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West Ham United Football Club is an English Football club based in West Ham , London Borough Of Newham , East London , and have played their home matches at the 35,146 capacity Boleyn Ground stadium since 1904 . The club was originally founded as in 1965 and the Intertoto Cup in 1999. They also won the first War Cup in 1940. The club's best league position was a third place finish in 1986 old top flight. West Ham currently holds the distinction for being the only team in the history of the Premiership to breach the 40 point boundary and still be relegated (in 2003).http://www.soccer-stats.com/divisions/league_table.asp?divno=1&asid=02 They currently compete in the . HISTORY See Also: History of West Ham United F.C. See also West Ham United F.C. Timeline in 1895.]] The earliest generally accepted incarnation of West Ham United was founded in 1895 as the Thames Ironworks works team by foreman and local league referee Dave Taylor and owner Arnold Hills 1 and was announced in the Thames Ironworks Gazette of June 1895. The team played on a strictly amateur basis for 1895 at least, with a team featuring a number of works employees including Thomas Freeman (ships fireman), Walter Parks (clerk), Johnny Stewart, Walter Tranter and James Lindsay (all boilermakers), William Chapman, George Sage, and William Chamberlain and apprentice riveter Charlie Dove . The club, Thames Ironworks F.C. 2 were the first ever winners of the West Ham Charity Cup in 1895 contested by clubs in the locality, 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.'3 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 F.C. in a relegation play-off, 5-1 in late April 1900 and retained their First Division status. See also Thames Ironworks F.C. The team initially played in full dark blue kits, as inspired by Mr. Hills, who had been a Cambridge University " Blue ", but changed the following season by adopting the sky blue shirts and white shorts combination worn through 1897 to 1899 . In 1899 they acquired their now traditional home kit combination of claret shirts and sky blue sleeves in a wager involving Aston Villa F.C. players. See also Colours Of West Ham Utd F.C. Following growing disputes over the running and financing of the club in June 1900 Thames Ironworks F.C. was wound up, then almost immediately relaunched on 5 July 1900 as West Ham United F.C. with Syd King as their manager and future manager Charlie Paynter as his assistant. Because of the original "works team" roots and links (still represented upon the club badge), they are still known to this day as 'the Irons' or 'the Hammers' amongst fans and the media.45 The reborn club continued to play their games at the Memorial Ground in Plaistow (funded by Arnold Hills) but moved to a Pitch in the Upton Park area when the team officially severed ties with the company (losing their works provisioned offices in the process). After being made groundless in 1901 the team became transient, playing their home games on a number of local teams grounds. However, in 1904 the team moved to its current home of Upton Park in the guise of the Boleyn Ground stadium. Their first game in their new home was against local rivals Millwall F.C. (themselves an Ironworks team, albeit for a rival company) drawing a crowd of 10,000 and with West Ham running out 3-0 winners, and as the '' Daily Mirror '' wrote on September 2 1904 : West Ham Utd F.C. had joined the Western League for the 1901 season'6 in addition to continuing playing 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 Leagues Overall Champions. In 1919 , still under King's leadership, West Ham gained entrance to the Football League Second Division and were promoted to Division One in 1923 , making the FA Cup final at the same time. The team enjoyed mixed success in Division 1 but retained their status for 10 years and reached an FA Cup semi final in 1927 , 4 years later. In 1932 the club was relegated to Division Two and long term custodian Sydney King was sacked after serving the club in the role of Manager for 32 years, and as a player from 1899 to 1903. 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. The club spent most of the next 30 years in this division, first under Paynter and then later under the leadership of former player Ted Fenton . Fenton succeeded in getting the club once again promoted to the top level of English football in 1958 and in helping develop both the initial batch of future West Ham stars and West Ham's approach to the game. at Wembley. West Ham's first major trophy.]] Ron Greenwood was appointed as Fenton's successor in 1961 and he soon led the club to two major trophies, winning the FA Cup in 1964 and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1965. During the 1966 World Cup , an important part of the England National Football Team was composed of West Ham players, including the captain, Bobby Moore , Martin Peters (who scored in the final), and Geoff Hurst , who scored the only ever Hat-trick to-date in a World Cup final. 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 to the role of Team manager. The result was instant success as the new Manager led them on to win the FA Cup in his first season. Lyall then guided West Ham to another European Cup Winners' Cup final in 1976, though the team lost the match 4-2 to Anderlecht . Greenwood's new role within the club lasted less than three years as he was appointed to manage England in the wake of Don Revie's resignation in 1977. In 1978, the club were again relegated to Division Two but the board stuck by their manager and Lyall was able lead West Ham to another FA Cup win in 1980. No team since has won the trophy from outside the top division. They were promoted to Division One in 1981, having spent only 3 years in the lower league, although they were relegated after 8 seasons in 1989 This relegation resulted in John Lyall's sacking, in spite of the fact that this stay in Division One saw West Ham achieve their highest ever placing in the top division, finishing 3rd in 1986. Very briefly, they were led by Lou Macari , though he resigned after less than a single season and former player Billy Bonds was the next West Ham manager in charge. In his first full season, 1990-91 , West Ham again secured promotion to Division One. The following season, 1991-92, they were relegated, to the newly christened Division One (formerly Division 2), missing out on the inaugural Premier League season. West Ham again only spent one year in Division One, before finishing 2nd and gaining promotion to the Premier League in May 1993. After a more stable season in the Premier League, Bonds acrimoniously and controversially quit, and was replaced by Harry Redknapp in August 1994. Redknapp was active in the Transfer Market , and gained a reputation as a "wheeler-dealer" especially with foreign players being more available following the Bosman Ruling . He led West Ham to 5th place in 1998/99 but they missed out on automatic qualification for the UEFA Cup (despite seasons prior to and since where 5th was good enough), but did indeed qualify for that competition as winners of the Intertoto Cup . Despite consolidating the league placings for a handful of seasons, a disagreement with the board of directors during the close of the 2000-01 Season , found Redknapp replaced with Glenn Roeder , promoted from Youth team coach. In Roeder's first season the team finished 7th (an improvement on Redknapp's last finish of 15th.), but there were worrying signs as West Ham lost 7-1 to Blackburn and 5-0 and 5-1 to Everton and Chelsea respectively. The subsequent season started poorly and eventually resulted in relegation. Following ill-health and poor results, Roeder was sacked in August 2003 after only 3 games in charge in Division 1. Trevor Brooking (who served as manager during Glenn's ill health the previous season) stepped in as interim manager before being replaced with Alan Pardew in October 2003, headhunted from promotion rivals Reading. Pardew led the team to a Playoff final, though they were beaten by Crystal Palace . The club stayed in Division One for another season, when they again reached the playoff final, but this time won and gained re-entry to the Premiership.
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