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Our Youth Team's close-season tour of Switzerland and Italy commenced with a partial success, but ended in overall disappointment as far as results were concerned.An opportunity to repeat last year's victory in the Martini Whitsun Tournament in Geneva was snatched from our grasp, and we were subsequently eliminated in the preliminaries of the Umberto Caligaris competition of which we reached the Final in 1969.To these setbacks was added an injury in an exhibition match that resulted in Peter Keary being flown home with a broken right leg for treatment at London Hospital.
Martini Whitsun Tournament - Geneva
The Hammers' party left London on Friday 15th May, and in addition to the 16 players the group included Wally St Pier, Ernie Gregory, John Lyall and Rob Jenkins. After settling in at a motel some eight miles from the ground on the outskirts of Geneva they prepared for the opening day of "Martini" on the Saturday. A convincing 4-1 victory over the Grasshopper Club of Switzerland gave the Hammers a good start, the strictly defensive-minded MTK Budapest tearn then got away with a goalless draw after heavy pressure in our second 20-minutes-each-way game, but we were in the happy position of only needing a draw from the tie v Standard Liege to finish at the head of our group. Sunday morning's meeting with the Belgians served to establish us as odds-on favourites with the local fans, for the margin could easily have been larger than 2-0. The Final against Sabadell of Spain turned out a complete anti-climax, and the closing stages were difficult to follow due to the pitch being " invaded" by fans watching the taking of a series of penalty-kicks that were to decide the winners.
There would not have been any necessity for this unsatisfactory "play off" had events taken the apparently destined course in the 30-minutes-each-way Final. The Spaniards' spoiling tactics caused a lot of unpleasantness, and after a name-taking the referee ordered off one of their players on the stroke of half-time. The Hammers kept up the pressure against a packed defence, and with ten minutes to go were awarded a bitterly-disputed penalty-kick that held up play whilst Spanish supporters and officials were cleared from the pitch after one had assaulted the referee. The penalty was well-placed, but the Sabadell 'keeper capped a brilliant performance by saving it, and the game went to extra-time. Even after a further 15 minutes it was still nil-nil and there was no alternative but to take the " best of five " penalty-kicks in turn, with the fans literally " breathing down the necks " of the players. With the score- at 4-3 (including a miss by each side) and one penalty to go, Stephen Aylott kept our hopes alive by levelling the tally. This meant a further quintet apiece, but on the second time around we found ourselves 3-1 down with one to take and that was it!
IN GENEVA
Umberto Caligaris Tournament (7th - 15 June 1969)
After a spell of relaxation on Lac Leman the Hammers flew off to Italy on the afternoon of Tuesday 18th May.
Two days later they played a friendly match v P.R.O. Vercelli - not far from their headquarters at Castle Monferrato near Milan. It was an easy run-out, the Italian club being very satisfied with a goalless draw. But it was tragedy for Peter Keary, who went on as "sub" after the interval and broke his leg five minutes later. The first of our group qualifying matches was against Dinamo Zagreb of Yugoslavia, who had already beaten AS Casale by 2-0. However, we started well enough, and despite twice
