Sunday 22 April 2012

Nostalgia - Yilmaz Orhan

I've decided to start putting some regular nostalgia on here mainly West Ham related but also other stuff :)
I'm going to start with a player probably better known in America than the UK.
Yilmaz Orhan was a Cypriot immigrant who I actually saw playing for one of my local sides Aveley before he signed for West Ham in 1976 so I was interested to see how he would do, he did reasonably well in the combination (reserves) side and made the subs bench for the first team on a couple of ocassions.
I first saw him play in a Hammers shirt in a home match against Liverpool who were the top team of the day, he played OK but they ran rings round us and we lost 4-0 and Orhan hardly played again, in all he only made 6 full and 2 sub appearances.
The following year he went off to try his luck in America joining Team Hawaii before going on to play for 14 different teams over the next 10 years in the States mainly in their Indoor soccer league which used to be shown late at night on British TV, while playing for Kansas City Comets he scored 63 goals with 40 assists in only 76 games followed by 49 goals in only 47 games for the Memphis Americans.
It wasn't all roses for Orhan though as he was traded by Kansas after a fight with the trainer and being busted for Cocaine posession.

5 comments:

  1. Does anyone know the whereabouts of Yilmaz Orhan? I'm researching a book on the 77 Hammers who played for John Lyall in West Ham's first team and Yilmaz is one of them. My email is tcrane183@gmail.com

    Thank you for any help

    Best

    Tim

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  2. Does anyone know the whereabouts of Yilmaz Orhan? I am researching a book on the 77 Hammers who played for John Lyall in West Ham's first team. My email is tcrane183@gmail.com.

    Thank you for your help

    ReplyDelete
  3. Not really heard of him for about 30 years, and nothing on the internet? sorry

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  4. He lives in Las Vegas and still plays football locally although at a much slower pace, but great player nonetheless !!!

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  5. He resides part time in Las Vegas , NV USA ...still plays football locally but at a much slower pace, but great player nonetheless !!!

    ReplyDelete