As a qualified London taxi driver, former West Ham midfielder Alan Dickens has passed the encyclopaedic geographical test known as The Knowledge. This requires cabbies to be able to find their way between any two points in the capital so it is something of a surprise that his own route from Plaistow to Upton Park went via Manchester.
A Red Devil in the Making?
‘I was born in Plaistow and raised in Custom House, and could see the Upton Park floodlights from the top of my road, so I could hardly be more West Ham,’ Dickens, now aged 60, told Blowing Bubbles. Between 1982 and 1989, he played 234 league and cup games for the Irons, mainly in midfield, scoring 30 goals. He broke into the first-team off the back of success in the 1981 FA Youth Cup final, was one of the Boys of 86, and left to join Chelsea in his mid 20s, with his best years still ahead of him, in the aftermath of John Lyall’s sacking.
But he could easily have ended up a hero of the Stretford End rather than the East End. ‘I was spotted playing for Newham Boys against Harlow, whose coach was Malcolm Fidgeon, the scout who years later took David Beckham to Manchester United,’ he explained. ‘He saw I played well, then watched me again at county level, and took me up to Manchester and I went up there every school holiday for the next couple of years.
‘I really enjoyed it up there. We used to stay at Salford University – there was a big Irish contingent there, and I didn’t see him but I remember hearing people talk about the name Norman Whiteside a lot as the next big thing. United’s manager at the time was Dave Sexton, ex West Ham. I loved it and they wanted me to sign as an apprentice and a first year pro, but I’m a homebody and in my heart it was always West Ham where I wanted to be.’
The Magic of John Lyall
Dickens duly signed for West Ham in 1980, aged 15, having been training with the club for five years, and as with seemingly everyone else who encountered him, said the presence of Lyall was a huge factor in his decision. ‘John knew the names of all the players from the age of 10 or 11, and he would know their families too, a bit like how Sir Alex Ferguson later did at United – he would always charm everyone’s mums and dads, which made for a really special feeling at the club,’ he said.
‘Of my group who joined together, all but one of us ended up playing in the first team, and I think the other lad was good enough to, but he broke his leg. George Parris, Tony Cottee, Warren Donald, Greg Campbell, I think we all played, but not only that, we all started games, which is different to coming on. If there was a senior game in the afternoon and a youth team game in the morning, John would always try to see at least a bit of it, and he would always give great advice. That meant that even when you were young, you believed that if you showed you were good enough, you would be given a chance.’
Having first come onto West Ham’s radar just after the 1975 FA Cup victory, Dickens struck lucky when he signed in 1980, just in time for a golden age of West Ham memories. ‘I went to the 1980 FA Cup final as a fan and I remember standing on top of East Ham Co-op as the bus went past displaying the trophy. Then the following year, as an U16 player, I was playing in the FA Youth Cup final, which was an U18 tournament, in the same side was Paul Allen, who I’d watched in the FA Cup final 12 months earlier, and the following season I became an apprentice, West Ham was a really good place to be in those days.’
Following in Brooking’s Footsteps
Even from a young age, Dickens was saddled with comparisons to a full-blown homegrown legend, Trevor Brooking, that would somewhat unhelpfully persist for his whole career. ‘I remember when I was 14 or 15, people said I played a bit like him, we were the same height, good passers, neither of us was particularly quick, so there were similarities, I suppose, and he was coming to the end of his career so maybe they were looking for someone to come in for him,’ he said.
After scoring on his first team debut, a 2-1 win at Notts County in December 1982, Dickens ended the season wearing Brooking’s shirt as the veteran recovered from injury. ‘I was lucky I got my first-team chance when there were a lot of injuries, including to him, so there were a lot of comparisons, but John never said anything direct about that. If you felt low, John could make you feel 10 feet tall, so I just got on with it myself and learned how to cope. Trevor was the best, a wonderful player, and I remember watching him in training and noticing how everything he did was spot on and exactly right. I played in a couple of reserve games when he was on the way back to fitness. He wasn’t the sort to come up and suggest things to you, but as a youngster, you watched and tried to learn from what he did.’
The Boys of ’86
But while Brooking was a reminder of what Lyall’s teams had already achieved, the young Dickens was a part of what lay around the corner – not that anyone had any sign that it was coming. ‘In the 1984-85 season before, we had finished 16th, and in our last preseason game for 1985-86, we played Leyton Orient and lost,’ he explained. ‘The core of the team had been together for a couple of years, but then two days before the season began, we signed Frank McAvennie and Mark Ward. John wasn’t happy with what he saw, and it was that close to the wire, but the signing of those two sparked it off. We’ve always had good players but we were lacking something, maybe a bit of will to win, a bit of nasty, particularly as Billy Bonds was injured and, as it turned out, missed that whole season. Those two were real characters and great players who got us going.’
Famously, what turned out to be West Ham’s greatest ever season turned on a stroke of misfortune, as half an hour into an opening day 1-0 defeat at Birmingham, Paul Goddard, playing up front with Cottee, dislocated his shoulder. A reshuffle saw newboy McAvennie pushed up forward alongside Cottee, and although it was not apparent straight away as West Ham only won once in their opening seven games, that was the turning point. ‘I was brought into midfield for the next game against QPR as Frank stayed up front, and he scored twice. If Paul hadn’t been injured maybe Frank would have stayed in midfield for longer.’
Despite the faltering start, Dickens says there was no sense of panic, as the team knew they had something special, and once they hit their straps, they kept the pace in the title race right until the very end, losing a final day head-to-head game with Everton, with the winners coming second behind a stunning double-winning Liverpool team. West Ham had to settle for third, still their highest ever league placing.
‘Everyone really enjoyed it but we were up against two really top teams,’ said Dickens. ‘When things are going well, the team talk is easy – you need to leave well alone, there’s not much to say, and the way things were run at West Ham in those days really fed into that. From a very young age, there was a way of playing the whole way through the club, at all levels, in a way I don’t think you find now, so from early on, you were a West Ham player, and fitted into the way West Ham played, That really benefited from John having been there for so long.’
Having made 40 league appearances that campaign, the local lad finally felt he belonged in the team he had watched growing up. ‘As a fan, you think “do I deserve this?”, but by the end of that season, I thought I’d done alright,’ Dickens said. ‘I felt satisfied I had played my part and contributed to the team doing really well.’
The Aftermath of Success
But, famously, rather than being the start of something big, that season was as good as it would get for West Ham, who, the following campaign, finished 15th. ‘Maybe John was a bit too loyal to people – these days squads are always being updated, maybe we should have added,’ he said. ‘We had a couple of more injuries, also we used such a small number of players, maybe we lost crucial players. Our youth system was still very good as Kevin Keen, Paul Ince and Steve Potts were all coming through, but maybe we’d just had one of those lucky seasons, like Leicester did when they won the title.
‘I do remember coming back that next season really thinking that we would do well, and pre-season was really good, but having been 5th or 6th at Christmas, the wheels came off. In hindsight, other teams buy to improve, if you don’t, people can get complacent. Who knows, maybe there weren’t players available who were worth buying, only John and his staff would know about that.’
Dickens may not have realised he was experiencing the best of his career at such a young age, but he is eternally grateful that he was playing in an era where youth was trusted. ‘These days, youngsters don’t get a chance until they’re 21 or 22, maybe because there’s so much money clubs can go and buy whoever they like, so it’s much harder for a kid to get to the front of the crowd and it was a bit easier for us,’ he said.
‘Now people have to go out on loan because first team football is so much tougher. Tony Cottee and I had played together since the age of 11, so we understood one another and had a good relationship, and I knew George Parris from about the same age, so we’ve always been good friends too. As a first team player, I’d always try and help the younger ones, and even now I always go to FA Youth Cup and U21 games, I’m really interested in that level.’
The End of an Era
If the follow-up season was a disappointment, the next one was no better as things began to fragment further. ‘In 1987-88, after Frank was sold, Tony was a bit isolated up front so I played as a fill-in striker until Leroy Rosenior turned up later in the season. I wasn’t an out-and-out centre forward, I was a midfielder who joined him occasionally, but only as a stop-gap.’
A 16th place finish that season was a further sign that rot was setting in, and in summer 1988 Cottee joined Everton. On the opening day of the 1988-89 season, he scored 34 seconds into his Everton debut, as part of a hat-trick in a 4-0 win over Newcastle. At the same time, West Ham began their season with a 4-0 loss at Southampton. ‘We had a couple of decent cup runs that season, but I remember at times confidence was very low, and if we fell behind we found it hard to win,’ said Dickens.
In typical West Ham fashion, right at the death, from somewhere the team summoned up five wins in the last seven games, but it was too little, too late. West Ham were down, and soon after, Lyall – and then Dickens, just short of his 25th birthday – were out.
‘My contract was up and I wasn’t looking to leave at all, but when Lou Macari came in as manager, I went to see him once and I don’t think either of us was really aware what was going on,’ Dickens said. ‘If someone had said straight out that they wanted me to stay, I would have, but it was never offered, and Bobby Campbell – the father of my old youth team mate Greg – was manager at Chelsea, and kept ringing me, so when they offered me something concrete, I decided to go.
‘I think John deserved another season to try and get the team back up, and if he’d still been there and wanted me, I would have signed in an instant, but there was too much uncertainty. I’d been at West Ham from the age of 11 to my mid 20s, so I found it hard to leave. There was no agent involved, it was me and my mum trying to work out what was the best thing to do, and neither of us knew. It was not a good time but we just did what we thought was the best thing, and then before you know it, we’re gone. The saga dragged on all summer, and you have to do a pre-season somewhere, so you have to make a decision.’
Life After West Ham
Dickens never nailed down a regular place at Chelsea, and had loan spells at West Brom and Brentford, before one last season of league football at Colchester, aged 29, and then a few years in non-league before retiring. Even now, the nature of his exit from West Ham is still a cause for disappointment. ‘I had my best years to come,’ he said. ‘If I was looking after a team and there was someone of that age who’d done alright, like I had, I would say “don’t worry, there’s a place for you”. I definitely felt I could have done a lot more, but it wasn’t to be.’
Still a West Ham fan, Dickens admits he disengaged from the game for a couple of years whilst doing the knowledge, only to be drawn back by the enthusiasm of his sons, and now he is firmly back in the West Ham ex-players loop. ‘My boys were season ticket holders for 20 or so years, but have had to give it up for family and work reasons now, but they were there for all the ups and downs of the last few years. I’ve done some scouting as I’m very interested in the youth system, and will keep watching that level until I can’t go any more – and being a matchday ambassador is fantastic,’ he said.
‘There are about 25 of us, and it’s like being part of a team again, still part of the old world, but also the new one, so it’s like we’ve gone full circle. Having to get dressed up and be there early on a matchday makes it feel special. Whether or not you’re playing, there’s still a familiar feeling to it.’
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