Saturday 19 November 2022 marks the 15th anniversary of the sad passing of West Ham United midfielder Graham Paddon, who tragically died from a heart attack, aged just 57. Steve Blowers remembers a player who lit up the Boleyn Ground in the mid-1970s...
Walking along Tottenham Court Road one ecstatic evening in the merry month of May 1975, Graham Paddon looked down at the shiny FA Cup winner’s medal nestling in the palm of his hand and asked himself: ‘What am I doing with this?’
To be fair to the victorious Hammers midfielder, it was a reasonable question for, less than 18 months earlier, he had come all too close to abandoning a record-breaking move to West Ham United.
With a swap deal agreed between the two clubs, out-of-sorts striker Ted MacDougall – plus a cash-adjustment – was Norwich City-bound, while Paddon was all set to head in the opposite direction to Upon Park in a transfer worth some £170,000.
But upon arriving at London’s Liverpool Street station, instead of travelling into the East End and becoming the costliest-ever Hammer – the disappointed 23-year-old schemer had simply put himself back on the next express train to Norfolk.
“There was only a taxi driver waiting to meet me – no-one from the Football Club – and that was a bit off so I got straight back onto the train,” recalled Paddon back in autumn 2002. “The guard said: ‘I thought you were signing for West Ham today?’ I told him that I wasn’t going to be doing that now because I couldn’t believe what they’d just done.”
Thankfully, for both the Hammers and the player himself, Graham had second thoughts.
“Later, after I’d spoken to my wife Pamela, I decided it was something that I really wanted to do,” he remembered. “I’d been promoted with Norwich and also played in a League Cup final at Wembley which were both unbelievable experiences, but when I went to West Ham it was even better and my time there was the most wonderful of my career.”
Indeed, with Ron Greenwood’s hamstrung Hammers languishing in the dreaded drop-zone, ironically, Mancunian-born Paddon made his debut in a 2-1 win over Manchester City on 8 December 1973 – only the Club’s second victory during a slow start to the season.
Then, on New Year’s Day 1974, he scored his first goals in Claret and Blue, coincidentally during a 4-2 victory over the Canaries in an East End encounter that saw both Paddon and - previous record-signing, MacDougall, each net twice against the teams they had only just left!
BUCKING THE TREND
While Norwich were ultimately relegated that season, West Ham survived by the skin of their teeth and there was certainly no indication to suggest that they would go on to lift the FA Cup at the end of the following campaign.
“We’d been done by Hereford United the year before,” recalled, Paddon looking back on a 1974/75 cup campaign that saw the Hammers taken to a replay by third-tier opposition, once more. “After beating Southampton (2-1) in the third round, we then really struggled against Swindon on an Upton Park mud bath. It was the big West Ham thing that you were going to get knocked-out by the smaller team. We escaped with a draw (1-1) and then Trevor Brooking scored in the replay at their place with a header (2-1) which was a miracle in itself!
“Next we beat Queens Park Rangers (2-1) and when you reach the quarter-finals you start to think something might be on, but we then drew Arsenal away. On our day, though, we could beat anyone and down our left side we had Frank Lampard, myself and Keith Robson. We all had good left feet, we were all strong and between us we developed an understanding that no-one else could beat. Highbury held no fears for us but Alan Taylor, who’d only just arrived from Rochdale, was terrified. ‘Don’t worry we’ll look after you,’ we told him. I chipped one over for him to score and then he got another one and, at 2-0, it was job done.”
Rookie talisman Taylor also famously bagged two goals in the semi-final replay victory over Ipswich Town at Stamford Bridge (2-1) to book a Wembley date with second-tier Fulham.
“We were diabolical in the first-half of that final and I remember saying at the interval that we had to step it up a gear,” Paddon reminisced. “Fortunately, we did and it was a relief when we got the first goal. Fulham’s ‘keeper spilled the ball twice and Alan mopped up twice, too.
“Afterwards, we went to the Dorchester Hotel to celebrate but they ran out of beer (!) so we headed to the Grosvenor House instead and I ended up walking down Tottenham Court Road with Bobby Gould holding my winner’s medal.
“The open-top bus parade through the East End on the Sunday was fantastic and I’ll never forget it. Everybody – men, women, kids, babies, dogs even! – was out on the streets or hanging out of windows dressed in Claret and Blue.”
‘A CUT ABOVE’
That two-goal victory over Bobby Moore’s Fulham provided the Hammers’ passport to Europe and, undoubtedly, Paddon was one of the stars of the 1975/76 Cup Winners’ Cup campaign, where he helped form a tremendously talented trident alongside Brooking and Billy Bonds in midfield.
“Those midweek ties under the Boleyn Ground floodlights were fantastic,” recalled the oft-bearded or moustached, fair-haired assassin, whose trademark lethal left-foot also produced one of West Ham’s greatest European strikes on foreign soil.
“In the semi-final, I scored one of my best-ever goals – a 30-yarder that put us ahead at Eintracht Frankfurt. Before the game in Germany, our Scottish ‘keeper Bobby Ferguson bet me a bottle of whisky that I wouldn’t score. So, I went over to him and reminded him of our bet and to his credit he paid up. Although we lost (1-2) over there, we won the second-leg at home (3-1).
“We really believed we could then beat Anderlecht in the final even though they were in their home city. And 20,000 travelling West Ham fans did, too. We were all geared-up for it in Brussels and didn’t think that we could lose to any of these teams in a one-off match but the Belgians were a good side and we made mistakes on the night, losing 2-4.
“We’d achieved so much in a short space of time and West Ham United are undoubtedly the best club I played for,” contended Paddon, who scored 15 goals during his 152 outings in Claret and Blue, ahead of returning to Norwich in November 1976 and later embarking on a coaching, scouting and managerial career before sadly suffering a fatal heart-attack near Great Yarmouth in November 2007, aged only 57.
“Managers Ron Greenwood and John Lyall were great, while all the East End people were brilliant to me, too. Those fans were top-notch and to play with people like Billy Bonds, Frank and Trevor was the highlight of my career.”
Indeed, the last word on the mercurial midfielder goes to his skipper Bonds: “Graham Paddon was a terrific player and a really good lad. He was strong and could do anything with that left foot of his. When we played in Europe, he was more than a match for a lot of the talented overseas stars.
“There were some very good players around at the time but ‘Paddy’ was a cut above them in my opinion. Most people would pick the likes of Moore, Hurst, Peters, Brooking, Martin, Devonshire and Parkes in their all-time favourite team but I would have ‘Paddy’ in there, too, because he really was that good.”
