Dani Dyer was dragged into a crude supporter chant at the London Stadium on Sunday as West Ham's FA Cup quarter-final against Leeds slipped away from the home side in the most public way possible. The 48-year-old was filmed joining in as the crowd targeted his son-in-law Jarrod Bowen and daughter Dani, before West Ham's late rally still ended in defeat.
The match had looked lost until Mateus Fernandes and Axel Disasi scored late to bring West Ham level at 2-2 and force extra time. Bowen then missed a crucial penalty in the shootout, and Leeds went through.
That miss mattered because Bowen is not just West Ham's captain; he is Dyer's son-in-law, and the actor has repeatedly spoken about how little the England forward fits the old football stereotype. In a previous talkSPORT interview, Dyer said Bowen does not watch Match of the Day, adding, “It's how humble he is,” “I love the fact that he doesn't watch it,” and “We rarely talk about football.” He also said, “I give him a little message every now and then after a game or before a game – sometimes he blanks me and fair enough, but he just gets on with it and that's what I love about him. There's nothing stereotypically footballer about him.”
The football only sharpened the wider pressure around West Ham. They were described as languishing in 18th place in the Premier League, one point behind Tottenham, with a seven-game sequence coming up that began with April fixtures against Wolves, Crystal Palace and Everton and continued into May against Brentford, Arsenal, Newcastle and Leeds. A cup exit after Bowen's miss does not ease that burden; it underlines it.
The hard part for West Ham is that the result and the noise around it now travel together. Dyer's appearance at the ground was never going to stay separate from the tie once the chant and the shootout miss arrived, and the club now moves into the next run of league games carrying both the pressure of survival and the memory of a cup night that got away.
