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 No18 from the four chosen nominees below!
All West Ham No18s since 1993/94 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
1993-1994 | 2001-2002 | 2011-2012 | 2018 |
1994-1995 | 2002-2005 | 2013 | 2019 |
1996 | 2006 | 2013-2014 | 2019-2021 |
1997-2001 | 2006-2011 | 2014-2015 | 2023-present |
Alvin Martin
DOB: 29.07.58 WHU: 1978-1996 Apps: 596 Goals: 34
With three Hammer of the Year awards, and enough outings to put him fifth on West Ham United’s record appearance list, Alvin Martin’s position as one of the Club’s greatest ever servants is undisputed.
Martin was snapped up as an apprentice in 1974, and what would follow was over two decades of passion, fight and leaving it all on the pitch for the Claret and Blue.
Martin made his debut as a substitute in March 1978, coming on against Aston Villa. It was the first of 596 showings for the Club, and the beginning of something special.
Martin would make the position his own, becoming a crucial cog at the heart of the West Ham team. A stalwart in defence, he played for the Irons in the famous 1980 FA Cup final triumph over Arsenal, while a run to the League Cup final in the 1980/81 season followed, as did West Ham’s return to the top flight, having won the Second Division title.
The 1985/86 campaign proved to be West Ham’s most successful in the league ever, and Martin was at the centre of that run to third place, playing in 40 of the side’s 42 matches. The centre-back even achieved the unusual feat of scoring a hat-trick in an 8-1 win over Newcastle - netting each of his goals against a different goalkeeper.
With 21 years of service to West Ham United, Martin became one of only two players to be awarded two testimonials, against Tottenham in 1988 and Chelsea in 1995.
Frank Lampard
DOB: 20.06.78 WHU: 1995-2001 Apps: 187 Goals: 38
While he may now be more closely associated with another London club, Frank Lampard Junior remains one of the Academy of Football’s finest ever graduates.
Born in Romford, the son of the West Ham United legend of the same name, Lampard joined the Club at the age of 16.
After a successful loan spell with Swansea City, the midfielder made his West Ham debut against Coventry City in a Premier League win in January 1996. Five months later, he appeared for the Hammers in the FA Youth Cup final.
The 1997/98 season saw Lampard selected regularly for the first time by Harry Redknapp - his uncle - and he rewarded his manager with nine goals in 42 appearances as West Ham finished eighth in the Premier League.
The following year, six goals in 41 games helped the Hammers finish fifth. Lampard scored in all three rounds as West Ham won the UEFA Intertoto Cup in the summer of 1999, and he ended his most prolific season in Claret and Blue with 14 goals in all competitions - a sure sign of things to come in a career spanning more than 1,000 matches and over 300 goals.
He joined west-London rivals Chelsea in the summer of 2001, where he won medals for three Premier League titles, four FA Cups, two League Cups, as well as UEFA Europa League and Champions League triumphs. He is now manager of EFL Championship club Coventry.
Jonathan Spector
DOB: 01.03.86 WHU: 2006-2011 Apps: 115 Goals: 4
Versatile defender Jonathan Spector joined the Club from Manchester United, where he debuted in the FA Community Shield against Arsenal in August 2004 and was the youngest American to play for the Red Devils, having been named as the club’s Young Player of the Year in 2003.
However, he soon found game time limited, and made 28 appearances in all competitions in his maiden campaign at Upton Park under Alan Pardew and subsequently Alan Curbishley, who he worked with during a season-long loan at Charlton, which was followed by 28 in his second as the Hammers finished tenth in the Premier League.
Having missed most of the 2008/09 season through injury, Spector did enjoy a relatively injury-free run over the final two seasons of his career in Claret and Blue, featuring in 29 games in the 2009/10 season. When Avram Grant was appointed in June 2010, he began deploying Spector in midfield, and he scored his first goals for West Ham and first in English football, striking twice in a 4-0 home win over former club Manchester United in the League Cup in November 2010.
Following his release in 2011, Spector was a mainstay at Birmingham City throughout a successful six-year stint, and he is currently Head of International Recruitment and Development at Major League Soccer side Atlanta United.
Julien Faubert
DOB: 01.08.83 WHU: 2007-2012 Apps: 121 Goals: 2
Speedy France and Martinique international right-back Julien Faubert was snapped up by then Hammers manager Alan Curbishley in 2007, having earlier spent three years at Bordeaux, where he made over 100 appearances and scored ten goals.
After picking up an injury in a pre-season friendly against Czech side Sigma Olomouc, he belatedly made his first-team debut for West Ham as a late substitute against Fulham at Boleyn Ground in January 2008, totalling seven Premier League appearances that term, four of them starts, while he appeared as a substitute in an FA Cup third-round replay defeat at Manchester City.
After spending the second half of the 2008/09 season on loan at Real Madrid, Faubert returned rejuvenated and turned in several impressive performances, including perhaps his finest moment in Claret and Blue in March 2010, when he scored one incredible goal and set up another in a 3-0 Premier League win over Hull City at Boleyn Ground, which was subsequently awarded as our ‘Performance Of The Season’. He also won the Club’s Player of the Month award for August 2009.
Faubert was released by West Ham in May 2012, having totalled 121 appearances across five seasons in east London, and later enjoyed spells at Elazığspor, Kilmarnock, Inter Turku, Borneo and Étoile Fréjus Saint-Raphaël, as well as a second stint at Bordeaux.
