West Ham United Football Club can boast a richer history than most of their London rivals, including their nouveau-riche South London rivals, Chelsea.
While the club have in recent years appeared in the press regularly for all the wrong reasons West Ham's faithful fans still bask in the halcyon days of the past, even claiming to have won the World Cup.
Chelsea FC
Certainly, providing Martin Peters, captain Bobby Moore and hat-trick hero Geoff Hurst to England's World Cup winning team does actually give their claim some merit.
Most football fans know that the club are referred to as 'The Hammers', but most either do not know the origins of this name or believe it to refer to the 'Ham' from West Ham.
In 1895 a factory football team was set up by staff at the Thames Ironworks factory, it is this Thames Ironworks FC team that evolved into the West Ham United Football Club that is still going strong today.
It is from these roots that the 'Irons' nickname is derived which is more widely known by the club's own fans than by others outside of East London.
The more popular 'Hammers' nickname actually comes 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.
Another popular misnomer amongst other football fans is that West Ham play their football at their Upton Park stadium, when in fact their home is actually known as The Boleyn Ground which happens to be in the Upton Park area of East London.
The Boleyn Ground gets its name from an imposing home that used to stand on Green Street in Upton Park and was rented by the young football club a the start of the 20th Century, with football being played in its grounds.
This house claimed some historic link to Anne Boleyn, one of Henry VIII's six wives and was referred to locally as the Boleyn Castle.
It is the Boleyn Castle that has at times been included with the crossed hammers in West Ham's official club badge.
Another reference to this famous old building's part of the West Ham heritage is the incorporation of two large turrets into the West Stand which face out on to Green Street.
The name Green Street may sound familiar, it is this street that gave its name to the inedependent film, released in 2005, which told the story of a 'firm' of West Ham football hooligans.
Whatever the future holds for this great London football club, there is no denying the great history and tradition that any Hammers fan can be proud of. You can be sure that, whatever happens, they will continue to attend games at The Boleyn Ground in great numbers and will all be Forever Blowing Bubbles.
