West Ham United F.C.
West Ham United Football Club is a professional football club based in Stratford, East London, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club plays at the London Stadium, having moved from their former home, the Boleyn Ground, in 2016.
West Ham United was founded in 1895 as Thames Ironworks and reformed in 1900 as West Ham United. It moved to the Boleyn Ground, which remained its home ground for more than a century, in 1904. The team initially competed in the Southern League and Western League before joining the Football League in 1919. It was promoted to the top flight in 1923, when it was also losing finalist in the first FA Cup final held at Wembley. In 1940, the club won the inaugural Football League War Cup.
West Ham United has won five major honours in its history. Domestically, it has been winner of the FA Cup three times and runner-up twice. In European competitions, the club has reached three major European finals winning the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1965, finishing runner-up in the same competitions in 1976, and winning the second edition of the Conference League in 2023. The club has also won one minor European trophy by winning the Intertoto Cup in 1999. West Ham United is one of eight clubs never to have fallen below the second tier of English football, spending 68 of 100 league seasons in the top flight, up to and including the 2025–26 season. The club's highest league position to date came in 1985–86, when it achieved third place in the then First Division.
Three West Ham players were members of the 1966 World Cup finals-winning England team: captain Bobby Moore and goalscorers Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters. The club has a long-standing rivalry with Millwall, and the fixture has gained notoriety for frequent incidents of football hooliganism. West Ham adopted their claret, sky blue and white colour scheme in the early 1900s, with the most common iteration of a claret shirt and sky blue sleeves first emerging in 1904.
History
Origins
The earliest generally accepted incarnation of West Ham United was founded in 1895 as Thames Ironworks F.C., the works team of the largest and last surviving shipbuilder on the Thames, Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, by foreman and local league referee Dave Taylor and owner Arnold Hills and was announced in the Thames Ironworks Gazette of June 1895. Thames Ironworks was based in Leamouth Wharf in Blackwall and Canning Town on both banks of the River Lea, where the Lea meets the Thames. Thames Ironworks built many ships and other structures, the most famous being. The last ship built there was the dreadnought in 1912 and the yard shut soon after.The repair yard of the Castle Shipping Line was a very near neighbour and their work team, initially known as the Castle Swifts, would informally merge with the Thames Ironworks own team.
The team played on a strictly amateur basis for 1895 at least, with a team featuring a number of works employees. Thomas Freeman was a ships fireman and Walter Parks, a clerk. Johnny Stewart, Walter Tranter and James Lindsay were all boilermakers. Other employees included William Chapman, George Sage and Fred Chamberlain, as well as apprentice riveter Charlie Dove, who was to have a great influence on the club's future at a later date.
Thames Ironworks won the West Ham Charity Cup, contested by clubs in the West Ham locality, in 1895, then won the London League in 1897. They turned professional in 1898 upon entering the Southern League Second Division, and were promoted to the First Division at the first attempt. The following year they came second from bottom, but had established themselves as a fully-fledged competitive team. They comfortably fended off the challenge of local rivals Fulham in a relegation play-off, 5–1 in late April 1900 and retained their First Division status.
The team initially played in full dark blue kits, as inspired by Mr. Hills, who had been an Oxford University "Blue", but changed the following season by adopting the sky blue shirts and white shorts combination worn from 1897 to 1899.
Following growing disputes over the running and financing of the club, in June 1900 Thames Ironworks F.C. was disbanded, then almost immediately relaunched as West Ham United F.C. – reflecting the West Ham, London district where they played – on 5 July 1900 with Syd King as their manager and future manager Charlie Paynter as his assistant. Because of the original "works team" roots and links, they are still known as "the Irons" or "the Hammers" amongst fans and the media.
Birth of West Ham United (1901–1961)
West Ham United joined the Western League for the 1901 season while also continuing to play in the Southern Division 1. In 1907, West Ham were crowned the Western League Division 1B Champions, and then defeated 1A champions Fulham 1–0 to become the Western League Overall Champions. The reborn club continued to play their games at the Memorial Grounds in Plaistow but moved to a pitch in the Upton Park area in the guise of the Boleyn Ground stadium in 1904. West Ham's first game in their new home was against fierce rivals Millwall drawing a crowd of 10,000 and with West Ham running out 3–0 winners, and as the Daily Mirror wrote on 2 September 1904, "Favoured by the weather turning fine after heavy rains of the morning, West Ham United began their season most auspiciously yesterday evening; when they beat Millwall by 3 goals to 0 on their new enclosure at Upton Park."In 1919, still under King's leadership, West Ham gained entrance to the Football League Second Division, their first game being a 1–1 draw with Lincoln City, and were promoted to the First Division in 1923, also making it to the first ever FA Cup final to be held at the old Wembley Stadium. Their opponents were Bolton Wanderers. This was also known as the "White Horse final", where nearly 300,000 people came to see the match. Overcrowding led to the crowd spilling out on to the pitch, which had to be cleared prior to kick-off by "Billie", a giant white horse being ridden by PC George Scorey. The cup final match itself ended 2–0 to Bolton. The team enjoyed mixed success in the First Division but retained their status for ten years and reached the FA Cup semi-final in 1933.
In 1932, the club was relegated to the Second Division and long-term custodian Syd King was sacked after serving the club in the role of manager for 32 years, and as a player from 1899 to 1903. Following relegation, King had mental health problems. He appeared drunk at a board meeting and killed himself soon after. He was replaced with his assistant manager Charlie Paynter, who himself had been with West Ham in a number of roles since 1897 and who went on to serve the team in this role until 1950 for a total of 480 games.
At the start of the 1939-1940 season, the club has assembled a group of players that Charlie Paynter believed was the most talented he'd managed. This included local men brought through the youth team such as Len Goulden, an England regular, and successful signings from the English and Scottish Leagues. There was hope for promotion and a successful new era until war broke out three matches into the season and league football was suspended for six years.
Although league competition was suspended, the War Cup was played in place of the FA Cup for the duration of hostilities. In June 1940 the club won its first major trophy, winning the War Cup by beating first division Blackburn Rovers 1–0 at Wembley Stadium. The club spent most of the next thirty years in the second division, first under Paynter and then later under the leadership of former player Ted Fenton.
Fenton succeeded in getting the club promoted back to the top level of English football in 1958. With the considerable input of player Malcolm Allison, Fenton helped develop both the initial batch of future West Ham stars and West Ham's approach to the game.
Glory years (1961–1986)
was appointed as Fenton's successor in 1961 and soon led the club to two major trophies, winning the 1964 FA Cup Final. The team was led by the young Bobby Moore. West Ham also won the European Cup Winners' Cup the following year. During the 1966 World Cup, key members of the tournament winners England were West Ham players, including the captain, Bobby Moore; Martin Peters ; and Geoff Hurst, who scored the first hat-trick in a World Cup final. All three players had come through the youth team at West Ham.There is a "Champions" statue in Barking Road, opposite The Boleyn Tavern, commemorating West Ham's "three sons" who helped win the 1966 World Cup: Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters. Also included on the statue is Everton's Ray Wilson.
After a difficult start to the 1974–75 season, Greenwood moved himself "upstairs" to become general manager and, without informing the board, appointed his assistant John Lyall as team manager. The result was instant success – the team scored 20 goals in their first four games and won the FA Cup, becoming the last team to win the FA Cup with an all-English side when they beat Fulham 2–0 in the 1975 final. The Fulham team included two former England captains, Alan Mullery and West Ham legend Bobby Moore. Lyall then guided West Ham to another European Cup Winners' Cup final in 1976, though the team lost the match 4–2 to Belgian side Anderlecht. Greenwood's tenure as general manager lasted less than three years, as he was appointed to manage England in the wake of Don Revie's resignation in 1977.
In 1978, West Ham were again relegated to the Second Division, but Lyall was retained as manager and led the team to victory in the 1980 FA Cup final with a 1–0 win against Arsenal, the most recent time a team from outside the top flight has won the FA Cup. They reached the final by defeating Everton in the semi-final. West Ham were promoted to the First Division in 1981, and finished in the top ten of the First Division for the next three seasons before achieving their highest-ever league finish of third in 1985–86; a group of players which came to be known as The Boys of 86.