FORMER West Ham striker Clyde Best will be one of a number of world-class sportsmen and women to be honoured next month at the inaugural Caribbean Awards Sports Icons (CASI) in Jamaica.

Best, along with such stars as former Manchester United striker Dwight Yorke from Trinidad, cricketers Michael Holding, Courtney Walsh, Sir Vivian Richards, Brian Lara, Sir Garfield Sobers and Clive Lloyd, will join track athletes Merlene Ottey, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Don Quarrie and Hasely Crawford at the presentation at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel next Friday.

But yesterday Best, who is also a Mid-Ocean News Sports columnist, said he had not heard about the awards. "However a friend of mine (from the West Indies) was trying to call me the other day so perhaps that is what it is about," said Best who played for West Ham from 1969 to 1975.

Of the awards Best said: "I think it is great and a fantastic honour for me especially when you think about all those other sportsmen and women who are being honoured. To be in their company is great. I also think it is about time the Caribbean had awards like this ¿ we sometimes are behind the rest of the world in these sorts of the things. We should be proud of our sports people."

The gala event is the brainchild of Jamaican-born, London-based Al Hamilton. At a press briefing held at the Jamaica Pegasus this week Hamilton, the founder of the Commonwealth Sports Awards held annually in London, said the whole idea of this new award is to look at the contribution that sports persons have made within the region at the highest level.

He told the Jamaican Gleaner: "It dawned on me, when I researched the situation, that there were no awards of this kind in the Caribbean. So, I felt that this was something I would like to do before I depart this earth. We had a nomination committee which looked at people since 1948. The criteria for selection was that you must have performed at the highest level over the past 60 years."

Hamilton added that they also wanted to ensure that the legacy of the athletes is recognised when they are alive rather than when they are gone.