Our inaugural outing in this new competition took place at Upton Park, where we made one change in our First XI to oppose Crystal Palace in the First Round of the Southern Floodlight Cup. Dave Sexton sustained a leg injury last Saturday to keep him out of the side and Andy Malcolm therefore took his place at right-half.
The Palace team included three ex-Hammers - Alf Noakes (right-back), Jimmy Belcher (inside-right) and Harry Gunning (outside-left); Jimmy was also skipper of the visitors. All showed up quite well in an enthusiastic side whose play was at times very entertaining to watch and which several times tested Gregory with excellent scoring efforts. However, the superior quality of our XI gradually asserted itself, and three goals in the second half brought us a comfortable win.
Hooper had a hand in all three goals and although not scoring himself had a most successful evening. A combined move with Malcolm paved the way for the first success, and after beating three men the winger centred for Tucker to slam home on the run from 10 yards in the 53rd minute; six minutes later another beautiful move left O'Farrell in position 12 yards out to make it 2-0 with a ground shot; and then a little over a quarter-of-an-hour from the end a bemused defence saw the right-winger make a 40-yard dash to lay back the ball for Dare to side-foot it home from inside the goal-area.
There was an attendance of 6,000 to see a game that included several interesting incidents - plus the fact that the referee played six minutes short in the first half and a chimney-fire in Priory Road threatened to obliterate the field of play with a smoke-pall just before half-time!