_**Sid Lambert goes back 20 years to relive the conclusion of the 2004/05 promotion season…**_
Six days had passed since that dramatic afternoon at Vicarage Road where our Play-Off place was secured in injury time.
But there was no time to celebrate. No sooner had Alan Pardew stopped clutching his Bible and looking towards the heavens, than the bus was making its way back round the M25 and plans were afoot for the first of two legs versus old foes Ipswich Town.
Twelve months earlier we’d beaten them on one of the all-time great nights under the fabled Boleyn lights to secure safe passage to Wembley. In years to come - when Artificial Intelligence has conquered humanity and mankind is forced underground to survive - generations will pass on their knowledge of art, of music, and of Christian Dailly’s scrambled winner against the Tractor Boys in May 2004.
Yet here we were again. In remarkably similar circumstances too. Ipswich were still an all-attacking, free-scoring side. We were still wildly inconsistent and unpredictable.
Anything could happen.
And the first leg summed up our white-knuckle ride of a season. We flew out of the traps at Upton Park. We were miles better than Ipswich. Quicker. Sharper. More creative. With just 13 minutes on the clock, we were 2-0 up. Marlon Harewood converted a Matty Etherington cross and then Bobby Zamora did the same as we threatened to steamroll the visitors.
Of course, it couldn’t continue.
A deflected free-kick reduced the deficit before half-time and then a moment of hesitation between Jimmy Walker and Anton Ferdinand let in Shefqi Kuqi for an equaliser 14 minutes from time.
That act of self-destruction meant we needed some kind of result at Portman Road, where Joe Royle’s side had lost just three times all season. The good news was that we were one of that small band of conquerors, having beaten them comprehensively on New Year’s Day.
Perhaps that performance was still in the minds of the home side as they looked tentative from the start. Again Matty Etherington, who so often rose to the big occasion, was proving himself to be the most dangerous threat from the left since Tony Blair’s New Labour.
It took an hour for our dominance to pay dividends. Harewood rolled his marker and squared to give Zamora a tap-in. If that was relatively straightforward, what followed was utterly spectacular. Harewood played a raking 40-yard pass over the Ipswich defence and, for only the second time in my West Ham fandom, time stood still. On the previous occasion Trevor Sinclair had just pinged a crossfield ball for Paolo Di Canio to unleash The Greatest Scissor Kick In Premier League History. This time the finish might garner less media fanfare, but the execution was no less spectacular. As Zamora rushed onto the ball, he noticed the goalkeeper advancing off his line. In one movement, he produced the most astonishing cushion volley over the onrushing Kelvin Davis and into the far corner.
Given the occasion, it remains one of my all-time favourite West Ham goals. A moment of impudent skill. And a moment when Ipswich knew they were beaten.
A goal like that can change everything. When Di Canio produced that moment of magic versus Wimbledon, I felt like anything was possible at Upton Park as long as he was in the team. Suddenly I had a bulletproof vest against the crippling angst that comes with being a Claret & Blue. Similarly, Zamora’s sublime strike made it feel like promotion was now inevitable. We couldn’t score a goal like that, in a game of such magnitude, and not make it to the Premier League.
Surely even West Ham, with our never-ending capacity for self-destruction, couldn’t mess this up?
The last hurdle was Preston North End. The Lilywhites had done the double over us during the season thanks to two dreadful performances that nearly cost Pardew his job. Yet things had changed in the past few weeks. There was a pep in Pards’ step. After 18 months of chopping and changing his team, he’d finally found a formula that worked. Our back four, our midfield and our attack were settled. We had an all-energy way of playing that had just overpowered Ipswich. And bar some last-gasp nerves on the last day, we were the in-form team in the division.
That newfound confidence manifested itself immediately in the final - and from an unlikely source. Tomas Repka had been mistaken for a lot of things - psychopath, madman, warmonger - but few had confused him with flying Brazilian full-back Carlos Alberto. Nonetheless, our resident Czech lunatic flew forward and hit the post in the early stages. It set the tone for a capable first-half performance where we were largely untroubled at the back, and both Etherington and Zamora had sights of goal at the other end.
Those two would combine for the game’s decisive moment. Etherington’s trademark run and cross found Zamora, whose confidence was sky-high, and he stroked home what proved to be the winner.
The rest of the game was slightly surreal. At no point did I ever feel we were in danger, whereas for eight months of the regular season I’d been clutching rosary beads every time the opposition had crossed the halfway line.
This was a new West Ham. After two painful seasons away from the glitz and glamour of the top-flight, we’d finally scratched and clawed our way out of the Championship.
The mismatched mess of the Pardew era had morphed into a powerful, impressive team. A Premier League team.
The question was: could we stay there?
_\*The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of West Ham United._
[
](https://www.ticketmaster.com/premier-league-summer-series-tickets/artist/3006863?utm_source=whu_general&utm_medium=editorial_article_text&utm_campaign=announce&utm_content=)