To understand the impact of Ian Hamilton, you need to appreciate the West Bromwich Albion he joined in 1992.
By the late 1980s and early 1990s, Albion were shorn of status and ambition. Money was tight, points were even tighter. In 1991, The Baggies were relegated for the first and only time to the third tier. Under the auspices of Bobby Gould, Albion became a team that used slingshots to launch long 80-yard balls down the pitch. It was fossil football that belonged to a different era; possibly even a different sport.
Thankfully, everything changed in summer 1992, thanks to the arrival of Ossie Ardiles. It felt like we’d nodded off during Gould’s Jurassic age and woken up to football from another planet under our new Argentinian coach.
And at the heart of that side was Ardiles’s first signing: Ian Hamilton.
Robust, energetic, with an eye for a pass, and capable of goals. If there was a through-ball to Taylor, or a cross to Garner, or a lofted-chip to Donovan, there was every chance it had been sourced by Hamilton. These were excited times and Hammy was one of the poster boys for this Albion team.
In many ways Hamilton was the perfect exponent to showcase this production line of thrilling football – capable of linking play from the back to the front of the pitch. He was omnipresent in a footballing side that played with energy and a cadence that was otherwise alien to third tier English football.
Off the ball, Albion played with a 4-1-2-1-2 formation. With the ball, it was nearer to a 2-1-4-3 formation, with the left-back and right-back - always Steve Lilwall and, usually, Wayne Fereday - pushing on alongside the conventional midfielders. Both full-backs were converted wingers. An attacking midfielder (firstly Gary Robson, later Kevin Donovan) supported the strikers. It is of significance that both Carl Heggs and Gary Hackett, players of pace and no little ability, were afforded so few opportunities in the starting XI, simply because of their instinctive nature to drift out wide. This wasn’t a team for wingers.
Hamilton, meanwhile, was at the centre of things. In a literal and practical sense.
Albion played 59 games that season in all competitions. Hamilton played in every one: starting 57 matches, coming off the bench in two Autoglass Trophy games. He scored 10 goals overall. At the end of that season Albion were to triumph at Wembley, with Hamilton scoring in the play-off semi-final second-leg against Swansea.
Ian would go onto play some 280 times for the club, netting 28 times. It should have been 29 but he managed to send his penalty against Norwich high into the Smethwick End during the 1996/97 season. On two goals already, Hammy took the spot-kick after winning an impromptu game of rock-scissors-paper against Andy Hunt, who was also on a brace. Albion won 5-1, but manager Alan Buckley wasn’t impressed with the on-pitch methods used to determine the penalty kicker. The rock, paper and scissors were swiftly confiscated.
It's no secret that Ian faced challenges of a different kind in more recent times. Adrian Goldberg and I were asked by Ian to deliver a podcast about his battles against alcohol addiction and his need for a liver transplant. On that particular day, back in late May, Ian was bullish and determined. He wanted people to know - not only to raise awareness of his own predicament, but help others in a similar position.
Sadly, Ian wasn’t to make it. It is of some solace that the closest friends from his time with Albion got to spend those final days with him.
But let’s leave this on a more amusing note. By the 2000s I had swapped being a supporter to becoming a journalist and writer. Over the course of three books – all largely based on anecdotes – it is one tale from Hammy that remains one of my favourites.
It was the night of Albion’s second-leg play-off win against Swansea. While The Hawthorns cheered the dismissal of Swansea striker Colin West, there was one person in Albion colours who was to feel the consequence of that particular sending-off.
Over to Ian…
“I had a big problem. Westy gets sent off after stamping on my chest. At the time he had a lovely big house in Shenstone and was going to do me a deal – we’d even spoken about it before the game! But I never heard from him again. There I was wondering where I was going to live when suddenly I heard from Carlton Palmer through Craig Shakespeare. They lived by each other in Lichfield and Carlton was happy for me to live in his place while he played for Sheffield Wednesday. I accepted it and had a lovely gaff to live in. The thing is this was before direct debits. I was wanting to pay him cash into his bank account, kept calling him, but could never get hold of him. It was a five-bedroom house and I was living there for about a year rent free. So, yeah, I did okay from that semi-final. From buying Colin West’s house, I ended up living rent free in Carlton Palmer’s nicer, bigger house in Lichfield. So, yeah, thanks for that Colin – it saved me a few grand!”
This is the way to remember Hammy.
Rest in Peace, Ian.
(Pictures by Laurie Rampling)
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