West Ham United, My Favorite Football Team

If you are Korean, I bet you’ve heard of name Heung-Min Son for

once. He plays for Tottenham Hotspur in England Premier League. Since he's

been showing good performance in his team, there's been always an article

about him on Naver sports section. Personally, I enjoy watching all kinds of

sports match on tv or in person at the stadium. After my university entrance

exam had finished, I found out that I got plenty of free times until March

comes. That was the time when I see an article about Son, ‘Will he be in

the starting lineup for today's match?'. As soon as I finished reading the

article I decided to watch the match that night. It was the match Tottenham

Hotspur welcomes Wolves at the Wembley Stadium. Even though the match

ended with Tottenham's defeat by 1-3, the performance of all players at the

pitch was overwhelming enough for me to fall in love with. The chant

towards players and whistle from the referee, everything was impressive. I

did feel the exact feeling I felt 2 years ago when I get addicted to volleyball.

I got that feeling in the stadium when I visited the place in person. However,
football gave me that feeling again this time, just by watching the live

broadcast. But it seems there is a missing part of the puzzle. Tottenham's

performance was great, all the players were attractive and there is even Son

whose nationality is the same as mine. Yet I couldn't help myself thinking

"There will be the team I could be totally crazy about. During the process, I

naturally became a football fan and a supporter of West Ham United.

The reason why I started like West Ham United, which has quite a

minor fanbase in Korea I presume, is because of their symbol, bubbles. Once

I had admitted the fact that I'm into football deeply, I started to watch every

EPL match that Naver offers live broadcast. All I had was time. After a few

later, I watched a match West Ham United against Brighton. The match

ended with a 2-2 draw yet one thing really got my attention. It was up in

the air flying around the stadium at the beginning of the match. I realized

that bubbles are also appearing at the start of the 2nd half of the match

and when the player scores. At first, I thought ‘Aren't those dangerous?

What if that thing makes the field sloppy?' But when I found out the
meaning of the bubble, I was surprised. Simply, there was a football player

called Billy Murray in the West Ham area of East London. Since his face

looked like the boy of a painting ‘Bubbles' of painter John Everett Millais,

his fans started to sing a chant of a song ‘I'm forever bubbling' for him.

That's how bubble got its position as a symbol of West Ham. They used

machines to make bubbles and spread them in the stadium. They also

created a mascot named Bubbles. Due to the team's endless love towards

the bubble, I'm in love with it now.

West Ham United is based in Stratford, East London, England. The

team was founded in 1895 as Thames Ironworks and reformed in 1900 as

West Ham United. They moved to the Boleyn Ground in 1904, which

remained their home ground for more than a century. However, they moved

to London Stadium in 2016 after having an argument with Tottenham

Hotspur on the ownership of London Stadium. The capacity of the stadium

is 60,000. The club’s origins as Thames Ironworks. Therefore, the hammer

was always been in team logo except for once, in 1895. The nickname of
the team is The Irons, The hammers and The Academy of Football. For a

similar reason, the supporters are known as The Hammers too. The cheer

chant towards the team is COYI, which is a shorter version of Come On You

Irons. Furthermore, one of their team mascots is called Hammerhead. It

looks exactly like a hammerhead. Their symbolic colors are claret and blue.

Both of Home kit and Away kit consist of claret and blue. That’s why the

players also call themselves as Claret and Blue Army.

If you are interested in football, you would know what derby is. Derby

is a match between two teams from the same locality. For example,

Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal are called North London Derby since both

teams have home ground in North London. As same as North London Derby,

West Ham United is in derby relationship with Millwall as the name of East

London Derby. The history of East London Derby had started since their

foundation. Both teams were founded by employees of ironworks that were

based in each opposite side of River Thames. The rivalry got intense when

West Ham United's ironworks was on strike because Millwall’s ironworks

didn’t join it. Plus, few fans of Millwall got killed by fans of West Ham United

at the 70s. Even cops were placed to the stadium on the East London Derby

day to prevent possible bloodshed. Moreover, movies called ‘The

Perm(1989)’, ‘Green Street Hooligans(2005)’ were released based on their

rivalry. The group battle scene from ‘Green Street Hooligans’ was filmed

with the help of real right between West Ham United fans and Millwall fans.

It was not planned, yet their fans did audition for extra roles at the movie

and dressed up with the uniforms. The last East London Derby match was

on 4, February 2012 in Championship. West Ham United managed

themselves to promote to Premier League, the first division of EPL in 12/13

season. The team succeeded to remain in Premier League ever since the

promotion. However, Millwall got stuck in Championship and League 1, the

third division of EPL over 10 years. Because of this reason East London Derby

would not happen unless the match is played in FA cup.

In 18/19 season of the Premier League, West Ham United is currently

on the middle table with 11th out of 20 teams. Let's talk about without
mentioning Big 6(Liverpool, Man City, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea, Man Utd,

and Arsenal). West Ham United is only 4 points off 15th and 5 points on

7th. They’ve finished last season with 13th on the table. Most of the teams

have 4 to 5 matches left until the season is finished. Only one team with

7th on the table could go to the UEFA Europa League. Until March the team

aimed the 7th spot showing awesome performance. Yet, regular injuries of

players have stopped them to reach to 7th. They spent almost 100M this

season, setting the club record on Felipe Anderson. But the team is not

having a great time. Most of their winning games were home games, played

in the London Stadium. They only scored one goal with Captain Noble's

Penalty against Crystal Palace during the last 5 away games. To end this

from keep happening, West Ham United should consider buying a young

player instead of buying an old player who’s performance was proved yet

facing their end of the career. They got 4 matches left. Now their possible

goal is to end the season with 11th on the table, which is 2 levels up than

last season. I genuinely wish my team could finish this season well.