Had it not been for the recent first-team resurgence, it might have been easy to mark the 7,000 West Ham fans that flocked to this final down as joy-deprived football junkies chasing a lost high.
Instead, their magnificent support, spanning the entire width of the Clock End, provided the backdrop to a genuine landmark night in what could yet - for all the right reasons - be an historic season for the club.
European success for David Moyes’s side would, of course, dwarf this FA Youth Cup triumph but a 24-year wait to lift age-group football’s most prestigious trophy was, as manager Kevin Keen pointed out after his side’s ruthless 5-1 demolition of Arsenal, too long for a club that prides itself on being the so-called Academy of Football.
“This is my 40th season in football and this is as proud as I’ve ever been,” said Keen, who turned out more than 250 times for the Irons across his playing career. “[The crowd] is what makes it the best night of my career. Absolutely incredible. The tickets sold out like *that*, we probably could have sold another 7,000.
“It was just an incredible moment for the academy and the football club, richly deserved by those young men, who are very special.”
The home side, backed by the majority of the 34,000 at the ground, though far less vociferously than the travellers, took an early lead through Omari Benjamin’s curler and enjoyed the lion’s share of possession, but were gradually picked off by Keen’s young Irons.
George Earthy’s smart finish started the comeback, capped in the 90th-minute by substitute Josh Briggs scoring with his first-touch and prompting a pile-on in front of the travelling fans. In between, captain Gideon Kodua’s third goal was the pick of the bunch, punishing Josh Robinson’s error with an audacious 35-yard lob.
"He’s a wonderful kid,” Keen said. "A fantastic captain, he typifies the group, the work-rate, the endeavour. I’m so pleased for Gideon, to come here and score a goal like that is amazing.”
Two of Kodua’s predecessors, Declan Rice and Mark Noble, were in attendance, the former joining the dressing room party at full-time.
“It’s what the club’s built on,” Keen added. “From Bobby Moore in the 1960s and Ronnie Boyce, through to the ‘70s Alan Curbishley, through the ‘80s Alan Dickens, Tony Cottee, through to the 90s Rio [Ferdinand], Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick. It’s built on its academy, bringing players through.
“Wherever they go and play, this will remain forever. When you’re in a youth team and you’re in every day, when you’re cleaning changing rooms, when you’re working hard and someone gets injured or someone gets released and we say you’ve got to move on, that togetherness and that family feel is so important.”
For Arsenal, reaching a first final since 2018 marked the culmination of Jack Wilshere’s first season as U18 boss and the former midfielder insisted the result would not come to define his players, a sentiment backed up by the fact that Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe were part of the team thrashed by Chelsea five years ago.
“Even before the game, I never had that feeling - youth football is never make or break,” Wilshere said. “You measure their development over a period of time, not on one night, one occasion, not even one season.
“Yes, there are big lessons for the boys tonight and it’s important that they take them but they should be proud of themselves as well. They’ve given me, the staff, themselves some unbelievable memories.”
