West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club based in London, currently playing in the Premier League. The earliest generally accepted incarnation of West Ham United was founded in 1895 as the Thames Ironworks team by foreman and local league referee Dave Taylor and owner Arnold Hills and was announced in the Thames Ironworks Gazette of June 1895. The club, Thames Ironworks 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. West Ham Utd had joined the Western League for the 1901 season. They initially competed in the Southern League and Western League before eventually joining the full Football League in 1919 and subsequently enjoyed promotion to the top flight for the 1923 season. 1923 also saw the club feature in the first FA Cup Final to be held at Wembley against Bolton Wanderers. In 1940 the team won the inaugural Football League War Cup. The club have won the FA Cup three times: in 1964, 1975 and 1980. In 1965, they won the European Cup Winners Cup, and in 1999 they won the Intertoto Cup. Three West Ham players were considered an important factor behind England's triumph in the 1966 World Cup. England's captain at the time was West Ham's Bobby Moore, and both goalscorers in the final were then current players Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters. Some of the other noteworthy players include: Winston Reid, Sean Maguire, James Tomkins, Raphael Spiegel, Gary O'Neil, George Moncur etc
