BONDS TREAT!
West Ham legend’s pride at having London Stadium stand named in his honour
‘Mooro had this calmness about him, I was the total opposite. I was a bull in a china shop’
He’d do the tops and I’d do the bottoms,’ says Billy Bonds, recalling his days cleaning windows with his dad, Arthur, long before he became a West Ham United legend.
It was not for him, nor was his time spent working in a factory. Bonds found that so boring, he would hide in the toilets during his shift.
With his father’s blessing, he quit to focus on football at 16. What an inspired leap of faith that turned out to be, with West Ham officially naming the Billy Bonds Stand tomorrow.
‘I wish my old dad was here now,’ he says as he contemplates what it means to be joining Bobby Moore and Sir Trevor Brooking in having the honour bestowed upon him. ‘He’d have loved it.
‘I had that window- cleaning round, then I became a footballer and a little bit famous. He used to walk round with his chest puffed out and the old ladder on his shoulder. Proud as punch he was. I just loved competing and playing. It was in my blood.’
Bonds is now 72 but still fighting fit. The hairstyle has not changed and he is the perfect gentleman over the course of an hour-long interview about his career.
He made a club-record 799 appearances for West Ham and won Hammer of the Year four times, the first in 1971 and the last in 1987. Bonds, or ‘Bonzo’ as he became known, succeeded Moore as captain in 1974, won two FA Cups and played his last match at the age of 41 years and 226 days.
What stood out was his nononsense attitude. Indeed, proof of his courage for younger readers is only a Google search away as pictures show him bandaged (right), some with blood trickling down his face.
So it may come as a surprise to hear Bonds possibly missed his calling as a dancer.
Team-mate Bryan ‘ Pop’ Robson’s father-in-law was champion ballroom dancer Lennie Heppell and West Ham boss Ron Greenwood brought him in to teach the team balance in the Seventies.
‘You know what? He said I had great balance, which I was amazed at,’ Bonds recalls. ‘Managers try anything sometimes and it was a new thing. Somebody brought in a karate fella and we ended up with about four groin injuries, so that one went out of the window.’
It was an apprenticeship with Charlton Athletic, on £250 per year, which gave Bonds his first steps into the game in 1963. The club’s boss, Frank Hill, made him work with the groundstaff too.
‘I went through the process,’ he says. ‘You’d go out, do all the dirty work, then go back in, get all the first-team players’ wet gear and put it in the dryers.’
A smile suddenly breaks out on Bonds’ face. ‘You’d do all that but it was the best thing that ever happened to me. My dad was a grafter. He did his windowcleaning round by day and worked at a bus garage by night. That was the way I was brought up.
‘It’s a different way of life now. They wouldn’t understand it. How lucky I am — that’s all I think about. If you can play a sport for a living you are lucky.’
That is something many today have not grasped, Bonds believes. ‘It’s a different era. You can get a 19, 20-year-old player now who’s a multi-millionaire and he’s played a dozen games. They are lucky boys. I don’t begrudge them.
‘I was on £70 a week when I first joined the club, but it moves on. The point I am trying to make is these players now are lucky.’
The most Bonds earned as a player was £300 a week. To put that into perspective, it would take West Ham forward Marko Arnautovic 22 minutes to earn the same. Like Arnautovic, Bonds had the opportunity to play in China, long before it became a playground for players who like to swell their bank balances. ‘I had a chance to go out there,’ he reveals. ‘I probably would have got double money going out there but I’d never have done that with my kids. It was the same with Man United. When dave Sexton was manager of Manchester United I had a chance of ending up there. I wouldn’t have taken that.’ Moore’s style of captaincy was perhaps best reflected in the fact that, while other players returned their kits in bundled heaps, he folded his meticulously. Bonds had his own way of leading. ‘Mooro wasn’t a shouter, or someone who would get after you,’ he says. ‘He had this calmness about him, which I didn’t. I was the total opposite. I was a bull in a china shop. I’d get stuck in.’
Bonds chuckles at the memory of his first meeting with Moore. It was at Middle Park School in south-east London in 1961 and a 14-year-old Bonds had just won the title with his local Sunday side and in walks 19-year-old Moore to give them their medals.
‘I didn’t know him from Adam,’ says Bonds. ‘He presented the medals, we did a few skills for him, then he disappeared and that was it.’
Bonds later watched Moore guide West Ham to FA Cup glory in 1964 and two years later captain england to the World Cup.
Not winning a cap himself is a regret, although Bonds looks back on his career with pride. Indeed, window-cleaning’s loss turned out to be West Ham’s gain.