IT WAS A DREAM come true for Bobby Zamora to play for West Ham, the team he supported as a boy.
Born in Barking on 16 January 1981, he explained: “They were my local team and having been spotted by the club playing for my Sunday side, Senrab, I signed schoolboy forms and we’d be given tickets to watch the team on a Saturday afternoon at the Boleyn.”
Zamora’s favourite player was Tony Cottee and the side at that time included the likes of George Parris and Julian Dicks. “It was always a great atmosphere down there, singing ‘Bubbles’, and I count myself honoured and privileged to have played for the club that I grew up supporting,” he said.
Fellow Senrab players John Terry, Paul Konchesky, Ledley King and JLloyd Samuel were all snapped up by the Hammers at the same time but when the club decided to merge two centres of excellence they found themselves playing fewer games which prompted them all to leave.
Zamora joined Terry at Chelsea but suffered Osgood-Schlatter disease (which causes pain and swelling below the knee joint)and had to stop playing for six months. He described in the Undr The Cosh podcast how Norwich kept in touch with him to see how the injury was progressing so, when he was fit again he joined them and spent a season in Norfolk.
“They had a lot of London lads in their side but it was like playing in the Land of the Giants,” he explained in a matchday programme article. “They were all 15 going on 18, much bigger physically and taller than me, and I was released for being too small.”
His friend Luke Williams was also released but the pair of them were offered a trial by Bristol Rovers and, after only playing half a match, both were offered apprenticeships.
As described in my previous post, it was from Rovers that Zamora joined Brighton, while Williams played non-league before moving into coaching, which included a spell as development coach at Brighton.
When Spurs decided to swap Zamora for Jermain Defoe, a move to the Boleyn was a bit of a no-brainer for the former fan, although Premier League Leeds United were also keen to take him.
“The pull of West Ham was too great and although it was a drop into the Championship, the squad they had under Alan Pardew was more than good enough to go up,” he said.
Zamora got off to a good start with the Hammers, scoring on his debut and again on his home debut. That first goal came after he had gone on as a sub in a 2-1 win at Bradford City on 7 February 2004. He followed it up with the only goal of the game in a home win over Cardiff on 28 February.
Three more goals followed before the end of the 2003-04 campaign, but the season ended in disappointment when the Hammers lost in the Championship play-off final at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, against Crystal Palace the day before Brighton’s famous League One play-off win against Bristol City in the same stadium.
Zamora had a first half effort saved at point blank range by Palace keeper Nico Vaesen and a second half ‘goal’ ruled out for offside before being subbed off on 68 minutes as Palace won promotion courtesy of a Neil Shipperley goal.
All was put right a year later, though, when at the same ground Zamora was the Hammers hero. It was his turn to score the only goal of the game, against Preston North End, getting on the end of a Matthew Etherington cross to slot home from six yards in the 57th minute.
Across the season, Zamora made 20 starts and 19 sub appearances, scoring 13 goals. His first double for the club came in a 3-2 League Cup second round win over Notts County at Upton Park on 21 September 2004.
Competition for forward places was fierce with Marlon Harewood, Teddy Sheringham and Sergei Rebrov also pushing for a place up front.
As well as scoring in that play-off final, Zamora had emphasised his claim to a starting berth by scoring in the 2-2 semi-final first leg home draw with Ipswich then twice in a 2-0 win at Portman Road in the second leg.
Pete Ellis on claretandhugh.info reckoned Zamora “played a key role for the Hammers at a pivotal point in our recent history” and he added: “The promotion season in 2005, where he and Etherington played like men possessed in the play-offs, still fills me with great pride.”
Back in the Premiership, Zamora scored 10 goals in 20 starts and 22 appearances off the bench and Ellis remembered “some great displays showing his ability to hold the ball up and have the craft and guile to bag a few tasty goals in the process.
“A proper character around the club, I enjoyed watching Bobby play and thought he never really got the plaudits that his talents and performances deserved.”
Amongst memorable goals in 2005-06 were a stunning solo effort in a 2-1 win at Birmingham and a goal in a 3-2 win at Highbury. Unfortunately, he’s also remembered for having his penalty saved by Pepe Reina in the FA Cup Final shoot-out with Liverpool.
The 2006-07 season saw Zamora make 30 starts and seven sub appearances, scoring 11 goals and named runner-up to Carlos Tevez in the Hammer of the Year contest.
A terrific start to the season saw him score five goals in his first four matches, including two against Charlton in a 3-1 opening day win.
A four-month barren spell came as the Irons struggled but he scored crucial goals against Blackburn, Everton, Middlesbrough and Arsenal (the last time West Ham played at Highbury).
Fans remember too his goal the following season – a chip over Jens Lehmann – that sealed a vital win for the Hammers at Arsenal’s new Emirates Stadium, with a heroic performance from ‘keeper Rob Green keeping out the Gunners at the other end.
The arrival of Craig Bellamy and return from injury of Dean Ashton added competition for Zamora, who missed seven months of the 2007-08 season with tendinitis.
His last Hammers goal was in a 2-1 win at the Boleyn against Derby on 19 April 2008, and his last game for the club was in a 2-2 draw at home to Aston Villa the following month. He had scored a total of 40 goals in 152 appearances for West Ham.
Even though he had missed a lot of games, and only scored once in 12 starts plus two off the bench across the whole season, he had no inkling he wouldn’t be offered a new contract.
“I went in at the start of the next season expecting to be talking about a new contract and they told me they’d agreed a deal to sell me to Fulham,” he told the Fulham website in a 2019 interview.
“It was obvious I wasn’t wanted and I made my way down to Motspur Park,” he said.
Zamora and team-mate John Paintsil moved to Fulham for a joint fee of £6.3m (Zamora was valued at £4.8m).
• I’ll explore how Zamora got on at Fulham ahead of Brighton’s game with them in March. His form with the Cottagers hit sufficient heights as to earn him two England caps.
In parallel lines 