Cockney Rejects

Jeff Turner of the Cockney Rejects talks West Ham's anthem and his disdain for Robbie Savage.

Jeff Turner of the Cockney Rejects talks having a hit with West Ham's anthem and his disdain for Robbie Savage.

Not many football fans can say they have recorded a hit cover of their team's anthem but Cockney Rejects frontman Jeff Turner has that exact achievement under his belt. A fierce West Ham supporter, Turner admits the "greatest days of his life" came back in 1980 when the Hammers celebrated FA Cup glory to the soundtrack of the Rejects' punk cover of 'I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles'. With the frontman's passion for his beloved club burning just as brightly some thirty years later, it's no surprise the East London punk heroes are still strongly interweaved with the Clarets and Blues. With 'rockumentary' East End Babylon, the story behind the Cockney Rejects, set to premiere at London's KOKO club on Thursday, Sky Sports caught up with Turner to chat about the highs and lows of being a Hammers fan.

West Ham

I was born in Custom House, about a mile from the ground, so it's in your blood. My granddad played in goal for West Ham, I think it was from about 1912-1914, he made 31 appearances. His name was John Geggus but people called him Jack. By all accounts he was useless, so no change there. When I was 10 or 11 years old I'd meet with my mates at the top of my road and in those days you could just walk over to the ground, queue up and pay and you used to get in there for 1 o'clock just to stand in the North Bank. We recorded 'Bubbles' in 1980. We were very lucky because we'd only been in existence for 12, 13 months but everything happened really quickly. Obviously we got to the cup final that year and it really went global, and still to this day it's a standard. I've always been proud of it, those must have been the greatest days of my life. How do you rate your promotion chances? I'll be honest, I don't think we'll go up this season. I know it's pessimistic, but every time we come down, I remember we were relegated in 1978, it took us three seasons to get up. I remember being relegated again in 1989 and it took us two or three seasons to get up, then again in 2002-03. I think we've blown our chance and to be honest, if West Ham did go up, although the fan base and everything has the structure of a Premier League team, player-wise we can't cut it. Sometimes I think what is the point of going up just to get a payment when you're going to be getting hidings from Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham every week? It's disheartening. We should be a Premier League team but I know with the team that they've got there, there's probably two players that could cut it in the Premier League. It's going to be a struggle but I've accepted our fate now. If you don't expect anything you're not disappointed.

West Ham v Chelsea, August 1970

My dad took me over there when I was about seven, when West Ham drew with Chelsea. I think it was 1970 and it was a 2-2 draw. You could take in a beer crate in those days and stand your kids on it - you'd never be allowed to do it now. All I remember is we went 2-0 up, but they'd just signed a player, Chelsea, called Keith Weller. They'd signed him from Millwall, and that hurt. He made his debut for Chelsea that day and he came back and got two goals. I can't remember who scored for us, but I think Clyde Best might have scored. In the second half they were all over us.

Bobby Moore

My first hero would obviously have been Bobby Moore. It doesn't get any better than that really. I might be biased but he was England captain, a supreme ambassador of the game and a terrific player. The first player after that to really catch my eye, when I thought just how good is this fella, was Trevor Brooking. Nowadays he'd be worth £30/40million. The nearest player I've seen to him, maybe a better version who played very much like him, is Zinedine Zidane. Brooking never had great pace or anything but he had guile, he had great skill. Then going into the late 1970s, early 1980s, my favourite player was Alan Devonshire - he was an absolutely brilliant player - and obviously Billy Bonds, who was probably the greatest player never to win an England cap.

Robbie Savage

To be honest, in the 1970s I liked a lot of the players, even the hard players like Ron Harris from Chelsea and Norman Hunter, they were old school. I suppose one that was old school but useless was Vinnie Jones but he wore his heart on his sleeve. I couldn't stand Robbie Savage and I can't even watch him on the telly now. I thought he was a rubbish player, he was a snidey player, always complaining and diving. What he's doing as a pundit I don't know. They should take him off and put me on there. I admired the entertainers in the day, like Stan Bowles, Frank Worthington and players like that. They brought a bit of magic. When you think of it, they weren't earning that much more than a brick-layer or a plumber, so you could kind of relate to those people more.