Throughout the 2024/25 season, we're taking a look at some of the best players to have worn a range of squad numbers for West Ham United, since they were introduced for the start of the 1993/94 campaign.
Vote for your favourite No12 from the four chosen nominees below!
All West Ham No12s since 1993/94 | |
|---|---|
1993-1994 | 2006-2010 |
1994-1998 | 2010-2011 |
1998-1999 | 2012-2015 |
1999-2000 | 2015 |
2000-2002 | 2015-2016 |
2003-2005 | 2018-2020 |
2005 | 2022-2024 |
Tony Gale
DOB: 19.11.59 WHU: 1984-1994 Apps: 368 Goals: 7
Boys of ‘86 star Tony Gale spent a decade in the heart of the Hammers’ defence across the 1980s and 1990s, and was recently voted among the top 50 players to have represented the Club.
Having broken through at Fulham, where he accumulated 277 league appearances after making his debut at the age of 16, Gale earned his chance in the top flight after Hammers and England legend Bobby Moore retired in the mid-1970s.
Gale played an integral role in the West Ham team that secured the Club’s best-ever league finish in the 1985/86 campaign, with John Lyall’s charges coming in third in the top tier. Gale played all 42 league games, helping his team concede less than a goal a game and come within four points of the title.
There were plenty of thrills and spills throughout Gale’s ten-year spell in Claret and Blue, from the relegation heartbreak in 1989 to bouncing back two years later - a season in which the Hammers also reached the FA Cup semi-finals.
Another promotion back to the top division followed in 1993, before Gale closed out his West Ham career by playing 32 games in the Club’s inaugural Premier League campaign. As such, West Ham fans will never forget his contribution at the Boleyn Ground.
Paul Kitson
DOB: 09.01.71 WHU: 1997-2002 Apps: 81 Goals: 22
At a time when West Ham United were somewhat struggling, the signing of Paul Kitson from Newcastle United was a pivotal factor in the Irons retaining their top-flight status in 1996/97.
Faced with the prospect of relegation, Harry Redknapp rolled the dice on two domestic signings as Kitson and John Hartson arrived from Newcastle and Arsenal respectively. Their goals, including Kitson’s eight in 14 appearances, saved West Ham from the drop.
After finishing fifth in the Premier League in 1998/99, the Irons qualified for the UEFA Intertoto Cup, which they subsequently won by beating FC Metz 3-2 on aggregate in their final.
Kitson was restricted to just 67 appearances across the next five seasons in Claret and Blue, but made a sensational return to the West Ham team by scoring a hat-trick in a thrilling 4-4 Premier League draw at Charlton in 2001 with Frédéric Kanouté out injured, including a blistering right-foot volley that was voted by the West Ham Supporters’ Association as one of their top ten goals of the decade.
Carlton Cole
DOB: 12.10.83 WHU: 2006-2013, 2013-2015 Apps: 293 Goals: 68
Modern-day West Ham United icon Carlton Cole is the first player to feature in two separate runnings of WHU Wore It Best.
Cole, who also wore the iconic No9 jersey, and later the No24 shirt, was initially allocated No12 under Alan Pardew for the first four years of his eventual nine-year spell in Claret and Blue, where he made 293 appearances and notched 68 goals in all competitions.
Cole is still involved at West Ham to this day, working in the Club’s world-renowned Academy of Football as the Loans and Pathway Manager, and made the best possible start to life in vindicating the investment made in him as a player when he came off the bench to score the third goal in an opening-day victory at home to Charlton Athletic on his West Ham debut in August 2006.
Twenty-one appearances in all competitions in his maiden campaign were followed by 37 in his second. More regular starting berths led to more goals, and Cole was the Hammers’ top goalscorer for the 2008/09 season, as we would narrowly miss out on UEFA Europa League qualification, while throughout the next season his ten goals helped save West Ham from falling through the proverbial relegation trapdoor.
Ricardo Vaz Tê
DOB: 01.10.86 WHU: 2012-2015 Apps: 61 Goals: 19
Few players have endeared themselves to the Claret and Blue Army this century more than Ricardo Vaz Tê, who is one of the Club’s most significant transfers in recent history.
It is fair to say that, had the Portuguese forward not found the top-right corner of the net at Wembley Stadium three minutes from the end of the Hammers’ 2012 EFL Championship Play-Off final with Blackpool, we may not be UEFA Europa Conference League winners, with it laying the first foundations for the success the Club has achieved over the last few seasons.
When Vaz Tê was snapped up by Sam Allardyce in 2012, he changed the Hammers’ future less than five months later, scoring the goal that sent West Ham United back to the Premier League.
Vaz Tê’s efforts would be crucial in the second half of the 2011/12 campaign. Ten goals in 15 league games, including a hat-trick against Brighton & Hove Albion, secured third in the Championship and a place in the Play-Offs.
Once again, Vaz Tê’s goals would be pivotal. An assist in the semi-final first leg, away at Cardiff City, was followed by a goal in the second leg. Then, of course, there was the goal that every West Ham fan remembers: a winner at Wembley on 87 minutes to fire the Irons back to the promised land.
Netting 19 goals in 61 appearances, it will always be the winner against Blackpool that fans want to talk about. It is a mutual love, shared between player and supporters. One that will always ensure Vaz Tê rightly remains a cult hero in Claret and Blue.
