Cautiously optimistic.
That’s how Canadian men’s national team legend Craig Forrest seems ahead of next year’s Europa League, after his former club West Ham United qualified for next season’s competition for only the fifth time in their history last weekend.
The achievement is even more impressive considering The Hammers were hovering around the relegation zone 12 months ago.
“I thought it was great,” Forrest said to CanPL.ca. “[After being] so close to the Champions League (missing out by two points), it was disappointing to a certain extent. Going into the final day, there were some fans in the stadium, and winning.
“Overall, it’s a terrific achievement for the club. After the season last year, it didn’t look very promising this year.”
His response is “we’ll see,” when asked if West Ham can go on a run in Europe next season.
“They have some money to spend, so we’ll see how they spend it,” added the 2007 Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame inductee. “Whether they keep hold of Declan Rice, which they’ll try their very best to — that’s key to being successful in Europe as well, keeping that side together. You certainly need more depth if you’re going to go far in the Premier League and Europa League.”
Forrest knows what it takes to play, and win, in Europe with West Ham.
He was a part of the first West Ham team to qualify for the Europa League (then known as the UEFA Cup) — doing so in an unusual way — by winning the Intertoto Cup. It was a competition that clubs had to apply to be a part of, with the winners being given entry into the UEFA Cup.
After missing out on an automatic entry into the UEFA Cup in the 1998-99 season, with West Ham finishing in fifth, the club’s manager at the time, Harry Redknapp, was disappointed and entered the club into the 1999 Intertoto Cup.
“That was a lot of fun,” Forrest recalled. “Harry was so disappointed that we didn’t get an automatic spot, and he was so upset. He was like ‘that’s it! We’re going to this Intertoto then, and we’re going to qualify through that.’
“Which was fine, except we came back and I think three weeks was our offseason. Then we’re back in training and playing teams from Finland and all sorts of different places.”
After progressing through the earlier stages, there were three finals, one of which saw West Ham take on Metz. The French side won the first leg 1-0 at Upton Park, but The Hammers overturned the deficit in the second leg, winning 3-1, 3-2 on aggregate.
“It was a crazy tournament, there were three winners (the others were Juventus and Montpellier). Then we went into the UEFA Cup, and played a couple of rounds,” he said.
We defeated Metz 3-1 to win the UEFA Intertoto Cup #OnThisDay in 1999!
Who remembers this one? pic.twitter.com/ZlFH8O1CSe
— West Ham United (@WestHam) August 24, 2018
The European adventure in the 1999-2000 UEFA Cup was short-lived — they swept aside NK Osijek 6-1 on aggregate in the first round before falling 2-0 to Steaua București in the second round — but Forrest says that the tournament was “one of the best experiences” of his career, and not necessarily from a playing perspective.
Like with the Intertoto Cup, he and his teammates got to travel to places they likely wouldn’t have gone to if not for football — such as Vukovar, Croatia.
“[It wasn’t] many years after the war there, and being so close to Vukovar,” Forrest recalled of their first-round visit to Osijek. “Right on the border where the Serbians came across and just destroyed it. We went there and I can never forget that place and how destroyed it was, and what a warzone that part of the world was.
“Croatia is a beautiful spot, they have a beautiful coastline there, but that was the thing about playing football — you end up in all sorts of European places in Hungary and Bulgaria, Romania, Switzerland. It was really interesting traveling around and playing in different towns, and not always in the tourist places.”
Sometimes playing in difficult environments across Europe, Forrest is sure to note that “nothing is like Concacaf.”
“I never played competitively in Turkey, but I know [playing there] can be really difficult, hostile. But I’ve never faced anything like I have in Central America.”
Goals from Wanchope, Di Canio and Lampard helped us to a 3-0 UEFA Cup win over @nkosijek #OnThisDay in 1999 ⚒? pic.twitter.com/9SbnZWqK3h
— West Ham United (@WestHam) September 16, 2016
During his five or so years at West Ham, Forrest played with several future Premier League legends who were coming through the “The Academy of Football” in the late ’90s. Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand, Michael Carrick, and Joe Cole, to name a few.
West Ham had to ship them all out one by one, as bigger clubs came knocking with offers that a club in their financial position couldn’t refuse.
Forrest believes that the club, after finishing fifth in 1998-99, would’ve challenged for titles in future years had they been able to keep everyone.
“That’s a difficult one, because of the situation the club was in financially, so they sold the players off,” Forrest explained. “They wanted to build a new stand at Upton Park.”
‘The ‘Rio Ferdinand Stand’,” he joked. “They didn’t really [name it that], but that’s who paid for it when he went to Leeds. These guys were still really young — Frank Lampard was great but he got better when he went to Chelsea. It would’ve been excellent to hold onto them long term.”
He says it’s hard to pick which one of his teammates was the best, but a young Rio Ferdinand “was in front of me, and it was very comfortable playing with a defender that good.
“Even at a young age he was just so comfortable on the ball. He was good at reading the game, just a natural,” Forrest added.
Talk to us about those shapes @rioferdy5… ?
Rio scored in our 3-1 win at Coventry City #OnThisDay 2️⃣0️⃣ years ago!
? #COYI pic.twitter.com/0063csiuhX
— West Ham United (@WestHam) March 22, 2017
When discussing one former teammate in particular, all Forrest could do is laugh.
“Paolo Di Canio,” he said with a chuckle. “[He] was obviously fantastic. He was a really interesting guy, and he was a lot of fun to be around. He could be off his rocker sometimes, and he’d get grumpy, or really happy.
“You never knew what you were going to get from him. He didn’t like to fly very much, he’s had our plane stopped before it’s taken off before. Bundle of fun with Paolo, you just didn’t know what he was going to do.”
Di Canio, a “genius” as Forrest calls him, produced many magical moments during his career, but few (if any) are as impressive as his famous volley against Wimbledon in 2000.
Forrest watched it all unfold from the other end of the pitch.
“I remember it very well,” he said. “Steve Lomas went around Trevor Sinclair, and [Sinclair] decided he was going to cross it to Paolo.”
What followed was one of the greatest goals ever scored in the Premier League.
Di Canio jumped and volleyed the ball with the outside of his foot, past a diving Neil Sullivan.
Di Canio vs Wimbledon is the greatest Premier League goal ever
ⓘ ???????? ??????? ?????? ???? ?? ???? pic.twitter.com/pJFa0MB7Gd
— West Ham United (@WestHam) November 17, 2020
“The explosion when it hit the back of the net was like nothing I’ve ever heard,” Forrest said, before remembering another famous shot. “I was at the Raptors game against Philadelphia when Kawhi [Leonard] hit that one that bounced around the rim. It was silence and then it was noise, that’s the only thing I can compare it to.
“It was something really special, they ranked it as the number one goal ever at Upton Park. He was a genius and that sort of stuff wasn’t unusual, in training he’d do special things like that a lot.”
Di Canio joined West Ham after an incident at his previous club, Sheffield Wednesday, where he pushed over referee Paul Alcock. He was given a lengthy ban, allowing Harry Redknapp to pick him up for a reduced price — just £1.5 million. “People didn’t want to touch him,” Forrest said.
This is something Redknapp did on multiple occasions.
“Harry was an interesting guy,” he recalled. “He didn’t mind bringing in players with talent that might have had a difficulty with man-managing. Didn’t mind an argument, I think he actually enjoyed an argument — trying to stir things up in the dressing room and whatnot.
“[He brought in] really hard guys to man-manage, and he just seemed to do it somehow,” Forrest added with a laugh. “It was a lot of fun, I’ve never been in a dressing room quite like it.”
ON THIS DAY: Canadian keeper Craig Forrest made his Hammers debut in a 3-0 win over Aston Villa today in 1997 #WHUFC pic.twitter.com/rfaZAY5uBm
— West Ham United (@WestHam) October 15, 2014
Upton Park was a tough place to play for visiting teams, something Forrest experienced on a number of occasions during his time at Ipswich.
“Really intense,” Forrest said of West Ham’s former ground. “West Ham fans are really hard on away players in every way… and home players too, if you’re having a bad game it wasn’t a joy either. What a difference where they are now, just black and white compared to Upton Park.”
From his time as a member of the home team, he fondly remembers walking down the tunnel before a match, with the history of the club proudly displayed everywhere you looked.
“I saw all the history, and pictures of Bobby Moore and other West Ham greats coming through that tunnel. I look back on that now and understand more about it and think ‘wow, that was a really cool time’.”
One thing he doesn’t miss, however, is training sessions in the gloomy London weather, although one particular training session is still fresh in his mind.
“John Moncur showed up to training one day — I remember we were running around the pitch already warming up, it was cold and raining — and the kit man didn’t put his kit out because he showed up a little bit late,” he recalled. “He just put his boots on and ran out completely naked and did the whole warmup,” he added while struggling to contain his laughter.
“Back then they didn’t have videos on cell phones, so you couldn’t really get that sort of thing. There were a few fans there, it was a miserable day, but there were a few there. He did a swan dive in a pond right in front of them… just classic. I think he got sick after that too.”
In the summer of 2000, Forrest was away with the Canadian national team at the Gold Cup, where they would win the competition for the first time.
The most significant win in the history of the men’s national team, its importance was not lost on Forrest’s peers back in England — his teammates “always respected anyone who played for their country.”
Whenever he would play a former teammate or coach that year, they were sure to congratulate him.
“I was on loan at Chelsea (from Ipswich in 1997), so a lot of the same guys were there,” he said. “[Gianfranco] Zola, [Frank] Leboeuf were there — so when we played them, they were all over it, saying congratulations.
“They were blown away, and I was really overwhelmed by that, by my peers and guys of quality like Zola that came up and talked about it.”
He spent another two seasons at the club before retiring in 2002, and returned to Upton Park one final time on May 10th, 2016, for the club’s last ever match there before moving to the London Stadium.
“They invited all the ex-players so guys from way back were there,” Forrest explained. “Phil Parkes (who made over 400 appearances for West Ham between 1979 and 1990) was there, I knew him because he was my goalkeeping coach at Ipswich for a few years. It was good seeing those guys again in such a big group of people, that’s very rare to do because [closing a stadium] doesn’t happen very often.”
The Hammers, taking on Manchester United, won the final match there 3-2 thanks to a dramatic 80th-minute winner from Winston Reid.
“That was really cool, I’d never been to Upton Park and sat up in the stands and watched a game before — that alone was surreal — and with it being the last game was crazy. We had a lot of fun.”