Ranking the 6 best players to play for both West Ham & Spurs | OneFootball

They may be London rivals, but there are plenty of players who've played for both West Ham & Spurs, so here are the six best.

London rivals West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur have a lengthy history of trading players, so here are the six best who've worn both the claret & blue of West Ham and the lily-white of Spurs.

Relegation from the Premier League at the end of 2025-26 has been a difficult pill for West Ham United to have to swallow, but their summer rebuild in preparation for a quick return has already seen them trading back and forth with one of their biggest historical rivals as they seek a quick return to the top-flight.

Mateus Fernandes made the £85 million swap from The London Stadium to The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium earlier in the summer, and now West Ham have spent some of that money to take the Israeli international winger Manor Solomon in the opposite direction, for a fee reported to be in the region of £5 million.

Spurs have recently made headlines for refusing to sell their 2025-26 captain Cristian Romero to Arsenal, but while the rivalry between Tottenham and West Ham United remains as fierce as ever, there has been a steady flow of players who've played for both clubs over the years, and here are six of the best.

6 ? ? Chris Hughton

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Although born in Forest Gate, in the middle of West Ham territory, in 1958, full-back Chris Hughton signed for Spurs as a 13-year-old in 1971 and would go on to make almost 400 appearances for them between 1997 and 1990, winning the FA Cup twice and the UEFA Cup. He also made 53 appearances for the Republic of Ireland national team between 1979 and 1991.

By the end of the 1980s, though, his injuries were starting to mount up and Spurs were happy to let him leave in 1990 for West Ham, first on loan as cover for an injured Julian Dicks, and then on a permanent basis. Hughton was still at The Boleyn Ground when they were promoted into the First Division in 1991, making 32 appearances for them at left-back. He left West Ham for Brentford in the summer of 1992.

After retiring from playing with a knee injury early in 1993, he went on to have a lengthy coaching career, including 14 years with Spurs, which ended when he left along with Martin Jol in 2007, and would go on to manage Newcastle United, Norwich City, Brighton & Hove Albion, Nottingham Forest and Ghana.

5 ? ? Jermain Defoe

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Another player born in East London, Jermain Defoe started his career south of the river with Charlton Athletic's youth system before making the switch to West Ham at 16-years-old in 1999. After a season-long loan at Bournemouth, he returned to The Boleyn Ground and established himself in their first team.

But Defoe's departure from the club was considered somewhat problematic. He handed in a transfer request less than 24 hours after they were relegated in 2003 - something for which he later apologised - was sent off three times throughout the first half of the 2003-4 season, having refused to sign a new contract with the club, and was then sold to Spurs at the end of the January 2004 transfer window, with Bobby Zamora going the other way.

Defoe would go on to become something of a legend at Spurs, with two spells at the club intersected by an unusual year at Portsmouth. After Pompey signed him for £7.5 million from Spurs in January 2008, both clubs won silverware in the second half of the 2007-08 season, but while Defoe was absent from Spurs' League Cup final win against Chelsea, he was also cup-tied for Portsmouth's FA Cup run, which ended in triumph for them that May. He returned to White Hart Lane the following January and stayed another five years before going to Toronto FC in 2014.

4 ? ? Michael Carrick

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Although born and raised on Tyneside, Michael Carrick made the switch to West Ham United upon completing his GCSEs in 1997. Injuries hampered his first couple of seasons with them, but he made his senior debut in 1999 and stayed with them when they were relegated from the Premier League in 2003.

But when they failed to get promotion at the end of the following season after losing the play-off final to Crystal Palace, Carrick was on his way across North London to Spurs, who paid £3.5 million for him in August 2004. Carrick's stay at White Hart Lane would prove to be a short one. After just two seasons, he was on his way to Manchester United for a fee of £14 million..

Carrick would go on to complete a near full-house of club silverware at Old Trafford, winning the Premier League five times, the League Cup three times, and the Champions League, Europa League, World Club Cup and FA Cup once each. He went into coaching at Manchester United after retiring from playing in 2018, and joined Middlesbrough in 2022 before returning to Old Trafford in January 2026 as the manager.

3 ? ? Teddy Sheringham

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Having started his professional career with more than 200 appearances for Millwall and with two spells at Spurs which brought another 300, Teddy Sheringham might have seemed like an odd bedfellow for West Ham when he joined them in the Championship in 2004 on a free transfer from Portsmouth.

But Sheringham, who'd also won three Premier League titles, the Champions League and the FA Cup during four years with Manchester United, went on to deliver for the Irons, even though he admitted that he'd supported them as a boy when he signed for the club following a call from then-manager Alan Pardew.

Although 38-years-old at the time of his arrival, his first full season brought 20 goals as West Ham were promoted back to the Premier League, his highest goalscoring tally since his first season at Spurs in 1992-93, and in December 2006 he became the Premier League's oldest-ever goalscorer when he netted against Portsmouth at 40 years and 268 days old, a record which he still holds to this day.

2 ? ? Martin Peters

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West Ham supporters will never tire of telling fans of other clubs about how their team won the 1966 World Cup, but had it not been for a dramatic last-minute equaliser for West Germany in that match to tie the game at 2-2, midfielder Martin Peters would have found himself feted as the player who won the Cup for England rather than Geoff Hurst, whose two extra-time goals resulted in the World Cup final's first-ever hat-trick and England's eventual 4-2 win.

But despite having been described as "ten years ahead of his time" by the England manager Alf Ramsey in 1968, by the start 1970 Peters was seeking a new challenge and a swap deal plus cash which was valued at £200,000 broke the UK transfer record when he moved to Spurs in March of that year.

Peters would go on to win two League Cups and a UEFA Cup in his first three seasons with Spurs before moving on to Norwich City in March 1975. In total, he made over 600 appearances for West Ham and Spurs between them over fifteen years.

1 ? ? Jimmy Greaves

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But it's the other part of that swap deal that tops this list. Spurs paid £150,000 in cash for Martin Peters in 1970, but it was the £50,000 departure of Jimmy Greaves in the opposite direction as the makeweight in that deal that really caught the eye.

Greaves had started his career with an incredible 132 goals in 169 appearances for Chelsea, but it was his 1961 move to Milan which opened up the door for Spurs to sign him.

The striker had misgivings about moving to Italy in the first place and regretted his decision almost immediately, but Milan refused to annul the deal and Greaves spent six unhappy months in Italy before transferring to Spurs for £99,999 the following December, a fee which was intentionally left a pound short of breaking the £100,000 barrier so as not to turn the pressure up under the player upon his return to England.

By the time of his departure to West Ham just over eight years later, he'd scored a club-record 268 goals in 381 appearances, winning the FA Cup twice and the European Cup Winners Cup. And initially it seemed like his signature was a bargain. He'd only just turned thirty years old, and he marked his West Ham debut by overcoming near-impossible conditions to score twice in a 5-1 win at Manchester City.

Greaves only remained at West Ham until the end of the 1970-71 season, with his growing alcohol dependence and consequent fitness issues becoming an increasing issue. But while his spell at The Boleyn Ground didn't go well, the striker ended his career with 366 top-flight goals, which remained a record in Europe's "big five" leagues until it was broken by Cristiano Ronaldo in 2017. His passing in 2021 was met with a heartfelt tribute from West Ham United.