FORMER West Ham United and Bermuda football star Clyde Best is one of the players highlighted in a new book called England's Eastenders.

Written by former Daily Express sports reporter Richard Lewis, the book documents the contribution made by the east end of London to football history.

Best, who lives in Somerset and writes a column for the Mid-Ocean News, left Bermuda as a teenager in the late 1960s for a trial at West Ham and he impressed club manager Ron Greenwood so much that he spent the next six years there.

A review of the book in the Ilford Recorder says: "Clyde Best made more impact on the game than any other black player before him. He was subjected to the most horrendous racial abuse from opposing fans, but turned it around in his favour. He often returns to Upton Park, where he made his name as a player and became a martyr to the cause of the first and probably the most intense racism from fans that the game in this country has ever seen."

Also featured in the book are Best's former team-mates, Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Harry Redknapp, as well as the likes of Jimmy Greaves, Terry Venables, Paul Ince and Ashley Cole.

England's Eastenders is published by Mainstream Publishing.

Best'scolumn - see page 16