DECEMBER 6th

On December 6th 1930, just 469 spectators turned up for the Saturday afternoon Division 3 South match between Thames and Luton Town. The crowd was "lost" in the home ground of Thames, the 100,000+ capacity old West Ham Stadium (not Upton Park).  Luton’s share of the receipts was 1s 7d (8p) which they paid by postal order and which Luton framed and displayed in their boardroom. The complete histopry of the two clubs playing in thre Football League is shown below.

06 Dec 1930	Thames v Luton Town	W	1-0	Division Three (South)
11 Apr 1931	Luton Town v Thames	L	8-0	Division Three (South)
19 Sep 1931	Luton Town v Thames	L	2-0	Division Three (South)
30 Jan 1932	Thames v Luton Town	L	2-4	Division Three (South)

Thames Association Football Club was an English club from Custom House, east London (at the time part of Essex), formed in 1928, who briefly played in EFL between 1930 and 1932. Unlike other AFCs such as Sunderland AFC, the word Association was initially presented as part of the club name – i.e. Thames Association or Thames Association FC. The "Association" was abbreviated upon joining the Football League, giving the team the more regular name of Thames AFC. Thames AFC was founded in 1928, in a similar manner to Sheffield United, Liverpool, New Brighton Tower and nearby Chelsea, that is to play on a ground which had no football club in residence. In Thames' case, they were formed by a group of businessmen who had built the West Hame Stadium, with a capacity of 120,000, in the Custom House area of Essex (now part of the London Borough of Newham in Greater London). The stadium was primarily used for greyhound and scramble racing, which took place during the week, leaving Saturdays free. The directors of the stadium decided to form a professional football club to play on Saturdays, to bring in additional revenue to the stadium.

The club began playing in the Southern League, Eastern Division, and finished 14th in their first season and third in the season after that 1929-30. This was enough for them to gain election to the FL Division Three South, in the summer of 1930, replacing Merthyr Town who did not get re-elected to the League. Their request to join the league was considered alongside applications from Aldershot, Lanelli and Argonauts. The success of their application required them to suddenly upgrade the quality of the team. To achieve this objective, the newly promoted club placed an advert for "First Class Players Wanted. All Positions" in the June edition of the Athletic News. Thames continued to field a reserve side in the Southern League for a single further season, before withdrawing entirely in 1931.

Thames' spell in the Football League was a short and unhappy one. The club struggled to attract spectators. It established a supporters group, which at one point had over 1,000 members. However, this effort did not translate into a reliable supporter base that would regularly attend matches. Despite the stadium's capacity of 120,000 (making it the largest ground in England to regularly host League football), the club holds the record for the lowest known attendance for a Saturday Football League match; just 469 fans paid to watch Thames play Luton Town on 6 December 1930.

Unable to compete with established teams nearby, such as Charlton Athletic, Clapton, Millwall and West Ham Utd. Thames struggled. By December 1931, the club was under severe financial pressure. To keep the club afloat, the players agreed to take a pay cut. They finished 20th out of 22 clubs in 1930-1, and 22nd (i.e., bottom) the following season (1931-2). This prompted the club directors' decision not to seek re-election to the League for the following season and wind up the club, despite an approach from Clapton Orient to merge the two clubs. They were replaced by Aldershot.

Thames AFC should not be confused with Thames Ironworks FC, a club that had predated them by over 30 years, and would go on to be renamed West Ham Utd.

On the same date BUT in 1977, six months after moving to Hamburg, Kevin Keegan (remember him?) was back in Liverpool when the clubs met in the European Super Cup. It was not a happy return, a Terry McDermott hat-trick helping Liverpool to a 6-0 victory on the night, a 7-1 aggregate win.