On the face of it a list of the worst five strikers to have played for West Ham United in recent years seemed to be an easy nights work.
The usual suspects of Boogers, Radicioiu, Boere, Newell & Small came immediately to mind, with Radford, Greaves, McDougall, Kelly & Chapman added shortly after.
With honourable mentions for Greaves, Hales, Allen, Quinn & Rosenior we had our nominees in place who would all merit consideration of a top five placing.
However it was not so clear as to how the top five would qualify for the name and shame? Should it be based on the list of players that came to the club with impressive reputations but who appeared to view a playing career at Upton Park as one last pay day before their careers in top flight football fizzle out?
Should scoring records be taken into account, in which case would that need to reflect the quality of the players around him and the service provided?
Should the ineffective be penalised more than the indifferent?
Would the unimpressive be judged more than the uninterested?
Could the silky skills of Derek Hales be compared against the hard working but equally unimpressive Ted McDougall?
In the end it seemed fair that a combination of all of the above, with a dose of gut instinct and alcohol ravaged memories thrown in, would suffice for the purposes of the judging process.
And so after much deliberation, with the forgoing in mind, and in no particular order my final five worst strikers to have played for West Ham United in recent years are listed as Radicioiu, Kelly, Hales, Boere & Newell. No doubt you will have your own variation but will no doubt contain a player or two from the aforementioned lists.
Hang on a minute what about Dowie? Give me that list back ……………….
Raducoiu wasn’t that bad, trouble is he was always down the shops in knightsbridge, Boere was awful, Kitson was nothing special either he had half a season where he performed with Hartson other than that he was rubbish, Boogers was terrible, Cole is as bad a finisher as any of them, Dani was useless too but he scored a lot off the pitch and lets not forget Robbie Keane he was crap too. Leeeroy will always go down as a great even if only for the goal he scored in the most one sided match ever against arsenal, it was freezing cold 0 – 0 Ludo lobs a bomb which bounces over the gooners back four and Leroy puts it in 1 – 0 job done !!!!
Iain Dowie for sure…..played a whole season up front and only scored once…in our net unfortunately
Don’t forget lee chapman
Steve Jones was dogs@#t an example of Harry giving his old team Bournemouth some cash in return for a brown envelope… Steve Mean another example!
He was fast though!
Definately Steve Bacon for me!! He has really let himself go!!
billy jennings wasnt that great he was a sriker who missed tons of chances one game against florentina he missed 3 real sitters then there was yilmaz orhan he got a good run in the side and wasnt great then john radford no goals in 29 games though he hit the bar at leicester with a 30 yarder the ball bounced into the crowd and we wouldnt give the ball back it was 76/7 season the worse forward i think we ever had was jimmy greaves now for chelsea and tottenham he was great but for us he was terrible i remember seeing him play for us 70/71 season i was 9 i said to my dad whos that old geeza playing for us he said thats jimmy greaves he looked terrible didnt think much of ralph milne or titi camara any forward who has played for westham in the same era as trever brooking always got a hatful of chances back to jennings i know he got a few goals for us but he should have got a lot more
I remember watching Dowie go clean through in a cup game (against Chesterfield?), kick the ground and break his ankle. If that doesn’t rank as the worst ever, then i don’t know what does!!!
Surely benni Mcarthy has to be top ??
Radicioiu?! Disagree with that one.
Davor Suker was a complete waste of time & wages. So he’s in there for me.
My funniest memory of Dowie was the last game of the season at Old Trafford in 1996… The ball spins on the line with Schmiechel on the floor, up steps Dowie to blast it in the back of the net & completely misses the ball & falls flat on his face. Priceless!
Anyone remember Sandy Clark?
How about Alex Bunbury, truly awful !!
Titi Camara!
My top 5
1 Ian Dowie/ Boogers/ McCarthy / Keane /
2 David Kelly
3 Mido
4 Camara
5 Cole
Poor Carlton… Shouldn’t be on that list
Sandy Clark utter crap !!!!!!
how can you say cole when there is people like tristan blanco keane was awful piqioune the list is endless but cc shudnt be in this poll
JOey Obrien would have got 15 goals in the championship for us!
CC should definitely be on here!
Carlton Cole on he’s day unplayable other days unwatchable unfortunately he probably only had 2/3 unplayable games. Worked hard, tried hard but couldn’t shoot,control or pass the ball, was not cut out to be a centre forward at the top level,may of been better at centre half certainly cleared enough opposition corners with he’s head.
spot on mate. hate to say it but he definately deserves to be on this list
John Radford 30 games, goals…0
As a rule a seasons worth of games for a fair evaluation
1 – Clyde Best – Forget he was one of the first black footballers to play in the First division and he took a whole heap of deplorable racist abuse – purely as a footballer, the worst professional footballer ever – classic against Leeds – following a ball into the net to make sure he added his touch and put it wide!!!¬
2 – Billy Jennings – the four foot six target man – gave himself a career threatening injury jumping for a ball with noboody within 20 yards of him – sort of sums him up
3 – David Kelly – inspired by Elvis Costello – I can’t stand up for falling down
4 – Lee Chapman – The fastest he ever moved was jogging off when he got subbed. Fancied himself as an armchair pundit – more like an armchair footballer A veteran when we bought him for £250,000 – we would have been better off with a vetenary – palmed off to Ipswich for not very much the next season and never played again.
5 – Mike Small – scored a cracker against Arsenal at Highbury – and that was it for two seasons.
Not on the list because of the few games they played but Savio and Benny McCarthy – how much were we mugged for those two.
True about cc should of been centrl denfender.i still wudnt put him in top 5 or even 10 worst strikers as i said there have been so much worse