Category: Players

Perhaps the most skillful player I ever saw in a West Ham shirt was Sir Trevor Brooking. He made his debut for the club in 1967-68. I remember the season well. I was at Barking Abbey School and the early part of the season coincided with me and my friends starting in the third year, which was one of the age groups for one of the school football teams. We used to play games against other schools on Saturday mornings, and then in the afternoon we’d head off to Upton Park to watch our heroes play.

Trevor made his debut in the away game at Burnley at the end of August on a Tuesday evening, and then came on as a substitute for Billy Bonds to make his home debut the following Saturday against Manchester United. He had only played a handful of games before getting a run in the team as Christmas approached.

The first game I can really remember him playing for us, where he made quite an impact on me, was in the Boxing Day morning game against Leicester City. In those days the Boxing Day games used to kick off at 11 am, and I sat in the old West Stand to watch us fight back from conceding two goals in the first quarter of an hour, to win the game 4-2. Trevor scored one of the goals and a Brian Dear hat-trick sealed the win, but it was one of those games where we could have scored double figures.

The reason we didn’t was because of a superlative performance by the 18 year old, Leicester keeper, Peter Shilton. It was the first time I’d seen Shilton play and I wasn’t surprised when Leicester sold Gordon Banks, then the England keeper, to ensure Shilton was a regular in the Leicester goal.

On the day after we broke up from school for the Easter holidays, I remember Trevor scoring a great hat-trick in a 5-0 rout of Newcastle, one with his left foot, one with his right, and one with his head. It’s often said that Trevor didn’t score headed goals but that is not strictly true. I can specifically remember a diving header from about 18 yards to earn us a last minute 2-2 draw (I think against Wolves), and of course the important ones, the winning goal in the 1980 Cup Final against Arsenal, and a headed goal to break the deadlock in the European Semi-Final in 1976 against Eintracht Frankfurt. That was probably the best game I ever saw, and was possibly Trevor’s finest for West Ham. He made the second goal for Keith Robson, and then curled in the important third goal.

Only three players, Billy Bonds, Frank Lampard (the senior one), and Bobby Moore, turned out in more games for West Ham than Trevor. He played over 600 games and scored over 100 goals, a good return for a midfielder. He played 47 times for England, scoring five goals, but the peak of his career in the 1970’s was a lean time for the national side as we failed to qualify for the finals of the 1974 and 1978 World Cups.

He was comfortable with both feet, and had an uncanny knack of letting the ball run across him before playing it. So many defenders knew what he was going to do, but they couldn’t stop him. His ability to set up goals for others would have put him high up in the assists charts throughout his career, but those statistics were not kept in those days.

His last game for the club was the final game of 1983-84, a season which promised so much for the club. After winning the first five games we topped the league, and stayed in the top three throughout virtually the whole season until around mid-March, when a spectacular nose-dive saw us plummet to ninth, winning just one of our final dozen games. His final goal for us was scored on the last day of 1983 when we thrashed Tottenham 4-1 at Upton Park.

He never wanted to be a manager, but he stepped into the breach a couple of times in 2003, and although it was only on a caretaker basis, his record of nine wins in 14 games makes him the most successful manager we’ve ever had in terms of win percentage. After his playing career ended he was a long time pundit for the BBC on Match of the Day, and had a long career in senior administrative roles at the FA. He was knighted in 2004, and of course had stands named after him at Upton Park, and now the London Stadium.

He was Hammer of the Year an unprecedented five times and has always been regarded as a true gentleman. He was quite simply a West Ham legend. He was one of a rare breed; a player who played for just one club throughout his whole career. It was a pleasure to watch him play so many great games for us over such a long career.

Throughout most of the 1950’s and the early 1960’s the number 2 shirt at West Ham was owned by John Bond. He was the right back in our FA Cup winning side in 1964 and was really the only number 2 I ever remember in my early years of watching West Ham. He played his last game for us in 1965, and was followed towards the end of the European Cup Winners Cup winning season by Joe Kirkup and Dennis Burnett. But we really needed to strengthen the team in this position so Ron Greenwood signed William Arthur Bonds, known to us all as Billy, in 1967.

Those of us who were there on 19 August 1967 for the opening game of the season against Sheffield Wednesday witnessed the debut of the player who went on to play more games for the club than any other, 799, in a long career that spanned 21 seasons. He started at right back and without a doubt he was the best player I have ever seen in that position at West Ham.

Around three years later he was switched to play in midfield and formed an amazing partnership alongside Trevor Brooking. Throughout the first half of the 1970’s he continued in this role and once again, I have to say he was the best player I have ever seen at the club in the “box-to-box” midfield role.

He became captain when Bobby Moore left in 1974, and for the final ten years at West Ham he played at the back, initially alongside Tommy Taylor, and then formed an excellent partnership with the young Alvin Martin. He was one of the best centre backs I’ve ever seen at West Ham too, and in all three roles at the club he excelled.

He would be one of the first names in my all-time West Ham heroes team, and could fill any of the three positions, but perhaps he was at his playing peak in the early 1970’s when he single-handedly won so many games for the club from midfield.

To be honest I cannot recall a single game where I left the ground thinking that he hadn’t played well. He was fully committed throughout every game, and perhaps his skill was overshadowed by his commitment to win the ball when our opponents had it, but you shouldn’t be fooled, he was great with the ball too.

If I had to pick out one game that I remember above all others it was the day in March 1974 when we beat Chelsea 3-0 and Bill scored a hat-trick. He finished that season as leading scorer, which was most unusual from a midfield role, particularly in those times. Around the time of the Chelsea game I remember seeing him score a magnificent left-footed volley from outside the penalty area in a game against Coventry at Upton Park. I was standing on the North Bank directly in line with the shot.

He was always considered to be the fittest player at the club, and was almost 42 when he retired at the end of the 1987-88 season. I’ve watched the England team since the late 1950’s and when I think of some of the players who have pulled on the three lions shirt, then I am amazed that Bill never did. Without a shadow of a doubt he was the best English footballer I have ever seen (by a country mile) who never represented the full national team. He came very close a couple of times, but injury denied him in the end.

After being a youth team coach at the club, he became manager following the resignation of Lou Macari in 1990, and in his first full season at the helm led us to promotion. In the following ill-fated “Bond scheme” season that followed we were relegated, but the following year he led us back up into the top flight. He resigned in August 1994 when Harry Redknapp took over, and the two of them, who were very close friends, have never spoken since. The circumstances regarding the resignation have differing versions according to what you read.

Many consider that he was the best West Ham manager ever. Certainly those who trust statistics do. His win percentage of 44% is the highest of all full time West Ham bosses in history, his losing percentage of 30% is the lowest of all full time West Ham bosses in history, and the goals scored minus the goals conceded per game at 0.32 is also the best of all full time West Ham bosses in history.

He was Hammer of the Year four times, was awarded the MBE, won the PFA Merit award when he retired, and was the initial recipient of the West Ham lifetime achievement award in 2013. Quite simply he was an absolute West Ham legend. I’d personally like to see greater recognition for him at our new stadium.

For a West Ham footballer of the 1960s Geoff Hurst was something of a rarity. Almost all of the team at the time were born within the sound of Bow Bells, whereas Geoff was born, as all the football programmes of the time will tell you, in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire. His family moved to Chelmsford when he was a small boy, so he qualifies as another local player. His dad was a professional footballer in the lower leagues. Geoff joined the youth set-up at Upton Park around the same time as Bobby Moore.

In his early days he was a wing half, just like Bobby, but one day, in September 1963, Ron Greenwood made one of the most inspired footballing decisions of all time, when he decided that Geoff should swap his number 4 shirt for the number 10 shirt and play up front. Of course the rest is history.

In around 500 games for us he scored 249 goals, making him our second highest goalscorer of all time behind Vic Watson from an earlier era. As a centre-forward he had all the attributes needed, powerful, fast, strong in the air, two good feet, and an unshakeable temperament, where he refused to be intimidated by the tough-tackling defenders that were around at the time. He also knew how to put the ball in the net.

He played 49 games for England, scoring 24 goals. For West Ham and England he scored an average of a goal every other game. Of his type, and I know I am biased, I believe he was the best centre-forward I have ever seen. Only Alan Shearer runs him close; they had many similarities as footballers, with similar goalscoring records.

Of course he is most famous to the world at large for scoring a hat-trick for England in the 1966 World Cup Final. He remains the only footballer to have achieved the feat. He only won his first England cap in February 1966, and didn’t even start the tournament that year in the team. He came into the side for the quarter-final against Argentina when Jimmy Greaves was injured. He scored the only goal of a tough game, turning in a near post cross from Martin Peters, a goal straight from the West Ham training ground at Chadwell Heath.

He kept his place for the semi-final, setting up one of the goals in a victory over Portugal, and controversially (to some) also retained his place in the team for the final, despite Jimmy Greaves having recovered from injury. In so many ways, the hat-trick in the final was perfect. A near post header from a Bobby Moore free kick, a right footed shot that thundered down off the underside of the bar, and a left footed screamer in the last seconds of extra time (when some people were on the pitch thinking it was all over!).

But my main memories are of the goals and performances for West Ham throughout the 1960s. In many ways Geoff took over from my previous hero who wore the number 10 shirt, John Dick. Geoff was the leading scorer in seven seasons, and in the mid-sixties he twice scored forty goals in all competitions.

Perhaps the most impressive front-two partnership I have ever witnessed in almost sixty years of watching the game was the one Geoff forged alongside Johnny (Budgie) Byrne for a five year period from around 1962 until 1967. Their understanding, not to mention their prolific goal tally, was superb. He also played up front for a short time alongside both Jimmy Greaves and Pop Robson in a claret and blue shirt. Many will also recall the almost telepathic partnership with Martin Peters who played in midfield. On so many occasions they set up goals for one another, many of them coming from the near post cross that West Ham patented at the time.

I was listening to Dean Ashton (another in the Geoff Hurst mould) on the radio recently and he was bemoaning the current trend for one striker playing up front on his own. How I would love to see a change of tactic with a front pairing along the lines of Hurst and Byrne, or McAvennie and Cottee, in our attack at the moment.

Geoff was Hammer of the Year on three occasions in the 1960s at a time when we had so many great players. He is one of a handful of footballers to have been knighted, although quite why that honour was not bestowed upon the whole of the 1966 World Cup winning team is beyond me.

Of course we can’t leave a piece on Geoff Hurst without mentioning the controversial third goal (the first in extra time) in the 1966 World Cup Final. Apparently Geoff is asked the question almost every day. Did it cross the line? Well Roger Hunt says it did, as did the Azerbaijan linesman. That’s good enough for me!