Billy Gets His Boots Out

Billy Bonds is looking forward to stretching his legs with the Boys of '86 at Thurrock on Sunday.

Billy will be involved in the game, from which a donation from the proceeds will be made to the Bobby Moore Fund, and he says:

"I will see some old faces and you know me, if there is ever a game about I always enjoy it, so it will be a nice little run out to see if the old legs can still get me around the pitch."

He will be teaming up with, amongst others, Frank McAvennie, with whom, if the latter's autbiography is to be believed, he has had the odd run-in, but Billy says:

"There are no problems between me and Frank and I we will be all right."

It is ironic that one of West Ham's all time legends wasn't able to contribute to the most successful league season in the club's history, and he reflects:

"It was a good side; I obviously missed all the season because I had half my toe amputated that year so I didn't see any of that campaign.

"I didn't play but I did sit and watch a lot of it and they played some great football that year; it was a terrific season for the club and soime of the football they played that year was outstanding.

"The shame was that they didn't go on; it petered out the following year and fell apart a little bit and we ended up getting relegated a couple of seasons later.

"But really that team should have pushed on a little bit more.

"I don't know the reason it didn't but we certainly played some good football that year with Alan Dickens and people like that.

"It helped John that year that you could name the side roughly every week because there were very few injuries.

"West Ham have never had massive squads, certainly not around that time, and if you had had one or two injuries to key players we would have been in trouble.

"But that didn't happen and they excelled that year - they were terrific."

* Thurrock X1 v the Boys Of '86, Thurrock FC, 2 o'clock Sunday.