Former Liverpool striker Peter Crouch has revealed how a celebration dance from West Ham‘s players gave the Reds the motivation to go on and beat them in the 2006 FA Cup final.
Steven Gerrard famously won the game for Liverpool that day after two late wonder goals. West Ham went 2-0 up early in the match, before Gerrard set-up Djibril Cisse to pull a goal back before half-time.
The Reds skipper netted an excellent goal in the second half, only for West Ham’s Paul Konchesky to put the Hammers in front again. But a dramatic late strike from Gerrard sent the game to extra-time, with Liverpool eventually winning the match on penalties.
Crouch, who set up Gerrard’s opening goal on the day, has revealed how a bizarre dance from the West Ham players and staff inspired the Reds to beat them.
“I remember when we won the FA Cup in 2006, we played West Ham in the final,” Crouch told the BBC’s That Peter Crouch Podcast .
“They’d had a good run in the FA Cup, obviously, and they had a little thing going on when they were winning, it was this little dance.
“(Manager Alan) Pardew was part of it, and Anton Ferdinand, (Nigel) Reo-Coker, and few of the boys were all doing this dance.
“It was winding people up.”
Liverpool’s 2005/06 season
The former England striker, who’s still playing in the Championship with Stoke City, has even admitted that the dance was mentioned as part of the half-time team talk, when Liverpool were losing 2-1.
“At half-time we were losing to West Ham, and part of the team talk was ‘we don’t want to see them celebrate, we don’t want to see them dancing round the cup,'” Crouch added.
“And it inspired us, well it certainly inspired Steven Gerrard anyway, because he went and scored a couple and saved the day for us. We just didn’t want to see them celebrate.
“It was winding us up, and we genuinely didn’t want to see that. We were like ‘come on boys! we need to avoid seeing this dance, it’s going to wind us up!'”
The post West Ham’s annoying dance inspired Liverpool’s 2006 FA Cup win – Peter Crouch appeared first on Squawka News.
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