David Moyes has urged his West Ham players to write themselves into the club’s history in next week’s Europa Conference League Final, and added that it would be a “big thrill” to join the ranks of legendary Scottish managers to win a European trophy, a list that includes Sir Alex Ferguson and Jock Stein.
The Hammers face Serie A club Fiorentina in Prague next Wednesday aiming to win a first major trophy since 1980 and first in Europe since Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters led them to the 1965 European Cup Winners’ Cup.
The World Cup winning-trio are immortalised in a sculpture outside West Ham’s former home, the Boleyn Ground.
Asked if his current crop could be honoured with a statue outside the London Stadium, Moyes said: “I do believe the players have a great opportunity to be remembered by everybody at this club. There’s a generation of young supporters developing in the east end of London.
“The club has moved to a 65,000-seater stadium now which is most weeks full in the Premier League: it just shows you the depths of the feeling there is for West Ham in this part of London. If we can give for those supporters something to believe in, that we reach and win finals, it will be nothing but positive. And I do believe the players we’ve got will give us every chance of doing so. We have a great group of players, strong international players.”
Moyes would be the first Scot since Ferguson in 1999 to lift a European trophy and he is also hoping to join a select list of his compatriots to triumph on the continent, also including Stein, Bill Shankly and Sir Matt Busby.
“It would be a big thrill for me to get my name alongside theirs,” said the 60-year-old. “But many of them are greats in football, not just at their own clubs but around the world. Their names are known wherever people go.
Moyes’s job has been at risk for long periods of the campaign, as West Ham have battled at the foot of the table, while he has this week been linked with Celtic as a potential replacement for Ange Postecoglou, who is a target for Tottenham.
But he played down the suggestion he could walk away on a high if West Ham win on Wednesday and says he hopes the final is just the start.
“No, the only focus I’ve got is to play the game, win the game, perform as well as we possibly can,” he said. “So, I’m certainly not thinking any further ahead than that. I’ve still got a few days until the game, just preparing the players and getting ready, so thoughts are no further than that.
“If you’d told anybody we would finish sixth and seventh in the Premier League, we’d have got to a semi-final of a European competition and then a year after, we’d have got to a final of European competition, they’d have said it’s not true. I think there’s a lot of good things going on. We’ve given West Ham supporters, the club some really good times, and long may it continue.
“We want to try to keep it going, to grow it, to keep these sort of moments happening. I think to be in a cup final is special, certainly for West Ham. It’s been a while since we’ve been there.”
