Former Denmark international defender Marc Rieper, who played 101 matches for West Ham United between 1994-97, turns 55 on 5 June...
Brøndby to the Boleyn
It was a really exciting time for me back in the mid-1990s. Danish football was going well – we’d surprised everyone by winning the 1992 UEFA European Championship – and I was playing for one of Denmark’s leading clubs, Brøndby IF, too.
Back then, there probably wasn’t too much between ourselves and some of the English top-flight teams but the Premier League’s taken off massively since then. It’s immense!
Nowadays, you just cannot make any comparisons with the Danish Superliga because it hasn’t got anywhere near that kind of strength and we saw that earlier this season when the Hammers beat both Viborg FF and Silkeborg IF in the UEFA Europa Conference League.
Back in 1994, though, with my contract at Brøndby coming to its end, West Ham United, Blackburn Rovers and a few other clubs wanted to sign me. Sure, Rovers were much higher in the league but, aged 26, I was excited at the prospect of moving to London to join the Hammers on loan.
I’d chances of playing regularly for a big club and everyone at Upton Park had been very kind to me. Although West Ham were struggling at the bottom end of the table and facing a real relegation battle ahead, I could still see by the way they were playing that they had the players who could turn things around.
I wasn’t in the greatest shape when I’d arrived because we’d all just had three weeks off at Brøndby and, with Alvin Martin injured, I made my debut on 10 December 1994 at Elland Road, where I quickly discovered that the pace in England was much quicker to that I’d been used to in Denmark. Leeds United took a 2-0 lead inside the opening 25 minutes through Nigel Worthington and [future Hammer] Brian Deane before Jeroen Boere’s two headers gave us a 2-2 draw.
Still in the relegation zone, I’d realised already that it was going to take time for me to adapt to the Premier League…
Off the Marc
Harry Redknapp had already agreed that I could play for Denmark in the King Fahd Cup [now FIFA Confederations Cup] in Saudi Arabia in New Year 1995.
We beat Argentina (2-0) in the final but while things were going well with the national team, there were moments at West Ham, where I was asking myself: ‘What have I done?’
By now, it was late February and we were still in those relegation positions, while I’d managed just four starts. Sure, Harry had been very good to me and, with the likes of Alvin, Steve Potts and Tony Cottee helping and encouraging, I’d great teammates around me, too.
Thankfully, things then started to really change for the better – we beat Arsenal at Highbury (1-0) and I went on to play in every match until the end of the season. We were now giving ourselves a chance of staying up but were still only outside the relegation zone on goal difference, when league-leaders Blackburn Rovers arrived at the Boleyn Ground in late-April.
With John Moncur sending over an early second-half corner, I outjumped Chris Sutton to head us into the lead before Don Hutchison then gave us an amazing 2-0 victory over the team that would still go on to finish 1994/95 as champions.
Our confidence continued to grow and, after beating Liverpool (3-0) in our penultimate game of the campaign, we were now thankfully safe by the time Manchester United came to Upton Park on the final day of the season. In order to win the title, they had to beat us and also hope that Blackburn lost at Liverpool.
That so-called ‘Showdown Sunday’ was a big day for me, too. With West Ham agreeing a £1.1million fee with Brøndby, I turned my loan move into a permanent transfer and, just before kick-off, signed my contract out on the Boleyn Ground pitch in front of our biggest attendance of the season.
With safety guaranteed, once the match started we’d nothing to lose and, with the Hammers supporters in that crowd of 24,783 desperately wanting us to prevent United becoming champions, Michael Hughes put us ahead after half-an-hour. Brian McClair equalised just after the break and it then became real backs to the wall stuff as United frantically went all-out for the win.
Luděk Mikloško made some incredible saves in between some frantic goalmouth scrambles, as we all played our part in holding out for a 1-1 draw. Even though they’d lost at Anfield, Blackburn still won the Premier League title and, when I later moved to Celtic, I always joked with striker Chris Sutton that I’d helped him to get his winner’s medal that afternoon.
In the opposite camp, though, my international team-mate, United ‘keeper Peter Schmeichel, wasn’t best pleased with the fact that we’d dug so deep to get the result that stopped him from lifting the trophy and, to this very day, I still give him stick about that!
Looking back, West Ham were more or less relegated when I’d arrived in December but after our amazing end-of-season run-in that saw us win five, draw six and only lose two of our final 13 games, thankfully, we’d managed to stay up.
Great Dane
I’d become the first Danish player ever to play for West Ham United and, upon arriving at the Club, the only overseas players back then were Ludo (Czech Republic) and Jeroen Boere (Netherlands).
But as 1995/96 progressed, Harry continued to look further afield, signing the likes of Slaven Bilič (Croatia), Marco Boogers (Netherlands), Dani (Portugal), Ilie Dumitrescu (Romania), John Harkes (USA) plus Australians Stan Lazaridis and Robbie Slater.
More would arrive the following season, too. In February 1996, Slaven and Dani made their first starts for West Ham at Tottenham Hotspur (1-0) and, as the guy from Denmark who watched English football on the television from the moment that I was old enough and tall enough to be able to switch it on, it was unbelievable to play in some fantastic London derbies against our closest rivals.
Dani marked his full debut by heading the winner at White Hart Lane and I’ll always remember good times like those. Having netted my first goal against Blackburn Rovers the previous campaign, in January, I headed us into the lead against Coventry City and, on a night when we ended up winning 3-2, Frank Lampard made his debut for the Club.
It was great seeing youngsters like Frank and Rio Ferdinand come up through the Academy of Football ranks and break into the first team and, later on, it became really exciting to watch them go on to achieve so much during their careers both at club and international level. Having scored against Coventry at Upton Park, I then also got our equaliser against the Sky Blues during a 2-2 draw in the return at Highfield Road a few weeks later.
By now, I’d fully-adjusted to the English game and only missed three league and cup matches during a season in which we would finish in tenth-place. It was a great time to be at the Football Club.
Den-Marc
With Euro 96 being staged up and down the country, it was a great time to be in England, too.
Although Denmark had lifted the trophy four years earlier in Sweden, these European Championship finals, I wasn’t involved, and it had been exciting to finish the season knowing that I would be playing in a big summer tournament.
West Ham’s other Euro 96 representative, Slaven, had been named in the Croatia squad and, ironically, we found our two nations paired with each other in Group D. We opened with a draw against Portugal (1-1) at Hillsborough, while they beat Turkey (1-0). Unfortunately, we then lost to Slaven’s Croatia (0-3) in our second game at Sheffield Wednesday, where [future Hammer] Davor Šuker scored twice. It was a terrible result for us and qualification for the knockout stages was no longer in our hands, especially as Portugal had just beaten Turkey (1-0).
With two wins-out-of-two, Croatia were already guaranteed their quarter-final spot and we really could’ve done with a bit of help from Slaven and his team-mates in their final group game against Portugal. And although we beat Turkey (3-0) in our last match, the Portuguese comfortably won by the same scoreline after Croatia did what they thought they needed to do and rested some of their top players ahead of the quarter-finals.
Finishing third in our group, it was a bit of downer to go out of the tournament like that but that’s how international football works sometimes and Slaven then got knocked out by Germany in the quarter-finals, anyway!
Two years later, though, I found myself at the France 1998 FIFA World Cup, where I scored Denmark’s first goal of the finals against Saudi Arabia and, this time, we did qualify from our group to beat Nigeria (4-1) in the round of 16 before losing to eventual runners-up Brazil (2-3) in the quarter-finals.
It’s such an amazing experience to play for your country at the Euros or World Cup finals and I’ve got some wonderful memories of those tournaments.
Football to Fashion
Returning from Euro 96, Slaven and myself continued to play alongside each other in the heart of the West Ham defence and, in our first home match of the new season, I scored against Coventry (1-1) yet again.
We went on to finish the 1996/97 campaign in 14th spot and I was loving every minute of my time at West Ham. I wanted to continue playing at Upton Park but just five matches into 1997/98, I got the chance to go to Celtic.
I’d just scored my fifth goal for the Club during our 3-1 win against Wimbledon in what turned out to be my 101st and final game for the Hammers. While the standard of the Scottish Premier League, admittedly, is not as good as the English Premier League, Celtic and Rangers are two massive football clubs.
It was a great move for me but unless you’ve actually been up there to Glasgow and lived it, then it’s a really difficult thing to explain. We won the title and League Cup in my first season at Parkhead but after returning from the France 98 World Cup, a toe injury eventually forced me to retire at the age of 32. Up until then, I’d always stayed fit and never had any really bad knocks. I hadn’t missed too many games but as soon as it happened, that was it, my career was sadly over.
When I look back, though, and I’m not bitter because I had such a great run as a professional footballer. It became a dream come true to be able to move across to the Premier League and play with the best players in the best stadiums around.
Aged 54, I now run a ladies fashion business – BA10 – back home in Aarhus, where I’m living with my wife Charlotte and our kids Frederik and Emilea.
I came back to London Stadium to see Slaven when he was manager and I still follow West Ham as much as I can.
Certainly, under David Moyes they’ve done amazingly well over the past couple of years or so both with those sixth and seventh-place finishes and their back-to-back UEFA Europa League and UEFA Conference League semi-finals.
Last September, some Hammers supporters came to Aarhus before heading off to the group match at Silkeborg and it was terrific to meet some West Ham fans after all these years of being away from the Club. They’d all had a few beers beforehand and were in a very good mood (!) and, of course, they would’ve been even happier when they then won the match later that evening.
I always remember the good times in my career and I loved every minute at West Ham United. It was such a bonus to be there – in fact, I would’ve done it all for free!
