The Family Way: Leeds vs West Ham, 24th November 1997
A few years earlier Rose Lee had promised Don Revie she could lift a curse from Elland Road by pissing in all four corners; perhaps a faint aroma remained, sending Frank Lampard round the twist.
Frank Lampard senior was born in East Ham, played 551 times for West Ham, and when it came to ending his career in exotic surroundings, he signed for Southend United. He couldn't move too far; by then he had an eight-year-old son, also named Frank, born in Romford. In 1994 the family, Frank Senior as assistant manager and Frank Junior in the youth team, signed up with West Ham, where Harry Redknapp had just become manager. Harry, from Tower Hamlets, was married to Sandra, twin sister of Frank Senior's wife Patricia.
All of which would be a reasonable Eastenders sub-plot if only the family tree was not so firmly enshrined in English football lore it even took root in a corner of Elland Road, Leeds, as if claiming it for the Lampard/Redknapp clan.
In April 1980, West Ham and Everton played their FA Cup semi-final replay at Elland Road, going into extra-time level at 0-0. Alan Devonshire put West Ham ahead after four minutes, but with four minutes to go Bob Latchford sparked jubilation on the Gelderd End by heading an equaliser at the front post, all but guaranteeing another replay. All but for Frank Lampard, two minutes later at the other end, winning the game with an absurd header, flinging himself hard at the ball, sending it bouncing softly in off the post.
For reasons best known to himself, Lampard ran to the flag in the south-east corner, grabbed it, and scampered around it in a circle. A few years earlier Gypsy Rose Lee had promised Don Revie she could lift a curse from Elland Road by pissing in all four corners; perhaps a faint aroma remained, sending Lampard round the twist. Whatever the reason, his crazed dance stamped down a West Ham family legend into the Yorkshire turf.