Former West Ham United defender Paul Heffer turns 75 today!
Heffer, a former teammate of Bobby Moore, has worked at the Academy of Football for an incredible 38 years. With the U18s beginning their FA Youth Cup campaign on Wednesday , Heffer reflects on his time in youth football…
Born in Upton Park, Heffer eventually joined his boyhood club at the age of 16, after missing out on a three year apprenticeship one year earlier.
“I was fifteen when West Ham invited me to train with them for the first time,” Heffer said. “Things were very different back then, you could leave school at the age of fifteen and a lot of my friends who were at my school walked out to join football clubs. My dad wouldn’t let me leave school a year early so I missed out on the three year apprenticeship that I was offered.
“At the end of my fifth year at Southend High School, once I had done my GCEs, West Ham were still interested in me. So I went back up to the club and I joined the ground staff which was a position that you were offered if you weren’t given an apprenticeship.
"That involved tidying around Upton Park, maintaining the pitch and so on, and players with an apprenticeship also had to do these jobs. We did an hour and a half of training and we worked for the rest of the day. I was earning £7 a week.”
Heffer enjoyed three positive years in the youth team, learning from three Hammers legends: John Lyall, Ken Brown and John Bond, and it was Lyall’s tactical switch in the Youth Cup that paved the way for Heffer’s progression into the first team.
“My big break came in the Youth Cup. I joined the club as a centre forward but I was asked to play in a different role against Arsenal and Chelsea in the Youth Cup. Both opponents had very good forwards who went on to have great careers; John Radford was at Arsenal and Peter Osgood was at Chelsea.
“Our youth team manager at that time was John Lyall and he asked me to drop back into centre back to man mark them. I was tall, quick and I could head the ball and that’s exactly what they were good at. I performed very well against two fantastic teams with quality centre forwards, and the Club decided that centre-back would be my position from that point onwards.
“All of a sudden I had gone from one end of the team to the other. Fortunately for me John Bond and Ken Brown, who were in the first team at that time, were learning to be coaches and they stayed in the afternoons to coach the youngsters. They were both defenders and they taught me a lot.
“Back then you had the youth team, the met team- which was the third team, the reserves, and finally the first team. My performances in the youth team were good and I occasionally played in the met team which was a big challenge for me at the age of 18. It was men’s football and we were playing against army teams, police teams and so on. I broke into the first team at the age of 20 but unfortunately suffered a career ending injury just two years later.”
Heffer was a part of a star-studded youth team including West Ham icons Sir Trevor Brooking, Frank Lampard Senior and Harry Redknapp.
Reflecting on his time in youth football, Heffer recalled having a strong bond with his teammates; in particular Sir Trevor.
“When we played in the Youth Cup we always put out our strongest side and we competed with every team that we faced. We had some fantastic players such as Trevor Brooking, Frank Lampard Senior and Harry Redknapp who was fantastic on the wing. We also had amateur players in the team to make up the numbers which will surprise some people.
“During my time in youth football, Trevor Brooking was my best friend. I was a year older than him and I used to pick him up from his home in Romford and drive him into training. My family lived around Upton Park and he used to come round to my Aunt’s for meals before and after we had done our jobs together at the stadium, whether that was getting the kit ready or cleaning.
“Back then when you signed an apprenticeship at a club it wasn’t just football, we were working together all day. We became a close group of mates and obviously Frank, Trevor and Harry went on to have fantastic careers both as players but also as managers and coaches of West Ham.”
After suffering a career-ending injury at the age of just 22, Heffer was determined to become a coach after playing for two of West Ham’s greatest managers, Lyall and Ron Greenwood.
“I had the pleasure of working with some incredible people at West Ham. John Lyall was my youth team manager and Ron Greenwood was the manager when I broke into the first team. My injury was unfortunate and I had a couple of operations on my knee, but it allowed me to stay on the sidelines and listen to two magnificent managers and that inspired me to become a coach. As they say, the rest is history.”
The former Hammers defender and current coach is excited by Kevin Keen’s current U18s side, and Heffer is hopeful that the young Irons can be competitive in the Youth Cup this season.
“It would be great for the boys to have a good run in the Youth Cup this season. As an Academy, the Youth Cup is an event that we look forward to every year. Over the last decade or so, our record in the competition hasn’t been as good as we would have liked. This year we have a fantastic group of players and the U18s team are unbeaten in their league, so I’m confident that we can have a good run this season.”
