West Ham United Football Club is a professional football club based in Stratford, East London, England. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club re-located to the London Stadium in 2016. The club was founded in 1895 as Thames Ironworks and reformed in 1900 as West Ham United. They moved to the Boleyn Ground in 1904, which remained their home ground for more than a century. The team initially competed in the Southern League and Western League before joining the Football League in 1919. They were promoted to the top flight in 1923, when they were also losing finalists in the first FA Cup Final held at Wembley. In 1940, the club won the inaugural Football League War Cup. West Ham have been winners of the FA Cup three times, in 1964, 1975, and 1980, and have also been runners-up twice, in 1923, and 2006. The club have reached two major European finals, winning the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1965 and finishing runners-up in the same competition in 1976. West Ham also won the Intertoto Cup in 1999. They are one of eight clubs never to have fallen below the second tier of English football, spending 59 of 91 league seasons in the top flight, up to and including the 2016–17 season. The club's highest league position to date came in 1985–86 when they achieved third place in the then First Division. Three West Ham players were members of the 1966 World Cup final-winning England team: captain Bobby Moore and goalscorers Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters.
Nicknames:
The team and supporters are known as The Hammers, in part because of the club's origins as Thames Ironworks. [175] They are also known as The Irons[175] and The Cockney Boys.[176] Other nicknames are The Academy of Football, or just The Academy.[177]
Colours The original colours of the team were dark blue, due to Thames Ironworks chairman Arnold Hills being a former student of Oxford University. However, the team used a variety of kits including the claret and sky blue house colours of Thames Ironworks, as well as sky blue or white kit.[134][135]