Counting Sheep – 1 – The Letter B

It has been a really good summer this year. Despite a slightly late start we’ve had lots of very warm sunny days, followed by lots of warm nights. Do you ever have trouble going off to sleep when the night temperatures are high? If so, ditch those counting sheep theories and try to select a West Ham team of players that you have seen whose surnames all start with the same letter.

Trust me it really works. After a few minutes you’ll be fast asleep and dreaming of great West Ham experiences that you’ve had. I started with the letter “A” but soon gave up and put that one aside temporarily as I couldn’t think of a whole team. I may have to combine some letters together. You’d be hard pushed to come up with a team of players beginning with, for example E or I, or U. So that gave me an idea. I’ll come up with a team whose surnames begin with vowels.

But, to begin with I thought of a team beginning with the letter “B”. I knew that this would be a good starting point. For anyone old enough to remember, the 1964 West Ham FA Cup winning team had 7 “B”s in the line-up. I can still recall them now, Bond, Burkett, Bovington, Brown, Brabrook, Boyce and Byrne. The team was of course made up with Standen, Moore, Hurst and Sissons.

So here is my all-time West Ham “B” Team in a 4-4-2 formation:

Bywater
Bond
Bilic
Brown
Burkett
Bonds
Boyce
Brady
Brooking
Bellamy
Byrne

And what other players did I consider but decided to leave out? I couldn’t think of any other keepers, but in defence I omitted Burke, Breacker, Brown (the young Ken), Breen and Brush. Midfielders I left out (some contentiously) included Berkovich, Bishop, Benayoun, Boa Morte, Bennett, Bowyer and Bovington, and strikers were Ba, Brabrook and Clyde Best.

Have I forgotten someone really good? Can you pick a team of “B”s to rival mine? Do you agree with my selections?

And who would manage the “B”s? Bilic, Bonds, Boyce and Brooking all had a go at the manager’s job, two permanently and two as caretakers. All have been selected as players in my team. At this moment I’ll go for Bonds, but if Bilic continues as well as he did last season then he might take over.