Past Players Who Played for Your Favourite Team?

Terence Baker Fearlessly Finds Out.

No. 4—Trevor Brooking

No player looms larger in West Ham history than Trevor Brooking, who played for one club and one club only, your beloved Hammers. Born in Barking, yards from the ground, Sir Trevor (he was knighted in 2004), he played his first game for the team in 1967, his last in 1984, and was the sole goal scorer in our last trophy win, the 1980 FA Cup Final against Arsenal, who my brother supports (why? how?). I remembered it as though it happened 30 years ago…Alan Devonshire raced up the left touchline, crossed the ball in to David Cross, whose shot was saved by the Arsenal goalkeeper, Pat Jennings, but only to Stuart Pearson, whose miss-kick glances off Brooking’s head and into the back of the net. Later, Sir Trevor opened the Erith branch of Lipton’s Supermarket (yes, it was not Beckhamesque glamorous in those days), where my Mum met him and got my official FA Cup program signed. My Mum liked him as he was/is polite and has nine “O” levels, excellent academic qualifications, rare in football players, who, let’s face it, are not paid and worshipped because they can understand the intrinsic difficulties of scientific theorems. When West Ham were last promoted to the Premiership (2005/06), Sir Trevor watched the game at Nevada Smiths, because the England national side (he now works for the English Football Association as Director of Football Development) was playing an exhibition game later that day at Giants Stadium). We all got to meet him after the 1-0 victory against Preston North End, and he is a top geezer, as we say back home.