sung by Helen Carrington.
The song was the World War I-era equivalent of a hit -- the dawn of radio broadcasting was soon to arrive, so it was sales of sheet music that determined that sort of thing, not airplay and record sales -- and became popular in British music halls.
West Ham player Billy Murray had a resemblance to the boy in the painting "Bubbles" by Sir John Millais, which was used in a print ad for Pears soap. So his nickname became "Bubbles," and West Ham fans began to sing the song to honor him. Just as "You'll Never Walk Alone" survived as a "club song" for Liverpool F.C. after the hit version of the song by Gerry & the Pacemakers dropped off the charts in 1963, so, too, did Hammers fans continue to sing "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" after Murray left the team.
And so, those fans sang it all through their team's FA Cup run: Beating South London team Charlton Athletic in the 3rd Round, East London team Leyton Orient in the 4th Round (with a replay), Wiltshire team Swindon Town in the 5th Round, Lancashire team Burnley in the Quarterfinal, and Cup holders Manchester United in the Semifinal.
They would play Preston North End, then in the Football League Division Two. Preston were, and are, best known as the team that, in the 1st season of the Football League, 1888-89, won both the title, by going undefeated, and the Cup, the 1st "Double." Preston had famously won the Cup in 1938, with a fairly-awarded penalty in the last minute of extra time.
Doug Holden opened the scoring, putting Preston ahead 1-0 in the 10th minute. But right after that, John Sissons equalized for the Irons. At the age of 18, he was then the youngest scorer in Final history. Alex Dawson scored in the 40th, and Preston took a 2-1 lead into the break.
But Geoff Hurst scored in the 52nd, and the game was tied again. Extra time loomed, but in the 90th and last minute of normal play, Ronnie Boyce scored on a header, and West Ham won, 3-2. Bobby Moore, centreback, Captain of West Ham and Captain of the England national team, received the FA Cup from George Lascelles, the 7th Earl of Harewood, a 1st cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, representing the Football Association. (Two years later, when England won the World Cup at Wembley, Moore would receive that trophy from the Queen herself.)
Playing left halfback for Preston was Howard Kendall, a few days short of his 18th birthday, even younger than Sissons. This made him the youngest player to play in an FA Cup Final since the game moved to Wembley. That record would be broken by a West Ham player, Paul Allen in 1980. But this would not be what Kendall would be best known for: He won the League playing for Liverpool team Everton in 1970, and managed that team to the League title in 1985 and 1987, the FA Cup in 1984, and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1985.
West Ham have never won the League, or even finished 2nd. Even when they won the FA Cup in 1964 and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1965, they only finished 14th and 9th, respectively. And their 1980 win remains the last time the FA Cup has been won by a team from outside Division One, although they won Division Two in 1980-81 to get promoted back into Division One for 1981-82.
Harry Redknapp, later to manage several English teams, including West Ham, played for them from 1965 to 1972, and was later a teammate of Moore's on the North American Soccer League's Seattle Sounders. He once remarked, "We had Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters, John Bond, Ronnie Boyce and John Sissons. And we finished 14th. That should tell you how bad the rest of us were."
But winning the FA Cup meant that the Hammers had qualified for the European Cup Winners' Cup, their 1st European competition. (That tournament was last held in 1999, and the teams that would have qualified for it thereafter were, instead, placed in the UEFA Cup, known since 2010 as the UEFA Europa League.)
They did improve to 9th in the League. But it would take until 1986 for West Ham to finish higher than 6th in the top flight. That season, they finished 3rd. They quickly fell to 15th the next season. They finished 5th in 1999. Those 1986 and 1999 finishes remain their 2 best League seasons ever.
As for Preston, they have never seriously challenged for another major trophy, and have not played in England's top flight since 1961.
*
May 2, 1964, like most FA Cup Final days, was a Saturday. The NBA season had ended 6 days earlier, with the Boston Celtics beating the San Francisco Warriors for their 6th straight Championship. The NHL season had ended the day before that, with the Toronto Maple Leafs beating the Detroit Red Wings for their 3rd straight Stanley Cup. And American football was out of season.
But these baseball games were played, and some of them had weird occurrences:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Washington Senators, 5-4 at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees were beaten in the top of the 10th inning, on a single by former Yankee Bill "Moose" Skowron. Tom Tresh hit a home run. Mickey Mantle only appeared as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base.
* The New York Mets beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-0 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Al Jackson pitched a 2-hit shutout, allowing only a single by Deron Johnson and, oddly, one by the opposing pitcher, Jim Maloney. But Maloney balanced that out by throwing a wild pitch that allowed a run while Jackson was at bat. Frank Robinson did not play. Pete Rose went 0-for-4.
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 4-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. Dave Wickersham pitched a 6-hit shutout. Al Kaline went 1-for-3 with 2 walks.
* The Cleveland Indians beat the Baltimore Orioles, 6-4 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Much as he did in 1959, after pitching 12 perfect innings for Pittsburgh against Milwaukee, Harvey Haddix fell apart in the top of the 13th inning for Baltimore in this game. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-5 with a walk. An escalator accident injured 46 people, killing a 14-year-old girl. I have a separate entry for that event.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Los Angeles Angels, 3-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
* The Milwaukee Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 11-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Hank Aaron went 3-for-4 with a walk and an RBI. He did not hit a home run, but Eddie Mathews did. So did their former Brave teammate, Wes Covington, for the Phils, as did Johnny Callison.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-4 at Busch Stadium (formerly Sportsman's Park) in St. Louis. The Cards led 4-3 in the top of the 9th, but Gene Freese singled home 2 runs to win it. Roberto Clemente went 1-for-4 with a walk. Willie Stargell did not play.
So the 3 teams that finished the regular season within 1 game of each other at the top of the National League standings -- Cincinnati, Philadelphia and St. Louis -- all lost on this day.
* The Minnesota Twins beat the Kansas City Athletics, 7-3 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. The game was 2-2 after 8 innings. In the top of the 9th, Harmon Killebrew hit a home run for the Twins. In the bottom of the 9th, Rocky Colavito singled home Ed Charles for the A's, and the game went to extra innings.
In the top of the 11th, with Dan Pfister pitching for the A's, the Twins did something that has only happened 11 times in major league history, and this was only the 3rd time: They hit 4 straight home runs. They were hit by Tony Oliva, Bob Allison, Jimmie Hall and Killebrew.
* The Chicago Cubs beat the Houston Colt .45s, 9-0 at Colt Stadium in Houston. The Colts became the Astros the next season. Bob Buhl pitched a 3-hit shutout. Ernie Banks went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs. Lou Brock went 3-for-4 with a walk and a stolen base. The Cubs, desperate for pitching, traded him a few weeks later anyway, to St. Louis, for Ernie Broglio. It didn't work out well for them. It worked out great for the Cardinals.
* And the San Francisco Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-4 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Chuck Hiller singled home the winning run in the top of the 12th inning. Duke Snider hit a home run -- for the Giants, against the Dodgers. It was the 404th home run of his career, which, at the time, ranked 6th all-time. He would hit only 3 more. Willie Mays went 1-for-6.
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