Add as preferred source on Google
While David Bentley did play a part in West Ham United’s promotion back to the Premier League under Sam Allardyce in 2012, that Wembley victory over Blackpool left the former England international with a bittersweet taste.
Arriving on loan during the final day of the 2011 summer transfer window, Bentley remains the last player to join the Hammers from Tottenham.
Fifteen years later, one of the most mercurial English talents of his generation still wonders how differently things would have gone for him at Upton Park. If not for the knee injury which restricted him to just five Championship appearances during West Ham United’s promotion campaign under Sam Allardyce.
What would you sacrifice for FA Cup GLORY?
Surely not your Premier League status…
By the time Ricardo vaz Te broke Blackpool hearts at Wembley, Bentley was long gone. His fifth and final appearance for the Hammers came in October 2011, three years before he retired at the age of just 29.
David Bentley ‘gutted’ West Ham United loan spell didn’t work out
Now, speaking opposite Allardyce on the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast, a winger who hit double figures for assists in successive Premier League campaigns in 2006 and 2007 opens up on a loan spell which promised much but delivered very little.
“Gutted. I was absolutely gutted,” Bentley says, recalling the knee injury which ruined his Hammers stint and sparked the beginning of the end for his career as a whole.
“I had three years [at Tottenham], it was an up-and-down sort of three years. We qualified for the Champions League, but certain things weren’t happening there.
Photo by Ian Walton/Getty Images
“Then, obviously, to get the opportunity to play under Sam at West Ham, I loved that. I loved it. I loved the players you had there; ‘Nobes’ [Mark Noble] and Kevin Nolan running the dressing room. All the banter every day, and the coaching staff were brilliant.
“Going into the games, you did have that freedom [under Allardyce].
“But I was only there for, I think, eight weeks. And the truth is, the last two games I played for you, I played injured. I played with a chondral defect. My knee was about that big [due to swelling] and I didn’t tell anyone.
“You’re on that emotional roller coaster as a footballer and you find a place where you – [due to] the fans, the football club, everything and the people in and around it – fit. I thought, ‘I’m loving this. I’ve found my home’.
“Then my knee just goes and it swells up. It’s twice as big. I’m at home, not telling the physios; I’m icing it with my legs up in the air. I’ve never told this story, but I played those last two games and everyone was like, ‘You weren’t as good’.
“I was thinking, ‘My knee!’ In the end, you just have to admit the knee’s gone. It just was never the same. I spent a year out, which made it worse. [West Ham] got promoted, and that was probably the toughest moment, looking at your career going, ‘I think it’s over’.
“I worked as hard as I could for five months to get back, but when I came back, my knee just wasn’t the same. I was gutted that happened.”
Sam Allardyce felt West Ham pulled off a coup with Bentley
Allardyce, who will see two former clubs go head to head against Leeds in the FA Cup quarter-finals on Sunday, reveals that West Ham signed Bentley with a view to keeping him on a full-time basis.
Summerville touch-and-go for the FA Cup quarter-final! 🏆
Who would you pick to START vs Leeds?
Select your favourite for each position and we will collate an XI based on your overall votes!
Having joined London rivals Tottenham for a then-substantial fee of £15 million only three years previously, when he was viewed as one of the most dangerous attackers in the country, this was considered a coup for a Hammers side reeling from their rock-bottom finish under Avram Grant.
“[Bentley’s injury] was a big shame for us, because we were getting a talented player,” Allardyce says. “We were getting him on loan, which normally escalates into a brighter future if he does well because we wouldn’t want to let him go back.
“We were lucky to get him! He was dropping down into the Championship, which was a big commitment for him and great for us.
“We got promoted in the end, but I’m sure he’d have played a much bigger part in that promotion year had he stayed.”
Join Our Newsletter
Receive a digest of our best West Ham content each week direct to your mailbox
