Earlier this summer man and beast fought under the scorching Florida sun for almost half an hour. The man was compact, but superfit 21-year-old Nigel Reo-Coker, indulging his deep-sea fishing passion; the beast was a barracuda shark. It was “this big”, chuckles the victor, slowly pulling his hands to over a metre apart; fractionally reducing the gap on being greeted with a raised eyebrow.

“Reeling it in was hard, believe me,” he continues, at West Ham United’s Chadwell Heath training ground in Essex. “I thought I might be going overboard at one point.”

He would like to fish more — it soothes and thrills — but nothing in Britain compares with the Miami coast. Still, wherever Reo-Coker goes, that shark is going with him.

“I’m getting it professionally stuffed and flown over,” he confides sheepishly. “I’m in a flat now, but when I move into my house, it’s on the mantelpiece.”

If the barracuda had known who was at the end of the rod, it might have put up a less ferocious struggle. Reo-Coker usually gets others to do what he wants. He is a born leader.

“From a very early age I’ve been complimented on my leadership skills,” he explains. “It just came naturally. All my school reports said I talked too much, but I was always the first to be selected to do speeches and always the leader of school projects.”

At Wimbledon, Reo-Coker was installed as captain of a free-falling first team at just 19. “Wimbledon were a one-off club from top to bottom,” he insists. “We all mixed in and everyone was really polite with everyone. It was a fantastic family atmosphere — people such as Jobi McAnuff, Mikele Leigertwood, Wade Small and Malvin Kamara who’re practically family. We still keep in touch because of how close and tight we were back in our youth-team days.”

Even so, in January 2004 Wimbledon were already doomed to Division One. When West Ham came seeking a replacement for the fading Steve Lomas in their misfiring midfield, Reo-Coker was listening. “As soon as West Ham were interested, I knew I had to come. It’s not very often you get a club as big as West Ham coming after you, especially at my age. I’d heard a lot about Alan Pardew and was excited at the thought of working with him.”

Reo-Coker was the long-term fulcrum of Pardew’s post- Glenn Roeder revolution. Of the players who made their Hammers debuts that month, Jon Harley, Andy Melville, Adam Nowland and McAnuff were short-term hirelings. Only Reo-Coker and perennial substitute Bobby Zamora remain.

The season ended in despair with a supine playoff defeat to Crystal Palace (Reo-Coker’s other suitors) in Cardiff. His substitute appearance was notable only for a yellow card. Last January, defeat at home to Derby County — their third in succession — pushed West Ham to ninth. Pardew’s tenure looked finite, Reo-Coker’s form suffered (although he was playing with what turned out to be pleurisy) and this season seemed to promise only another trip to Gresty Road.

“I never believed that,” he says. “You can never write anyone off: nobody expected Northern Ireland to beat England. I always believed West Ham would get promoted.”

Opprobrium from the terraces and beyond was unrelenting. “The criticism drove the team on,” says Reo-Coker. “It made us stronger, both as individuals and as a team. The manager kept his dignity, stuck by his players and got his reward. We got to a point where we’d had enough of being unfairly criticised, so we thought, ‘Right, we’re going to muck in together and express ourselves’. Without that negative criticism we might never have been promoted. You see, every action has a reaction.”

So it does. And when West Ham returned to Cardiff to face Preston, the die was cast.

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