There are few things that warm the hearts of football fans quite like the thought that the players on the pitch are fans of the team, just like them, and if they are locally born and bred, then this counts double. At West Ham in particular, with its steady stream of homegrown talent, this is felt even more keenly, and as a dyed in the wool fan who went on to play for the West Ham first team 151 times between 1977 and 1985, Paul Brush can confirm that the feeling is genuine.
‘When I first got into the team, I was still living at home in Canning Town, and I used to buy Shoot magazine each week, so for the first two years, I was playing alongside the likes of Billy Bonds and Trevor Brooking, and I still had pictures of them up on my bedroom walls,’ Brush, now 66, told Blowing Bubbles.
As a youngster, the full-back caught the eye of Chelsea before the club he loved came to talk to him, and Brush said there was never really any doubt where he would end up. ‘When I was 11, Chelsea came calling, first to Alan Curbishley’s house, which was about three roads away, and then mine, and my response was pretty flat,’ he said. ‘It was nice that they took an interest but I’d been watching West Ham since I was six years old – I was seven when they won the FA Cup for the first time, then the Cup Winners’ Cup, so it was the Bobby Moore era – in fact I’d say I used to go to watch Bobby first and West Ham second.
‘Anyway, my dad didn’t have a car, so how would I get over to Chelsea for training all the time? The next week legendary West Ham scout Wally St Pierre came round, and we were invited to train at a local school. ‘Our second West Ham training session was at Upton Park – the fact you trained under the stand or forecourt didn’t matter, you were at the ground and you were involved with the club.’
A couple of years later, Brush, Curbishley and a young Geoff Pike were among the teenagers who had now graduated to training at Chadwell Heath in the school holidays, which meant coming up close to their heroes. ‘Bobby Moore was on the next pitch to us, and once he even gave me a lift in his car, which was absolutely magical,’ Brush explained. ‘I hardly spoke to him, I was shocked into silence, but just being around him was amazing.’
In the mid 70s, as Brush moved closer towards the first team scene, one of the brightest talents at the club was his childhood pal and future Irons boss Curbishley. But impatience got the better of the ambitious youngster, and he ended up spending most of his playing days away from Upton Park before his return in the dugout many years later.
‘Alan had a very fast rise, at 15 he was playing for England schools, then he was called into the first team squad at the age of 16 and played in the first team the same year we reached the FA Youth Cup final, in 1975,’ Brush said. ‘We had grown up together playing in the park and we could find each other on the pitch without looking, so I would have loved him to be at West Ham throughout my time there, but people make decisions, and he decided to go to Birmingham.
‘He knows he should have been more patient, but it’s just one of those things. From our group of players, some didn’t make the grade, some were unlucky, some were lucky, some chose to leave – Alan had a good career elsewhere, but from my point of view, I wish he’d stayed.’
The West Ham team that reached the 1975 FA Youth Cup final, only to lose to Ipswich, included Brush, Curbishley, Pike and Alvin Martin, and after biding his time more patiently than Curbishley, in August 1977, aged 19, injuries meant Brush was given his first-team debut by John Lyall. ‘I got my chance because about four other defenders were injured,’ he said. ‘It’s not like that these days though, then you just had to wait for your chance to come along and make sure you took it, but now if a player is injured, maybe they might change the formation so you don’t necessarily get that chance.
‘So many things were different then, for example you never got to hear about clubs being interested in you. You didn’t know what was going on, you were the property of the club and had to make a lot of fuss if you wanted to get out. Transfers were done manager to manager, “is he available?”, “no”, that was it, end of story. Things never got into the papers, and there were no agents involved, so there was no decision to make.
‘If the club didn’t want to sell you, that was it. It was only when I finished at West Ham in 1985 that I found out three or four years earlier, at least two clubs had wanted to buy me but the club weren’t interested, so I never knew anything about it. Now players and agents are always aware of move possibilities, and I say good luck to them – you don’t know if your career is going to last five minutes or 15 years, so make the most of it.’
The season that began so brightly for Brush, however, did not go as hoped, ending in West Ham’s relegation from the old Division One for the first time in 20 years. But rather than change for the sake of it, the board retained faith in Lyall, a decision that, in the long term, was to prove an inspired one.
‘I remember how depressing that last day was, when we got relegated – Alan and I got asked to do a presentation that evening and we didn’t want to leave the house,’ he said. ‘The next couple of seasons we still didn’t go back up, but a lot of trust was shown in John, which was how the game was in those days.
‘Managers were given time, and there didn’t appear to be such a huge difference between the top two leagues as there is now. When we won the FA Cup in 1980, as a Division Two side, we won at Aston Villa, who won the league the next year, we beat Everton and we beat Arsenal – there was never any feeling that we were inferior because we were a division below them.’
As seems the case with everyone who came into contact with him, Brush is effusive in his praise for Lyall the manager, and Lyall the man. ‘With him, training was never boring so you would turn up motivated because you always knew it would be interesting and joyful,’ he said. ‘Overseas coaches used to come and watch him and he did things that people are still using now, 40 years later. He had an authority but was approachable – you were given responsibility on the pitch, and you wanted to play for him.
‘He had his leaders but he treated everyone the same, and he did so much to make it interesting and educational to be there. You could go and talk to him about anything, and you didn’t necessarily think of him as a football manager, he was just someone giving you life advice.
‘If ever you asked him for advice on something, he would always find an answer for you, he wouldn’t leave you hanging, and he always made you aware of what you were doing in training and why, so it would become habitual and simple.’
In 1980, Lyall guided his Division Two side all the way to the FA Cup final, against Arsenal, and for the biggest day of his career, Brush was on the bench as an unused substitute. ‘Ah yes, 44 years of being known for the game I didn’t play in rather than the 185 I did play,’ he said. ‘It’s what you have to live with – it’s difficult, but there are so many layers to it. At events, Tony Gale jokingly introduces me as the person who lost his place to Frank Lampard but I don’t see it that way.
‘Within the squad there were a number of permutations, several players had been injured in the run-up to the final then come back, and people like Jimmy Neighbour and Pat Holland didn’t even get to be on the bench. I’d played most of the cup run, so I wanted to be picked, but in those days, there was only one substitute, so you couldn’t send someone on just for the sake of it.
‘If one of the forwards had come off to give me a couple of minutes, and then Arsenal had equalised, we would have gone into extra time a striker down. I’m a West Ham supporter so I want the team to win. At the end of the game I was on the pitch celebrating, and I was treated the same as everyone else, so it was only later in the evening that the disappointment really kicked in.
‘How much difference would playing one minute of the cup final made to my life? Not much, really – I played my part in the cup run and I’m one of only 32 West Ham players to have an FA Cup winner’s medal, so I’m proud of that.’
Following the Cup final, Brush went to see Lyall ‘and I said to him I’d be playing in the Charity Shield two months later, and walked out, which was not really the sort of way that I speak very often.’ He did indeed get his day out in the sun at Wembley, a 1-0 loss to Liverpool, but was then largely a frustrated onlooker as the team went on a run of form that would eventually result in them returning to the top division as runaway winners of Division Two.
‘I trained all summer, played in the Charity Shield, then for the first away game at Bristol City someone forgot to pack my boots, and I lost my place in the team which didn’t change for about four months,’ he said. ‘With the team winning, there was no suggestion of rotation, so it was only later on in the season that I got to play much, which as someone who had been the only person to play the whole of the 1978-79 season was hard to take.
‘You start to wonder if you’re at the right place, but of course you don’t know if anyone else is interested in you. I truly believed I was good enough to play, so your self-belief keeps you there, waiting for your chance to come along, so you can take it.’
Brush’s self-belief paid off, however, as he played all but two games in the second half of the 1984-85. ‘I’d proved to myself that it had been worth staying, that I was a decent player against decent opposition in the top division,’ he said. But what came next was beyond comprehension.
‘1985 was not a good summer,’ he said, with enormous understatement. ‘With a year left on my contact, I wasn’t offered a new one, and then my wife, who had been diagnosed with leukaemia, died when our son was only five months old. ‘John Lyall was a huge help, and obviously I had a lot of time off, so when I got back to playing, I was weeks behind everyone else. I played three reserve games in a week then John called me in and said Steve Coppell wanted me on loan at Crystal Palace.
‘That was first time anyone had ever mentioned any interest from any other club. His actual wording was “would you like to go to Palace for a month and play five first team games, or stay around us and play two reserve games” – there’s a lot in those two sentences, with a clear implication that I wasn’t going to be around the West Ham first team.
‘In those days you could go on loan for a month, so that afternoon I went and met Steve, who was younger than me, and as it turned out, going to Palace was the best thing I could do. After what I’d been through, it gave me time to think and made me realise football was a job.
‘The move wasn’t confirmed until the following week, so on the Saturday I went to watch West Ham knowing I wasn’t a West Ham player any more, and with them having always been on my mind since I was a kid, as I was watching them, I was wondering how Palace were doing.
‘On my first day at Palace I got lost on my way to the training ground and got there half an hour late, but I enjoyed the responsibility that came with being a senior pro. I was expected to play, not hoping. I enjoyed the responsibility and it was an important thing to do, so much so that at the end of my loan I negotiated my own permanent transfer.’
With the likes of a young Ian Wright coming through, and players like ex-Chelsea veteran Micky Droy in the team, Palace were an exciting blend, and Brush clearly relished his time there, as short as it was. ‘Sadly over the course of two seasons I got three injuries, and by the time of the third, they started to sign other players, so my moment had gone, and those injuries are as big a regret as missing out on the FA Cup final,’ he said. ‘But in eight years at West Ham, I scored once. In 51 games for Palace, I got three – they thought I was prolific.’
Following Palace, Brush had a brief stint at Southend before retiring, and was later manager at Leyton Orient and assistant manager at Southend. Today, he has reconnected with West Ham as a matchday ambassador, but admits to disappointment that he never got to be part of the coaching staff.
‘I applied for four or five jobs at West Ham, working with the youth team and the like, but I never got anywhere, so it’s great to be involved now. I didn’t realise how enjoyable it would be, not just meeting the fans but also the other players who do it – it’s great to have a dressing room type atmosphere with them all.
‘My ambition was to be a West Ham coach at some level, it didn’t happen but to be back doing something is great, and I love being around the old players who are still on the coaching staff, like Steve Potts, Kevin Keen and Kenny Brown – they’re not just working for the club, the club is them, it’s really heartfelt and proper.’
Brush remains close to his 1975 FA Youth Cup team-mates, and says despite the changing nature of the business of football, the West Ham academy system that helped nurture his talent is still important. ‘It’s nice at the training ground to have your name up on the wall as an academy graduate – Geoff, Curbs, Alvin, me, we’re together on that wall and we grew up and played in that youth cup final together,’ he said. ‘We meet up as a group, and later this year, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the start of that campaign, we will be having another gathering.’
Clearly, the West Ham academy, of which Brush so wanted to be a part as a coach, still means a huge amount to him. ‘These days a manager is putting his neck on the line if he plays a youngster, but at West Ham it’s a huge tradition, not just from my day, but those that came after, with the likes of Tony Cottee, Rio Ferdinand and more,’ he said. ‘Even if you make a mistake, as a West Ham homegrown talent, you know the crowd really want you do to well and they will back you all the way.’
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