JLLOYD Samuel, John Terry and Ashley Cole have come a long, long way since trudging through the muddy pitches of Wanstead Flats as 11-year-olds.

The three east-enders will re-united in the more grandeur surroundings of the Reebok Stadium, with the Wanderers full-back aiming to dent Chelsea’s title charge.

Although they will line-up on opposite sides tomorrow afternoon, both Samuel and Terry once played for the same team at the renowned Senrab club in Walthamstow. And their’s was a team with a difference.

Playing alongside the pair were future footballing stars Paul Konchesky, Bobby Zamora and Ledley King, and they would regularly cross swords on a Sunday morning with future England internationals Scott Parker and Cole who, in those days, was scoring 100 goals a season as a centre-forward.

As the famous lager advert said...if Carlsberg made junior leagues.

Most of Senrab’s famous crop of youngsters, including Samuel and Terry, found a route into professional football via the West Ham football academy.

And the 27-year-old Whites defender looks back with some fondness at his days splashing around in the mud in the Waltham Forest Sunday League “We didn’t lose many games,“ he smiled. “I don’t think they will have had so many players in the same team before. It was a bit of a freak.

“There were only really two teams who used to compete with us. Scott Parker’s old team from South London and Ashley Cole’s team, Puma.

“We won a lot of trophies but we weren’t scouted to go to Senrab – we just all ended up in the same place.”

Samuel still keeps in contact with some of his former Sunday League friends, especially Cole, who grew up on the same estate.

He has lost touch with Terry, but remembers how the England skipper started on the road to stardom as a “short and stumpy midfielder” back in his junior days.

“John has always been a good footballer and I always thought he would go on to be a creative midfielder,” he recalled.

“He wasn’t captain – back then Kemi Izzet (brother of former Aston Villa midfielder Muzzy) was captain.

“You can see by how comfortable he is on the ball now and his presence has always been there, even at an early age. But he has certainly shot up – he was quite short and stumpy back then.”

Other Senrab graduates include Sol Campbell, Muzzy Izzet, Lee Bowyer, Jermain Defoe, Ade Akinbiyi and Darren Purse, with Dario Gradi and Alan Curbishley also cutting their coaching teeth at the east London club. And the conveyor belt continues to roll, with Samuel having high hopes for his 11-year-old brother Jemal.

“My little brother plays for them now, he’s a big lad, a centre-half, so hopefully he’ll be better than I am,” he said. “I went back to watch him the other week and it has hardly changed. It’s quite scary.

“I didn’t get the privilege of going in the changing rooms, but from what I can remember they weren’t the biggest.

“It wasn’t too bad growing up there, though. As a kid you’ll play anywhere.”

Even though the weather has turned Wanderers’ Euxton base into a scene reminiscent of his east London days – Samuel says the side are focused on derailing Chelsea’s unbeaten run away from Stamford Bridge. Victory for the Whites could move them into the top six, and the full-back insists they will not freeze on the big occasion.

“It is always cold in Bolton to be honest but I think on the pitch it has warmed up recently. We want to push on now,” he said. “I don’t think we have changed a lot of the pitch recently. We have kept plugging away but now the goals are threre.

“We have got to go again on Saturday and see if we can keep our good run going.”