West Ham United F.C.
association football club in London, England
West Ham United Football Club is a professional football club based in Stratford, East London, England. The club currently competes in the EFL Championship in the 2026–27 season following relegation from the Premier League. The club 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. 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.
West Ham United has won five major honours in its history. Domestically, it has been winner of the FA Cup three times (1964, 1975 and 1980) and runner-up twice (1923 and 2006).
The public source identifies “West Ham United F.C.” as association football club in London, England. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around West, United and association.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “West Ham United F.C.”, the useful work is to connect “association football club in London, England” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18747. VIAF identifies the subject as 140800618. The Library of Congress control number is n86010411. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2026, 2016, 1895 and 1900.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “West Ham United F.C.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.