West Ham Club Information

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About West Ham United

West Ham United Football Club is an English football club based in Upton Park, London Borough of Newham, East London, and have played their home matches at the 35,303 capacity Boleyn Ground stadium since 1904.

The club was originally founded as Thames Ironworks F.C. in 1895 and later reformed, in 1900, as their current incarnation. They initially competed in the Southern League and Western League before joining the full Football League in 1919 and enjoyed their first top flight season in 1923, also featuring in the first FA Cup Final to be held at Wembley. The club, who have spent their entire league career in the top two divisions, have been FA Cup winners three times: in 1964, 1975 and 1980. In 1965, they won the Cup Winners Cup (now defunct), and in 1999 they won the Intertoto Cup. They also won the first War Cup in 1940. The club's best final league position is third place in the 1985-86 (old) First Division. West Ham currently holds the dubious distinction of being the only team to breach the 40 point boundary in a 38-game Premier League season and still be relegated (in 2003).

I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles

The team's supporters are well known for their rendition of the chorus of their team's anthem, "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" introduced to the club by former manager Charlie Paynter in the late 1920s. At the time, a Pears soap commercial featuring the curly haired child in the Millais "Bubbles" painting who resembled a player Billy J. "Bubbles" Murray in a local schoolboy team of Park School for whom the headmaster Cornelius Beal coined singing the tune "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" with amended lyrics.

Beal was a friend of Paynter, whilst Murray was a West Ham trialist and played football at schoolboy level with a number of West Ham players such as Jim Barrett. Through this contrivance of association the clubs fans took it upon themselves to begin singing the popular music hall tune before home games, sometimes reinforced by the presence of a house band requested to play the refrain by Charlie Paynter.

There is a slight change to the lyrics sung by the Upton Park faithful. The second line's "nearly reach the sky" is changed to "they reach the sky", "Then like my dreams" is also changed to "And like my dreams". In addition the fans begin a chant of "United, United!" to cap it off.

Nicknames

The fans and club alike are known as "The Hammers" by the media, partly because of the club's origins as Thames Ironworks company football team (see club crest) and also (incorrectly) due to the club's name. However, they are also known as "The Irons" by their own supporters (again, from the club's origins at the Thames Ironworks). They are also known as "The Cockney Boys" from their history of being a cockney team. Yet another nickname is "The Academy of Football", or just "The Academy", a nickname given, then adopted by West Ham United by the media.

The Academy of Football

The club promotes the popular idea of West Ham being "The Academy of Football", with the monicker adorning the ground's new stadium façade. The comment predominantly refers to the club's youth development system which was established by Manager Ted Fenton during the 1950s, that has seen a number of international players emerge through the ranks. Most notably the club contributed three players to the World Cup winning England side of 1966 including club icon Bobby Moore, as well as Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst who between them scored all of England's goals in the eventual 4-2 victory.

Other academy players that have gone on to play for England have included Trevor Brooking, Alvin Martin, Tony Cottee and Paul Ince. More recently, Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick, Glen Johnson, and Frank Lampard have begun their careers at the club. Frustratingly, for the fans and managers alike, the club has struggled to retain many of these players due to (predominantly) financial reasons. West Ham, during the 2007/08 season, had an average of 6.61 English players in the starting line up, higher than any other Premiership club, which cemented their status as one of the few Premier League clubs left that were recognised to be bringing through young English talent and were recognised as having 'homegrown players'.