Tbilisi’s next English experience came against West Ham in the Cup Winners’ Cup quarter-final in 1981. The first leg at the Boleyn Ground turned into a masterclass of intelligent, flexible and incisive football by the visitors, who demonstrated some of the best counter-attacking you’re ever likely to see. Footage from this match should be included as part of the learning materials for Uefa coaching courses.
West Ham’s players spent much of the evening chasing slippery white shadows forlornly while trying to keep the scoreline respectable – their eventual 4-1 defeat flattered them considerably. The romp started with an opening Tbilisi goal that was so cartoonishly good that it might have been thought of as too far-fetched had it been sketched out for Roy Race himself.
After a succession of rapid one-touch passes, Aleksandr Chivadze collected a knockdown 10 yards inside his own half, surged forward into West Ham territory and let fly from 30 yards with a dipping drive that sailed over the head of a flat-footed Phil Parkes. That’s Aleksandr Chivadze the central defender by the way, albeit a central defender with a greater mastery of the ball than any creative outfield British player I had seen. For someone used to watching agricultural British centre-halves thrash, blooter and whack footballs around a pitch, seeing this physically unassuming sweeper urbanely caress, massage and tease the ball into doing his bidding was a revelation.
