Brooking spent almost his entire career at West Ham United, making 647 appearances for the club.

Since retiring from playing, he has taken up a number of positions in broadcasting as an on-air analyst and in football and sports administration.

[4] His father took him to see his first West Ham United game at Upton Park, a 1–1 draw against Liverpool on 19 April 1958, when he was nine years old.

[4] In June 1967, Brooking made his senior debut in a friendly for West Ham against Grasshopper Zürich in Switzerland.

[7] His league debut came in place of wide-right Brian Dear on 29 August 1967 in a 3–3 draw with Burnley at Turf Moor.

[10] The club signed Peter Eustace for £90,000 to take his place; his recovery took longer than expected, and he considered giving up the game.

[10] However, he returned to playing and with the departure of Martin Peters to Tottenham in March 1970, Brooking became a regular in midfield.

His place in the side came under threat in the 1971–72 season with the purchase of midfielder Tommy Taylor, and Brooking was transfer-listed at his request.

[12] During the 1972–73 season he came to the attention of Derby County manager Brian Clough, who offered West Ham £400,000 for Brooking and Moore.

[19] During the 1984 New Zealand National Soccer League season, Brooking made a single appearance for Manurewa, playing in a 2–2 draw against Auckland University.

[20] Brooking accepted an invitation to play for Blue Star in a Wearside League game against Coundon on 28 April 1985.

Playing for only the last half-hour of the game, Brooking forced one excellent save from the Spanish goalkeeper, Luis Arconada, but with England needing to win to qualify for the semi-final a 0–0 draw saw them eliminated.

[30] Early in his career he was vulnerable to being out-muscled by opposition players (leading his teammates to nickname him 'Cyril' after Cyril Lord the carpet salesman, as Ron Greenwood told him "you're always on the floor").

[42] He was a key part of the selection process for the successor of Sven-Göran Eriksson, revealed in May 2006 to be Steve McClaren.

[46] In 1970, along with schoolfriend Colin McGowan, Brooking started a book binding company, Colbrook Plastics Limited in Stratford, East London.

[51] A stand at the London Stadium is also named after Brooking and used by West Ham after their move from the Boleyn Ground from the start of the 2016–17 season.

The great thing was being able to spend my whole career with West Ham, having a stint as caretaker manager and as a director.