West Ham
United FC
were
formed in 1895 and were first
elected
to Division 2 in the year 1919.
They
have spent most of their
history in
Division
2 but fortunately only they
have
only resided there in six of
the
past 37
years. However, the league
title
still
hasn't found its way to
Upton
Park and the Hammers'
silverware has
come from cup
competitions.
Manager Ron
Greenwood
took
them to their first success,
with a
1964
FA Cup
final win over
Preston
North End which was
followed
by the
European Cup Winners Cup a
year
later.
John Lyall took over as
manager
in 1974
and within one year had taken
West
Ham Utd to another Cup
triumph,
with a 2-
0 victory over
Fulham
FC in 1975. 5 years later
came
West Ham's last cup success,
a 1-0
victory
over
Arsenal at
Wembley
Stadium when the
Hammers
were a
second division club.
Recent years
have seen
West
Ham United struggle although
they
made
their best ever challenge for
the
league
title in during the 1986
season,
finishing 3rd.
1998/99 was another
progressive
season when they finished
5th
after much wheeling and
dealing by
manager Harry
Redknapp. However, when
Redknapp left the
club in 2001, things
took a
turn for the worse and the
club
were
relegated at the end of
2002/03.
However,
under Alan
Pardew
the Hammers eventually won
promotion back to
the Barclays
Premiership
through the
Championship play-
off final, beating
Preston
North End at the
Millennium
Stadium, Cardiff in
May 2005 . They
reached
the
FA Cup
Final a year later, only
losing to
Liverpool
after a penalty shoot-out.
However, the
2006/07 season saw plenty
of
changes at
Upton
Park as new owners
from
Iceland
arrived and a poor start to the
campaign cost
Pardew his job with Alan
Curbishley arriving
in his place.
Curbishley
resigned from his managerial
position
of 3rd September 2008 and
was
replaced by Italian
Gianfranco Zola who
is the
first non-British manager to
manage
the club since it was formed
back
in
1895.
