King Billy

[violator]

Rumours circulating on FB that he's not too good at the moment and in hospital, not sure how true they are.

[Niblets]

I thought the TIFO was a bit underwhelming tbh...no offence to those involved ..harsh of me I guess , but if you're going to do something ,do it right.
It was the wrong way round for starters...and dwarfed by that huge athletics bowl
The TIFO should have stretched the WIDTH of that side imo

It was shit. Not just shit but embarrassingly shit. As was the whole memorial area.

Would never have been like that at Upton Park.

[Massive Attack]

I thought the TIFO was a bit underwhelming tbh...no offence to those involved ..harsh of me I guess , but if you're going to do something ,do it right.
It was the wrong way round for starters...and dwarfed by that huge athletics bowl
The TIFO should have stretched the WIDTH of that side imo

 

 

Yeah, a shoddy half hearted effort in-keeping with the BS regime these days. What they should have done is draped the entire helter skelter eye-sore outside the ground in the man stood head to toe in his finest claret and blue kit, gold chain grinning from ear to ear whilst lifting aloft the FA Cup. Then just before anyone entered the Stadium they blew the place up packing explosives instead of poxy pyrotechnics. Not possible with BS's budget? Think again...



Now THAT would have been worth seeing and celebrating in Bonzos honour but instead they get their priorities all wrong and blew the wrong place up. He would have looked down from heaven in total approval. 🌤

[Monsieur merde de cheval]

I thought the TIFO was a bit underwhelming tbh...no offence to those involved ..harsh of me I guess , but if you're going to do something ,do it right.
It was the wrong way round for starters...and dwarfed by that huge athletics bowl
The TIFO should have stretched the WIDTH of that side imo

[Any Old Iron]

AOI, that would memory of yours would date from the sixties not the seventies.

Correct. I got my digits back to front

[Far Cough UKunt]

AOI might have unwittingly transposed the number '67 to '76? Because Billy joined us in 1967.

[BoleynGone]

Good tribute from Pop Robson on the Club site.

https://www.whufc.com/en/news/pop-robso ... f-them-all

[,]

AOI, that would memory of yours would date from the sixties not the seventies.

[Any Old Iron]

Believe it or not in February ‘76 at the respective ages of 10 and 13 my brother and I went to ‘scout’ Billy Bonds. We’d read in the papers, Ilford Recorder probably, that the club were interested in this Billy Bonds lad.  We’d never heard of him but my Dad decided to take us over to the Valley to check him out!  They were playing Coventry that day who included in their line-up a future Hammer, Bobby Gould. 

Anyway I remember three things from all those years ago.  Bobby Gould scored a brace and I was very impressed by the large Coventry following. Those were the days of their ‘Sky Blue Special’. Back then you didn’t get the numbers travelling that became the norm much later.

But my other memory was of Billy. Although he didn’t do anything particularly outstanding that afternoon you couldn’t help but be impressed by his wholehearted athleticism. We couldn’t wait to see him in claret and blue. Which of course we did, hundreds of times.

I think it goes without saying that Billy was the most honest, dependable, loyal player that I’ve seen in my lifetime and I find it hard to come to terms with his passing.  Sadly it’s not just Billy that’s gone but the spirit of the game that I once loved. 


 

[only1billybonds]

Surprised people are not being charged to write in the book.

[honky cat]

Has anyone been to the stadium since Billy died? I heard they had set up a memorial area and opened a condolence book. 

[zico]

Remember watching this a few years back, still no handshake unsurprisingly.  Hackett's "excuse" was that the FA, according to him, had changed the rules for the professional foul, that week, if I remember rightly.  I was under the impression you could only change laws close season with an AGM, but even if they had changed it with a Special General Meeting, how bloody stupid changing the laws in the week before an FA Cup Semi Final?!  Personally think it was just Hackett tryting to find an excuse to a poor decision.

[El Scorchio]

Just FYI in case anyone wants it who isn't going or doesn't usually pick one up at the games (like me), the Villa programme is available to order and has some Billy Bonds stuff in it

HERE

[Takashi Miike]

The old boy was at the game but him and his mate only managed to get a ticket in with the Forest fans. He said those that spoke to him at the time couldn't believe the West Ham support considering the scoreline and how amazing we were and that he was even offered a humbug from an old dear as a token gesture. A proud day he'd obviously never forget because of that incredible support and not for the result, Hackett you cսnt.

I was in the upper tier seats down that sideline where the sending off occured. Pretty much directly in line with where Reg clashed with Crosby, nowadays he may have got the benefit of the doubt as the little fucker was going away from goal but back then it was always dangerous, especially with a twat like Hackett. That was a very good Forest team so no guarantees we win if Gale stays on. Couldn't have prouder of the fans that day though, really showed our class

One thing I'll remember about Bill, regarding that year we went down. It was the Bond scheme season, in which they tried to cash in off the back of that semi final (even brought out a glossy brochure/magazine, shortly after). At the end of that last game, strangely Forest again (where we gave Des Walker an ovation, before he went to italy), we all spilled on to the pitch as per usual and there were strong rumours those cunts running the club tried to block Bill coming out to address the fans. He quite rightly ignored them and thanked us for the support

[Massive Attack]

The old boy was at the game but him and his mate only managed to get a ticket in with the Forest fans. He said those that spoke to him at the time couldn't believe the West Ham support considering the scoreline and how amazing we were and that he was even offered a humbug from an old dear as a token gesture. A proud day he'd obviously never forget because of that incredible support and not for the result, Hackett you cսnt.

[Dick Shaftsbury]

[Takashi Miike]

[Nutsin]

[Tomshardware]

[fraser]

A poem the Mrs lifted from Facebook

BONZO
There's a sadness in the East End of London tonight
As the hammers lost one of their own
A legend in the true sense of the word
And Claret and Blue to the bone
I remember standing in the Boleyn North Bank
And watching him run like a train
A bloodied bandage wrapped around his forehead
And everybody singing out his name
Twenty Odd years behind the badge
And wearing his heart on his sleeve
Nearly eight hundred first team games for West Ham
With a spirit that made us believe
That player, of course was the great Billy Bonds
Or Bonzo as he became known
Captain. Manager, FA Cup winner
With a stand in the ground all his own
Now Billy joins Heaven's eleven
With a few old mates from his grass roots
Fly high now Billy and thanks for the memories
I hope you've remembered your boots
Chris Ross (The East End Poet)

[Outer Cape]

This is a good obituary written in the Times. 

Billy Bonds obituary: club legend as player and manager at West HamCaptain for the Hammers who led them to two FA Cup wins and was regarded as the best player to never earn a cap for EnglandIf people were starting to think that Billy Bonds was “past it” in his late thirties, pre-season training at West Ham United would soon disabuse them of that notion. Players 15 years younger than the evergreen Bonds would lag far behind as he led gruelling cross-country runs through Epping Forest on sweltering summer days.

He had actually retired as a player in 1984 at the age of 37, but it was a decision that would not be accepted for long. Bonds went on to represent the club for another four years, winning West Ham’s player of the year award in 1987 at the age of 40, and finally retiring a few months before his 42nd birthday. Many thought he could have gone on for a few more years.In a record 799 appearances for the Hammers, from 1967 to 1988, the man known as “Bonzo” chased, harried and retrieved like the most faithful of gundogs.

However tough his opponent — and he had survived an era notorious for hard men who could get away with thuggery — Bonds never shirked a challenge.Whether his hair was a short back and sides in the late Sixties, mutton chops in the Seventies or a mullet in the Eighties, Bonds’s socks would always be round his ankles and his shins would resemble a woodchopper’s block.

Fans will put up with a lot if players give their all on the pitch and no one tried harder than Bonzo. Yet four player of the year awards over the course of his career attested to the fact that he was an excellent player as well as a cult figure. On top of having one of the best engines in football, Bonds read the game well and was good on the ball.

In the latter stages of his career as a central defender he was renowned for calmly bringing the ball out of defence and launching attacks.Above all, in 21 years as a player at West Ham, Bonds was a model of doing what you are told, doing it well and never complaining.

On being signed by Ron Greenwood in 1967, he was put straight into the team at right-back. Three years later Greenwood sprang a surprise by converting Bonds into a central midfielder, where he acted as a minder for the ball-playing Trevor Brooking. With Bonds seemingly here, there and everywhere, the move proved to be a masterstroke. Bonds was voted the club’s player of the year for two years in a row, in 1974 and 1975, and even ended the 1973-74 season as the club’s leading scorer with 13 goals, including a memorable hat-trick against Chelsea.

Bonds was preternaturally fit but his behaviour after West Ham games at the club’s old Boleyn Ground added another clue to his longevity. Though he was a popular figure who enjoyed a can of lager, he was the first in the bath and would be driving home to his family through the Blackwall tunnel with his father while team-mates were still getting dressed and planning a night out.

William Arthur Bonds was born in Woolwich, southeast London, in 1946 and grew up in Eltham. His mother, Barbara, was watching Charlton Athletic just hours before giving birth to him. The young Bonds first kicked a ball at 18 months. His father, Arthur, a transport mechanic, was often on the touchline as Bonds flourished in schoolboy football, playing on Sunday mornings for Moatbridge (paying a “tanner” — two and a half pence — for the privilege) and representing Woolwich District and Kent Schools.

As a child he had sat on his father’s shoulders to catch sight of the action in thronging 60,000 crowds at Charlton Athletic. It was for them he signed after leaving school at 15. He cycled to the club’s Valley ground from Eltham and made as much money from picking up coins as he swept the terraces as he did from his pay packet.On the insistence of his father, he started an apprenticeship at a local ship propeller factory but left after two months because he hated it so much. “Those few months of factory work were crucial in turning me into a professional footballer,” he recalled. “It was the gee-up I needed — no way was I ever going back to that workbench.”

He made his first-team debut in 1965 and would play 95 times for Charlton. Much of his childhood had been spent playing five-a-side football for a team called the Magpies that he formed with other boys on his street. His mastery of the quick-passing, shorter form of the game served him well. Playing in the Evening Standard five-a-side tournament for Charlton, he was spotted by Greenwood.

Bonds went straight into the West Ham team, playing alongside the World Cup winners Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst in an attractive side.

When Moore left the club for Fulham in 1974, Bonds was the natural choice to replace him as captain. A year later the pair lined up against each other in the 1975 FA Cup final. Bonds held the cup aloft as West Ham won 2-0.By his own admission, West Ham were a perennially inconsistent side but always a danger in cup competitions and in 1980, Bonds lifted the FA Cup again. The team were then in the second division and up against the highly fancied Arsenal, the cup holders. After an early Trevor Brooking header gave the Hammers the lead, Bonds played superbly as West Ham held on to win.In an era before agents, contract negotiations were a simple affair.

Every two years Bonds would be offered an extra £25 a week to sign a new deal. He would sign without a word and go home and “tell the missus”.

Described as the best player never to be capped by England, he was due to make his international debut against Brazil in May 1981 but was ruled out after breaking two ribs in a collision with his team-mate Phil Parkes in the final game of the 1980-81 season, when West Ham were promoted back to the first division. A year after Bonds finally retired, the club were relegated from the top flight again and John Lyall left after 15 years as manager.

Bonds was overwhelmingly the fans’ choice to replace him but the job went to Lou Macari. After the Scot failed to take the club back up, Bonds was appointed in 1990. West Ham were promoted in 1991, relegated in 1992, promoted again in 1993 and finished in mid-table in 1994. Given the limited resources, most agreed Bonds had done a decent job.

His time as manager of West Ham started with him painting the dressing rooms. It ended in 1994 after the club told him they wanted to install his No 2 and close friend Harry Redknapp in his place. Bonds was reportedly offered another role at the club but felt hurt at the way the situation had been handled.

He left West Ham for good with dignity and without fuss.Bonds later coached at QPR and Reading and managed Millwall from 1997 but was sacked the following season.

He admitted that in the modern era he found it difficult to deal with the greater sense of entitlement of young players. He later worked as a summariser for BBC Radio London.

A quiet and shy man, he enjoyed gardening and retreating with his family to his cottage in Dorset, where his appreciation of the landscape was enhanced by a love for the poetry and novels of Thomas Hardy.

Though the hierarchy at West Ham had not always treated their former player well, they made up for it in 2019 by naming a stand after Bonds at their newly opened London Stadium. His wife, Marilyn, predeceased him and he is survived by their daughters, Claire and Katie.

Grown men cried as the club paid tribute to Bonds before West Ham’s game against Liverpool on Sunday, November 30, and many would have wished Bonzo was still on the pitch as the Hammers lost 2-0. All who played in that game earn fortunes. Bonds never earned more than a basic weekly wage of £600, but didn’t care. “I would have happily played for nothing in the local park.”

Billy Bonds, MBE, footballer, was born on September 17, 1946. He died of undisclosed causes on November 30, 2025, aged 79   

[Niblets]

West Ham legends ranked.

1 Bobby Moore
2 Billy Bonds
3 Trevor Brooking
4 Geoff Hurst
5 Julian Dicks
6 Di Canio
7 Pop Robson
8 Ginger Pele
9 Phil Parkes
10 Mark Noble
11 Ray Stewart


Quite the line up.

Haha, ranked by who, a ten year old?

That's fucking embarrassing.

[cholo]

This has probably been posted already but I'll post it again in case anyone's missed it.

[Pshyco scored all 4]

I knew Billy was ill at least 18 months ago . But typical of the great man he went about it quietly and with no fuss . He's without doubt the greatest west ham player of all time . Even above mooro and SIR Trevor. Not the most skilful. But he made up with it with sheer will power.  Hopefully it won't be long before we regain bonzos  beloved  FA cup . 

[Outer Cape]

Yesterday, I listened to the Football Guardian Podcast, and disatisfied with the tribute to Billy Bonds I wrote them a letter. I cut and pasted "Coffee one Sugar's" post but I could have chosen many of the posts on this thread. 

This is the email I sent to the Guardian.

Hi Max, Barney and Barry, I’ve been a loyal listener to the podcast for years and continue to enjoy the work you and the team do. Keep it up.However, the brief note appended to the end of the West Ham - Liverpool match report, felt inadequate and, to be honest, borderline disrespectful.

A quick look at social media or YouTube shows the enormous and heartfelt outpouring of grief for a true club legend.I’d suggest sending a couple of your team to the next home game against Aston Villa to really understand what he meant to the club and its supporters.

As a keen listener, I’ve also noticed the growing disaffection among several contributors (Barney, Jonathan, Barry, for example) with the underlying business model of the modern game: the match-day entertainment packages, the transactional focus, surge pricing, gambling sponsors, irrelevant cups and competitions, corrupt organizations, human-rights-abuse sportswashing, and the media’s obsession with personalities and trivia.

Never has the gap between what Billy Bonds stood for and what the modern game represents felt so wide.

For context, the message below appeared on the West Ham fan site westhamonline.co.uk just hours after his death was announced.This was written on the West Ham fan site by “Coffee One Sugar”  

 "He was, and still is, an integral part of my growing up as a West Ham fan. When his name was on the team sheet, you knew, you really knew, that the team would put up a fight, even when it ended up in defeat which was not infrequent. He was usually the first one out of the dressing room afterwards while the others yapped and drank their milk or bottle of light ale or whatever they did knock back at that time. 

He was a captain you could look up to, respect, and know that his first priority was always the interest of the club and its supporters. He was the kind of man you could look up to even from the distance of the terraces.

He had a presence on the field and was held in obvious respect by his team mates. He gave you confidence that you wouldn't be overcome by sheer effort or fight, nor by and in the joint effort of team and fan.I shall miss him, not because I knew the man but for the sense of justified pride that his memory cannot and will not erase.

They say you cannot measure a player by trophies and medals alone. If you could, the record books would gleam with the name of Billy Bonds. But his legacy is not carved from silver or gold; it is etched into the very soul of a football club, into the stands of Upton Park, and into the hearts of generations who were privileged to call him their own.

To watch Billy Bonds play was to understand the very essence of West Ham United. He was not merely a player who wore the claret and blue; he was its living, breathing, battling embodiment. For over two decades, he was the constant, the rock, the leader. He was a force of nature, a player whose heart seemed to beat with the collective pulse of the terraces.

He didn't just cover every blade of grass; he claimed it, defended it, and poured his being into it. His tackles were not just challenges; they were statements of intent, roars of defiance that echoed around the Boleyn Ground.

And what a captain he was. He didn't need an armband to lead, but he wore it with a king's authority and a soldier's humility. He was the man you would follow into battle, because you knew he would be the first into the breach and the last to leave. He led with a clenched fist, a determined stare, and an action that screamed: Follow Me. But beyond the warrior, there was a craftsman.

Beyond the grit, there was grace. He could truly play. He was a fusion of iron and silk, of passion and precision, each taking the fore when circumstance demanded. His legacy is multi-faceted. It lies in the standards he set - that of unwavering commitment, and of putting everything on the line for your cause. 

He is the benchmark against which every captain, every player, and every heart that beats claret and blue is measured."

I have nothing to add to the above. To reduce the tribute to a verbal caricature of a southeast London geezer falls way short of the mark. 

Best,

Adrian Nunn
San Francisco, CA 

This is the email I received back from Barry Glendenning of the Guardian.

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for the mail. You say you found our tribute to Billy inadequate and borderline disrespectful but don't explain why, beyond describing it as "a verbal caricature of a southeast London geezer". That bears little or no relation to the tribute I remember hearing at the time and none to the tribute I just re-listened to, in case it had in some way got completely mangled in the edit and emerged sounding inadequate and disrespectful. That is not the case. 

Billy’s love for West Ham, his legendary status, his uncompromising excellence as a player and leader, his striking looks and athletic physique, his longevity and his legendary status were all mentioned, as well as the incontrovertible fact that he was from south-east London, the same neck of the woods as Barney, who spoke about him with obvious fondness, bordering on reverence: "He was a very reassuring figure: you liked him, you respected him ... he was a perfect professional." 

I am very sorry for what is obviously a sad loss for you and other West Ham fans, and while it's not for me to dictate what you or anyone else should find inadequate or offensive, I think you're way wide of the mark in saying we were even remotely disrespectful to Billy’s memory or legacy. 

Cheers,

Barry  

[happygilmore]

West Ham legends ranked.

1 Bobby Moore
2 Billy Bonds
3 Trevor Brooking
4 Geoff Hurst
5 Julian Dicks
6 Di Canio
7 Pop Robson
8 Ginger Pele
9 Phil Parkes
10 Mark Noble
11 Ray Stewart


Quite the line up.

To any ‘mature’ West Ham fan I’ve met, Bonzo is number one. 

 

 

I place Bobby, Trevor & Billy on a par at the top, above everyone else. 
We will never see their likes again playing for West Ham or at any English club for that matter.

The likes of the "Super Sunday" display between Chelsea V Arsenal I turned off . Can't stand most of the modern cheating overpaid footballers.