10 Players You Didn't Know West Ham Almost Signed
5. Tony Adams
They call him Mr Arsenal, but had Tony Adams made a different decision early in his career, he could have been moulding himself after Bobby Moore, rather than David OLeary. Tottenham and West Ham were swarming, ready to swoop in for the teenage Adams, who was proving to be something of a starlet for his local youth club in Hornchurch:
''I chose at 14 to go in the Arsenal direction because there was a great coach there called Terry Burton who is back at the club now he was pretty much the only reason I went to Arsenal and didnt join Stevie (Potts) over at the Hammers. Thats how things go and your past can go different ways, as it can for clubs as well. Tony Adams.
In a career spanning 19 years, the 66-cap international turned out for the Gunners on 504 occasions, wearing the captains armband like a beacon of pride. He resembles everything that 1-0 to the Arsenal stood for stoic, tough and solid. One of the finest defenders to have ever graced the Premier League, it seems unheard of that he could have donned the colours of another club side, let alone who opens its gates just up the road every other Saturday.
Life truly is made on those small decisions. Had Terry Burton been employed at West Ham, and not Arsenal, who knows where Adams fate may have lay, and furthermore, the consequential fates of the two London rivals.