West Ham United - The Hammers, The Irons

West Ham United Football Club can boast a richer history than most of their London competitors, including their nouveau-riche South London competitors, Chelsea.

While the club have in recent years appeared in the press frequently for all the wrong reasons West Ham's devoted fans still indulge in the halcyon days of the past, even declaring to have actually succeeded the World Cup.

Definitely, offering Martin Peters, captain Bobby Moore and hat-trick hero Geoff Hurst to England's World Cup succeeding team does really provide their claim some merit.

Most football fans know that the club are described as 'The Hammers', however a lot of either do not know the origins of this name or think it to refer to the 'Ham' from West Ham.

In 1895 a factory football group was established by recruitment at the Thames Ironworks manufacturing facility, it is this Thames Ironworks FC team that evolved into the West Ham United Football Club that is still going sturdy today.

It is from these roots that the 'Irons' label is derived which is more commonly understood by the club's own fans than by others beyond East London.

The more popular 'Hammers' label in fact originates from the pair of iron-workers hammers that still appear on the club's badge, referring back to the club's origins of more than a century ago.

An additional preferred misnomer among other football fans is that West Ham United play their football at their Upton Park stadium, when in fact their house is really called The Boleyn Ground which occurs to be in the Upton Park location of East London.

The Boleyn Ground gets its name from an enforcing home that utilized to stand on Green Street in Upton Park and was leased by the young football club a the beginning of the 20th Century, with football being played in its premises.

This residence claimed some historic link to Anne Boleyn, among Henry VIII's six wives and was referred to locally as the Boleyn Castle.

It is the Boleyn Castle that contends times been consisted of with the crossed hammers in West Ham's official club badge.

Another reference to this well-known old building's part of the West Ham heritage is the incorporation of 2 large turrets into the West Stand which face out on to Environment-friendly Road.

The name Green Street could appear familiar, it is this street that offered its name to the inedependent movie, released in 2005, which informed the story of a 'company' of West Ham football hooligans.

Whatever the future holds for this terrific London football club, there is no denying the wonderful history and custom that any Hammers fan can be proud of. You can be sure that, whatever occurs, they will continue to attend games at The Boleyn Ground in great numbers and will all be Forever Blowing Bubbles.