‘I fell in love with West Ham straight away, their fans made me feel like a giant’
Clyde Best will argue that West Brom didn’t have the original Three Degrees; it was West Ham – him, Clive Charles and Ade Coker.
Cyrille Regis, Laurie Cunningham and Brendon Batson are widely seen as pioneers for black footballers in England, but due to their popularity – and Ron Atkinson’s PR-perfect nickname – few know that the first trio of black players actually hailed from Upton Park.
Coker was 11 when he moved to England from Nigeria. Six years later, he was replacing Sir Geoff Hurst in Ron Greenwood’s starting line-up at West Ham and scoring seven minutes into his debut in a 3-0 win over Crystal Palace.
Although he starred on his debut and performed well alongside Best and the late Charles, Coker found his game-time limited in East London and moved to the USA in 1974, playing in the North American Soccer League (NASL) and eventually earning five caps for the US national team.
‘It was always West Ham for me, despite living in Fulham’
Coker, along with Best, had to deal with terrible racism at West Ham. However, both maintain that they were never abused by their own supporters.
And it’s the West Ham fans, until this day, that have left a mark on Coker, who fell in love as soon as he arrived at the Hammers, where Best was already making a name for himself as the first black superstar in English football.
“Growing up, I had the opportunity to play for several teams,” Coker told West Ham Zone at the tour announcement of Transforming the Beautiful Game: The Clyde Best Story.
“When I got to West Ham, I just knew. It was one of those things where you just see something and you fall in love with it and you just say, ‘this is it’. When I got to West Ham and training, I just knew. That was it.
“The funny thing was that I didn’t even think about where I lived in Fulham, getting to West Ham, the distance from there to there never crossed my mind.”
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Ade Coker’s forever blowing bubbles
Despite only playing 11 times for West Ham’s first team in four years, Coker, now 71 and living in Seattle, USA, is a staunch Hammers fan.
“My number one memory of playing at West Ham and Upton Park was the fans,” Coker added, while speaking to West Ham Zone at Cambridge Beaches Resort & Spa in Bermuda.
“Even to today, when West Ham are playing – and my kids know – I have to sing ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles‘. Seriously, I have to. If you don’t sing that before the game, you’re not a West Ham fan.
“When you played and that song started, it goes through your body and you’re blowing up, and blowing up, and you become a giant. That’s how much it built me up, ready to play.”
Coker is set to feature heavily in the upcoming documentary film about Best’s career.
The two former Hammers forwards, along with Charles, became the first trio of black footballers to take to the pitch together in England in 1972 – six years before the iconic Three Degrees played together at West Brom.
West Ham beat Tottenham 2-0 that day, with Coker tearing apart the Spurs defence and getting on the scoresheet.
Transforming the Beautiful Game: The Clyde Best Story will premiere from 25 to 28 March at Sadler’s Wells in London and stars the likes of Best, Coker, Harry Redknapp, Ian Wright, Shaka Hislop and more.
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