Black History Month Players: Dale Gordon

As October is Black History Month in the UK, I will spend this month publishing threads on X (formerly Twitter) on certain players who have been part of a long and distinguished line of Black representation at West Ham United. With this being the second year I have undertaken this exercise, I thought it would be fair to publish a blog post for those who don't have X or find threads on the platform difficult to read. Feel free to read last year's threads, via this link. But today's post and thread on X is on Dale Gordon. 

Born in Caister-on-sea on the Norfolk coast on the 9th of January 1967, Gordon was born to a Guyanese father & English mother and grew up in the seaside town, where to his own admission, he was “an all-rounder” at school, although it was his sporting skills that got him noticed. Gordon’s potential was recognised from a young age by the England set-up too, when at 14, he was selected for the Under-15s team, playing at every youth level, but never played for the senior team, with only 2 appearances for England’s B team, being the closest he ever got.

Growing up, Gordon idolised Laurie Cunningham, who he based his playing style on and was an Ipswich supporter, admitting he cried when the team won the 1978 FA Cup when Gordon was 11 years old. Therefore, it was a bit surprising when Gordon joined Ipswich’s fiercest rivals Norwich City on schoolboy terms, even though his beloved Ipswich were interested in signing him as well as other clubs including Tottenham, Arsenal & future club West Ham showing an interest.

Gordon would start his apprenticeship with Norwich upon leaving school in 1983, where injuries on a pre-season tour in 1984 saw Gordon get an opportunity to impress.  Gordon never looked back, making his debut against Liverpool, in a 3-3 draw in August 1984. 

Whilst not being part of the team that won the 1985 League Cup for Norwich, Gordon would make 27 appearances in that first season and despite having his game time limited in his 2nd season, he would score the goal that secured the old 2nd division title for Norwich in 1986. In total, Gordon would spend 7 years with the Canaries, making 248 appearances & scoring 43 goals and also won Norwich’s Player of the Year award in 1989, with Gordon scoring a fair few of those 43 goals against… you guessed it, West Ham! The irony of this fact isn’t lost on Gordon himself, who stated: “When players have a purple patch against certain teams, it always seems to be West Ham”. Here’s looking at you Callum Wilson, Romelu Lukaku & Dominic Calvert-Lewin…

Additionally, Gordon made history when in December 1988, in a game against the Hammers, Gordon scored Norwich’s first goal in a 2-1 win in Norwich’s first ever live televised league game, becoming the first-ever live televised goal scorer for Norwich in the football league. 

Gordon would leave Norwich in November 1991, joining Rangers for what was then a big fee of £1.2 million. He would have the most successful period of his career in Glasgow, winning 2 consecutive league titles, two consecutive Scottish cups and the Scottish league cup in 1993. But after 2 years in Glasgow where he made 45 appearances & scored six times, including twice on his debut, Gordon left the club as he didn’t feel central to the team’s plans, whereas Billy Bonds promised he would be a key part of West Ham’s future in the then-new Premier League. 

Signing for £750,000, Gordon was a marquee signing for the club & would prove his worth when he scored West Ham’s first-ever Premier League goal against Coventry in August 1993 in what Gordon has jokingly referred to since as a “40-yard tap-in” & was his only goal for the club. In 3 years at West Ham, Gordon only made 9 appearances as injuries took their toll on him. With the injuries piling up, Gordon would regularly try his best to get back to playing but also would enjoy the best of what London had to offer (why wouldn’t you?), which unfortunately attracted the wrong kind of attention and gave him a false reputation, which sadly soured his time at the club. Gordon claims a lot of this was down to then-manager Harry Redknapp making a scapegoat of him to distract from his own shortcomings (no surprises there then), as Gordon pointing out that he often went out with his wife to distract himself from the long lay-offs, not to party as Redknapp insinuated. Gordon would also spend time on loan at Peterborough and would be the first player in almost 30 years to move directly from West Ham to Millwall, where he spent time on loan in 1996. Gordon would leave West Ham in 1996, joining Bournemouth for a sole season as a player-coach & made 16 appearances before retiring at 30 as his appetite for playing had gone & felt his injuries were restricting him from playing his best football. 

But he did still have an appetite for coaching, which he had been honing in his sole season with Bournemouth and after retiring, Gordon would have two brief spells in non-league management with Norfolk clubs Great Yarmouth & Gorleston in the late 1990s & early 2000s. 

But having moved back home to Norfolk, Gordon embraced this passion for coaching, opening his own football school for boys & girls between the ages of 6-15 in the early 2000s that would eventually operate across all of East Anglia in Norfolk, Suffolk & Cambridgeshire. This investment in youth is something that is personal to Gordon as his son Remy, followed in his father's footsteps and was part of Norwich's academy between 2009-2011, before embarking on a career in non-league football. In 2012, Gordon would move to Dubai, coaching kids between the ages of 8-12. As his last interviews were in 2018, it’s fair to assume that Gordon is still coaching in the UAE, although if anyone knows any different, please let me know! 

Although he never really got the opportunity to show his talents at West Ham, Gordon still has an affinity for the club & wishes he’d had more of a chance to highlight his talents to us supporters. Despite this, he’ll always be a history-maker for the club with the club's first-ever Premier League goal & that’s something that no one can take from him.

Thanks for reading today’s thread, as always my sources are: 

This interview with the club in 2018: https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2018/march/05-march/dale-gordon-reflects-west-hams-historic-first-premier-league-goal

This article from the Rangers Museum: https://rangersmuseumlotto.co.uk/f/happy-birthday-dale-gordon

And Brian Belton’s ‘The Black Hammers' 

Ps. If any of you were wondering, West Ham have scored 1293 goals across 27 seasons in the Premier League.