Between them, Tony Carr and Paul Heffer have devoted more than 60 years of their lives to nurturing West Ham's youngsters at what has become known within the game as the Academy of Football.

During those fertile years, the youth coaching duo have kept the Hammers production line churning with the likes of Rio Ferdinand, Glen Johnson, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Mark Noble, Frank Lampard and Jermain Defoe all coming off the academy conveyerbelt.

It has been argued that if they had been able to keep hold of all their academy graduates then the Hammers would be among the very top English teams. It is a belief that is difficult to dispute.

Earlier this week, the men behind the Academy arrived on the Island with the next batch of the club's future stars who will take on Bermuda's national academy and Saint-Etienne's youth team in the Clyde Best Invitational Tournament.

It promises to be a festival of youth football with West Ham assistant youth director, Heffer, adamant their current crop of 15 and 16-year-olds possess as much potential as the esteemed names that have gone before them.

"We think we have a very good group here and first team players should be produced from it," says Heffer, who played 15 matches for the Hammers during the late 1960s and early '70s before his career was cut short because of a knee injury.

"We have brought with us two England internationals and an Irish international. We have seven of the younger boys and nine of the older boys and we'll mix it up for the games.

"The kids have really taken to the trip and the parents said what a great opportunity it would be for them to come out and see Bermuda."

For Heffer, a commitment to continuity has been the secret behind West Ham's prolific record of developing young talent.

Since 1973, the year academy director Carr was appointed, eight first team mangers have been and gone.

Regardless of who is at the helm the cogs of the academy machine have kept on turning.

"The problem nowadays is that clubs change the manager at the top and then he changes the youth academy coaches ¿ there is no consistency," Heffer says.

"It's like a three year cycle so they don't see a player go through the whole routine.

"A lot of these guys with us in Bermuda have been with us since they were seven and eight.

"We try and let them play and are careful not to over-coach them.

"We see a player like Rio (Ferdinand) at 14 who's gangly and uncoordinated and give him time. He ends up being the Rio we know now.

"In the first team now we have five lads playing regularly who have come through the youth system. We put it down to the consistency of Tony Carr being here for 36 years, while I've been back here for 25 years.

"Tony and me have gone straight through the era with Rio and Frank right up to now with the likes of Jack Collison and Mark Noble. Hopefully we have a few more guys out here to follow them."

Both Heffer and Carr played alongside Bermuda legend Clyde Best at Upton Park during the club's glory days. Heffer, a tall stylish centre-half, remembers Best as being like "a battering ram" in the Emile Heskey mould.

"Clyde came to the club at 19 and he was a big lad. I guess he played the sort of Emile Heskey role," says Heffer. "He was strong up front, quick and scored a goal.

"He was like a battering ram for us, we played the ball up to him, he would hold it up and then we would go and join him. He scored some great goals for us and he's a good fellow, a great guy.

"There wasn't many black players playing in those days and he took some abuse from the crowds but he always handled it well, no problems."

It was back in the '70s when Bobby Moore's West Ham last visited the Island following a pre-season tour of the United States.

Heffer missed the Bermuda leg of the sojourn as he had a more pressing matter to attend.

"It's something new for me, we went to America back in Bobby Moore's era and a lot of the guys came here afterwards. I ended up going home to get married and missed the Bermuda tour.

"Clyde has been bringing his Somerset Cricket Club sides to West Ham for a while.

"I was chatting to him in the summer and he said it would be nice if we came out to Bermuda. I told him to invite us and see what happened.

"Luckily from the point of view of West Ham at the moment, this is all expenses paid so we were allowed to come."