Mohammed Kudus became the first player since Scott Parker 14 years previously to leave West Ham United for Premier League neighbours Tottenham Hotspur earlier this month.
After a prolonged negotiation, Daniel Levy convinced David Sullivan to accept a bid of £54.5 million.
Mohammed Kudus could not resist Champions League football in North London, meanwhile, even if a highly-contentious departure took a sledgehammer to any remaining goodwill held towards him at West Ham United.
Kudus is only the fifth player in the last 22 years to swap the claret and blue kit for the bright white of Spurs.
Scott Parker was the most recent, coming back in 2011, while Michael Carrick, Freddie Kanoute and Jermain Defoe made the short trip across the capital shortly after the Millennium.
Speaking to talkSPORT this week, meanwhile, one-time Tottenham midfielder Jamie O’Hara admits that he could have joined a very exclusive club too by moving in the other direction as part of the deal which took a baby-faced Defoe to White Hart Lane two decades ago.
Jamie O’Hara explains why he did not leave Tottenham Hotspur for West Ham United
In the end, it was Bobby Zamora who joined West Ham as part of that Defoe agreement.
Had a teenage O’Hara felt differently, he could have made the move to Upton Park as well. Instead, the boyhood Spurs fanatic opted to remain 12 miles north before making his senior debut under Juande Ramos later down the line.
MORE WEST HAM STORIES
“Sunderland wanted me. Birmingham wanted me as well when they had Barry Ferguson in midfield,” O’Hara recalls, when asked if he saw any potential transfers fall through during his playing career.
“I thought he was a good player Barry. I thought I would go there and play alongside him but they had a couple of other players [in my position], so I wasn’t sure if Birmingham was the right place.
“West Ham wanted to do a deal when Jermain Defoe was coming the other way. They wanted me to go to West Ham but I didn’t want to go to West Ham. It was a good club but I didn’t want to go there.
“There were a few. I could have gone to Malaga as well! A bit of Marbella…”
A former England Under-21 international turned ‘shock jock’, O’Hara would go on to play 103 Premier League games for Tottenham, Portsmouth and Wolves albeit without ever really establishing himself among the elite.
Zamora, in contrast, provided some of the most memorable moments of the Alan Pardew era at West Ham. The winner against Preston North End in the 2005 Championship play-off final, for instance, plus that infamous strike in a 3-2 win away to Arsenal.
He now works as a forward coach at another of his old employers; Brighton and Hove Albion.
Evan Ferguson leaves Brighton for Roma as Bobby Zamora backs him for success
Bobby Zamora remains a big fan of Evan Ferguson, a footballer he knows very well from his time at the Amex, despite the Irishman’s ill-fated loan spell at West Ham last season.
The one-time Seagulls sensation escaped the glare of the Premier League this week when securing a potential £34 million move to Roma.
“I did some Malaysian TV recently with Bobby Zamora. He goes into Brighton once a week and coaches the strikers. Bobby said Evan was the best finisher at the club,” former Newcastle and Man City goalkeeper Shay Given told the Scottish Sun recently.
“I think Evan just needs to find a home, if I’m being honest. Be it here or somewhere else. I think he needs someone to say ‘You’re my player.’
“He went to West Ham for Graham Potter and you thought that was the perfect fit because Graham had him at Brighton, but then he didn’t play so much at West Ham either. [Michail] Antonio was injured. Yet, they played [Jarrod] Bowen and [Mohammed] Kudus, not Ferguson.
“What happens next for Evan? I just think he needs to go, be it a loan for a season or some club buys him, and you build the team around him. I think he’s a top player, I really do.