West Ham United

From East End Family to Globalised Fandom

Jack Fawbert

• Publisher: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• eBook ISBN:
  9781801502344
• Year: 2022

West Ham United: From East End Family to Globalised Fandom is the story of the evolution of West Ham. It charts how a works football team was transformed into a club that represented east London's working classes, only to be transformed again in the late 20th and early 21st centuries into a global brand with supporters in every habitable place on Earth. Starting as the Thames Ironworks Ltd works team, they changed their name to West Ham United in 1900, shortly before moving to the Boleyn Ground in Upton Park. For nearly a century they were supported by local working-class men from across the East End of London until a series of economic, social, cultural, geographical and technological changes brought the club a global fanbase. Through surveying West Ham United fan groups across the world, this book attempts to explain this phenomenon and to get a sense of what the club means to those who originally came from the East End, as well as to those who have no biographical connection to the area.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1. From the Local to the Global
• 2. The Making of Football Fandom in the East End
• Photos
• 3. Farewell to the East End? The Great Exodus and the Magical Recovery of Community
• 4. ‘Inauthentic’ Fans, Virtual Class Tourists and Hipsters?
• 5. ‘We All Follow the West Ham, Over Land and Sea!’
• 6. ‘Stand Up If You Love West Ham’
• 7. We’re All Going on a Worldwide Tour!
• Photos
• 8. Conclusions: ‘Casual’ or ‘Serious’ Leisure?
• Appendix
• Bibliography