The #50GreatestHammers countdown, in association with Official Investment Partner Basset & Gold, reaches No14…
Tony Cottee
Years at West Ham: 1982-88, 1994-96
Appearances: 336
Goals: 146
The most recent player to hit a century of goals for West Ham United, Tony Cottee, checks in at No14 on the list of #50GreatestHammers.
An Academy product and a Hammers fan, nobody relished scoring goals in Claret & Blue more than Cottee, and he certainly grabbed more than his fair share of them across two spells with the Club.
His first saw him play a leading role in the famous Boys of ’86 side, forming a deadly partnership up front with Frank McAvennie as the Hammers secured their highest ever league finish.
Cottee notched 26 goals that season, while McAvennie added a further 28 as West Ham ended the campaign in third place, just four points behind eventual league winners Liverpool.
The Forest Gate-born forward was prolific throughout his West Ham career, starting from his very first game when he notched in a 3-0 win against Tottenham Hotspur.
He would hit at least 12 goals in each of his seven full seasons in the first team, three times beating the 20 mark. The 29 he scored in 1986/87 was his best return in the Claret & Blue shirt and helped him into the England squad for the first time.
In 1988, he would move on to Everton, where he was an FA Cup runner-up in 1989, but he could not stay away from his East End roots and linked up with the Hammers once again in 1994.
He might have been approaching 30 by then, but still scored 27 goals across the next two seasons as the Hammers established themselves back in the top flight.
By the time he would move on again, this time to Malaysian football, he scored 146 goals for West Ham, a figure beaten only by four men in the Club’s history.
The winner of the 1986 Hammer of the Year to boot, Cottee’s is a West Ham career which will always be remembered by the east London faithful