THE HAMMERS FROM 1900

5th July 1900
Turning the clock back to 1900 there was just one London club playing in the Football League - Arsenal, then Woolwich Arsenal. Of the smaller London clubs, the Thames Ironworks club was starting to make a bit of a name for itself. The club was founded in 1895 as the works side of the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company. The 1897/98 season saw them finish as London League Champions, while they ended in the next season, the 1898/99, as Southern League Second Division champions!! A poor season followed in the Southern League First Division with admin and financial problems seeing the club disband in June 1900. 

Then on 5th July 1900 the club reformed under a new name and took over the place in the Southern League left vacant by Thames Ironworks. The new club retained most of the Ironworks players as well as the old clubs nicknames - The Hammers and the Irons - but the new official club name was to become reasonably well known in years to come....West Ham United!!

The club now 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. The club was promoted to the top flight in 1923, when it was also losing finalist, to Bolton Wanderers in the first FA Cup Final held at Wembley. The aerial photo shows the FA Cup Final "fully" overcrowded at Wembley. AND here is a copy of the historic programme.

In 1940, the club won the inaugural Football League War Cup.

Prior to 1923, the FA Cup Final was staged at seven different locations, with the first being held at the Kennington Oval in 1872. Over the next fifty years, the final would take place across the country at Lillie Bridge, Manchester’s Fallowfield Stadium, Everton’s Goodison Park, The Crystal Palace, Manchester United’s Old Trafford and Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge.

Further one-off replays were held at the Racecourse Ground, Burnden Park and Bramall Lane: the homes of Derbyshire County Cricket Club, Bolton Wanderers and Sheffield United respectively.