Sporting legend Clyde Best has been given the red-carpet treatment in London this evening at the glitzy premiere of a film about his life and his impact on the world of football.

Mr Best, 75, was joined by family and friends from Bermuda and a raft of well-known Black British soccer players ahead of the first official screening of Transforming the Beautiful Game — The Clyde Best Story at Sadler's Wells East in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford.

The venue is packed with West Ham fans and former players, film industry and sports professionals and media.

They are lining up to meet Mr Best, the former Somerset Trojans striker who left Bermuda as a teen in 1968 for trials at West Ham United and became one of the first Black players in the English Football League.

His former West Ham team-mates Ade Coker and Brian Dear were among the VIPs walking the red carpet tonight, as was British household name Les Ferdinand, a former striker and coach turned TV pundit, who played briefly for the East End club in 2003.

Luton Town player and Bermudian Nahki Wells greeted Mr Best on the red carpet with a hug.

Speaking to The Royal Gazette at the event, Mr Best said he came with an “entourage of about 20” from Bermuda, including daughter Kimberley.

“I’m just thrilled that we were able to get to the finish line,” he said of the film.

Recalling his days on the pitch, he said: “I gave 100 per cent.”

David Burt, the Premier — a devoted West Ham fan — Dennis Lister, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, and Jaché Adams, the public works and environment minister, are at the premiere, having been at a meeting with British lawmakers on Monday at Westminster.

Mr Burt said he was able to make the event after a meeting in Cyprus was cancelled.

The Premier said he was thrilled for those in Bermuda who wanted Mr Best’s story to be told on film.

Describing the “significant adversity” that Mr Best endured in Britain, he added: “He managed to persevere. It’s something that should be told.”

Mr Lister said: “It’s long overdue.”

The feature-length documentary film about Mr Best, several years in the making, details his life and explores the extraordinary impact his inclusion in West Ham’s first team in the 1960s and 1970s had on Black players who followed him into the sport.

Many of them appear in the movie to describe how he withstood the racism he encountered from the terraces and shone on the pitch, inspiring future generations of Black players.

The much-anticipated film was directed by Dan Egan, who played football at school in Maine with Mr Best’s nephew Jerry and later met Clyde during the America’s Cup.

He was inspired to launch the project after reading Mr Best’s 2016 autobiography The Acid Test, which opens with an account of an anonymous letter the player received in 1971 threatening him with an acid attack on the field.

The documentary was shown to Mr Best and a small group of close friends and family at a closed screening in the Athene Lecture Theatre at the Bermuda College, in January but tonight marks its first foray into the wider world.

It runs at Sadler’s Wells East until Saturday and will be shown in Bermuda at the Earl Cameron Theatre, City Hall, on April 21 and 22, and at the Ruth Seaton James Centre for the Performing Arts from April 23 to 26.

Tickets are available at clydebest.shop.