The 'I'm a Hammers' chant

Lore & Background

West Ham United was founded in 1895 as Thames Ironworks and reformed in 1900 as West Ham United. It moved to the Boleyn Ground 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. The club has a long-standing rivalry with Millwall, and the fixture has gained notoriety for frequent incidents of football hooliganism.

Reader's Guide

West Ham United has won five major honours: the FA Cup three times (1964, 1975 and 1980) and runner-up twice (1923 and 2006); the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1965, runner-up in the same competition in 1976; and the Conference League in 2023. The club also won the Intertoto Cup in 1999. The club's highest league position was third in the First Division in 1985–86. Three West Ham players were members of the 1966 World Cup-winning England team: captain Bobby Moore and goalscorers Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters.

Did You Know?

• West Ham United was founded in 1895 as Thames Ironworks F.C., the works team of the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company.
• The club adopted its 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.
• West Ham 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.