West Ham have a glorious past to cherish, writes IAN HERBERT - So why IS the famous 'World Cup' statue so careworn and unloved?

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In times of loss at Manchester United these past few years, the bronze sculpture of the club’s ‘Holy Trinity’ – George Best, Bobby Charlton and Denis Law - has become a place of pilgrimage and reflection, from which carpets of flowers and scarves have flowed.

Little did the two surviving members of that trio imagine that it would take on such significance, as they stood together for the statue’s unveiling, 16 years ago - Charlton joking that Law was cast rather more muscularly than he remembered him. The sculptor, Philip Jackson CVO, had originally been commissioned to produce a statue of Best, after his death, but ‘The United Trinity’ was testament to how much finer the union of teammates is.

Precious few footballing collaborators have been preserved in aspic quite like this. The ‘Three Degrees’ statue of Laurie Cunningham, Cyrille Regus and Brendon Batson, in central West Bromwich, is special. Everton’s own ‘Holy Trinity’ at the St Luke’s Church end of Goodison Road casts Howard Kendall, Alan Ball and Colin Harvey as single figures looking in different directions. Which is just not the same.

The only football bronze that holds a candle to United’s stands at the junction of Green Street and Barking Road, 300 yards from West Ham’s old Boleyn ground. The ‘World Cup Statue’ – another work by Jackson, depicts the three West Ham members of Sir Alf Ramsey’s 1966 side - Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst - along with Ray Wilson, then of Everton. Jackson pored over images from a 12-second period after the game to settle on a design and Wilson was taking Moore’s weight on his shoulders throughout, grimacing so much under the weight that the sculptor exercised some artistic license with his facial expression.

West Ham fans loved the statue so much that rivals became intent on trying to desecrate it. It was boarded up before a game against Tottenham in 2016, a year after blue paint had been thrown at it by vandals. 

By one of those tragedies of modern football, where old community grounds don’t generate the requisite cash and clubs move on, this most wonderful depiction of teamwork cut a sorry and forlorn sight when I travelled back to it this week.

The ‘World Cup Statue’ - depicting West Ham heroes Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst along with Everton's Ray Wilson - is now beginning to look careworn and unloved

Most West Ham fans - 87 per cent, according to a club poll - wanted the statue to become a part of the London Stadium when the club moved there eight years ago

Newham Council insisted the World Cup statue must remain as a reminder of the Hammers' association with the area, yet the historic community asset is not signposted or has a plaque

Most West Ham fans – 87 per cent, according to a club poll - wanted the statue to become a part of the London Stadium when the club moved there eight years ago but Newham Council insisted it must remain, as a reminder of the Hammers’ long association with the area. The council said thousands had signed a petition demanding it stay.

It didn’t seem so cherished this week. At lunchtime on Monday, two local building workers were sitting on the statue’s plinth to drink cans of Holsten Pils during their lunchbreak.

Did they know of its significance? I asked. There were blank looks until one of them, 58-year-old Viorel, prompted by a clue about ‘1966’, examined it and proclaimed: ‘Bobby Charlton, Bobby Charlton – he was the best. West Ham had a very good team at that time.’ His friend, Ion, 52, seemed surprised. ‘I didn’t know the significance,’ he said.

Feelings about the statue’s value to the community were certainly mixed. ‘It’s part of us,’ said Stephanie Lawson, passing by. Others agreed. There is a sensitivity about departing clubs leaving something behind. Everton, who have given this issue great thought, have decided that the iconic Dixie Dean and Holy Trinity statues will remain at Goodison, where those players achieved so much, when the club vacate the stadium this summer.

But West Ham’s statue, something to cherish, looks careworn and unloved now, with stains, graffiti, the remnants of gum, and some of its render beginning to decay. It is one its community’s greatest historical assets, yet it is not signposted from Upton Park Underground station. There is no plaque explaining its significance.

At the London Stadium, West Ham have unveiled a statue marking the club’s 1965 European Cup Winners’ Cup triumph over 1860 Munich. But it’s a very pale imitation of the old ‘World Cup statue’ – smaller, less resonant, narrower in its conception. West Ham delivered three members of the most celebrated England side of all time, yet mark it with a fraction of the conviction that Manchester United display on Sir Matt Busby Way. Somehow, clubs don’t appreciate the significance of a statue that takes the breath away. It’s staggering that Spurs have a beautiful new stadium, yet no statue within it.

When United’s Trinity statue was unveiled in 2008, positioned so that Busby’s three great players would gaze across to the great man, also cast in bronze, Sir Bobby Charlton reflected on the importance of marking history in such a way. ‘It's a great club and it's right they should have something like this, he said. ‘Every fan that comes will feel a little bit better when they see it.’

A red rose was slotted into the bronze hand that Charlton slings over Law’s shoulder, when United mourned him, nearly two years ago, and there was something inestimably moving about that. West Ham has its own glorious past. It demands to be cherished every bit as much.

The statue is comparable to Manchester United's ‘Holy Trinity’ of George Best, Bobby Charlton and Denis Law, which has become a place of pilgrimage and reflection outside Old Trafford

Sir Bobby Charlton had recognised the importance of marking history after reflecting on how Man United's Trinity statue saw Sir Matt Busby's great players gaze across to the great man

West Ham unveiled a statue to the 1965 European Cup Winners’ Cup winners at the London Stadium in 2021, but it is a very pale imitation of the old ‘World Cup statue’ 

Littler faces a new world of adult expectations 

Luke Littler turned 18 on Tuesday and is suddenly no longer the child prodigy. 

Now for the hard yards, continuing to find motivation in the relentless adult world of perennial expectations. 

The story will be fascinating to follow.

Luke Littler is no longer a child prodigy at 18 and must face an adult world of expectations

The damage is already done for Rashford

Marcus Rashford’s representatives can let it be known, until the cows come home, that he has put in extra training time at Manchester United, but the damage is already done. 

He – not the club – was the one who indicated before Christmas that he wanted to leave, thus reducing his own value at a stroke. 

AC Milan are only willing to pay half his salary and United say that they are not paying the other half because it was he, not they, who came out and said that he wanted to leave. 

He’s a shadow of the assured individual we knew during lockdown, when his work on food poverty gave him the structure and purpose he needed in his life. 

He’s 27 – old enough to see the light and return to those who were advising him back then.

Marcus Rashford's representatives have made it known he could still stay at Man United

Rashford, however, has already done the damage by revealing he wanted to leave last month 

A striking reminder for Ashes fans... 

Though cricket’s richest nations seem hell-bent on a lucrative Ashes series almost every summer, schedulers will doubtless continue to cram it into 40 days, like an old rag.

For a reminder of how this precious event was once cherished for its rarity value, I recommend ‘A Striking Summer’ (Fairfield Books £20), which I first mentioned here last month - cricket writer Stephen Brenkley’s re-telling of the extraordinary 1926 Ashes.

That series took place against the backdrop of a miner’s dispute which escalated into the General Strike, with so many contemporary echoes, like the train strikes which left the Aussies struggling to get between tour matches at Leicester and Leyton.

And the less contemporary. The short, three-day Test format failing so utterly to deliver results in that soggy summer, that the decider, at the Oval, was ‘timeless’ – played to a finish.

The nation’s hierarchies are everywhere. The amateur ‘Gentlemen’ travelling first class, all expenses paid, on the overnight train from Leeds to London after third Test, whilst the professionals, including the inimitable Jack Hobbs, travel third class. As Brenkley writes, cricket provided ‘a bandage of unity’ in that remarkable English summer. The book’s contemporary detail is superb. A perfect companion for the winter nights.