West Ham United’s history during a previous Football League cancellation
English Football has officially been postponed but this isn’t the first time West Ham or the EFL have dealt with closures. However, you do have to go way back to find it.
If you lived in East London back in the 1940s then you would’ve been familiar with the famously christened motto of “keep calm and carry on.” Your main source of carrying on, depending on the week, West Ham football. However, at that time the football in England was a real limited stock.
Although never fully ceased, as feared for the league’s potential state, the status of English Football did take a huge hit as the country focused on the years of conflict upcoming. As the focus shifted, the War League and War Cup were created in place of the EFL and the FA Cup to keep the morale high around the country both at home and abroad.
As for the Hammers, they never made it to the pinnacle of the league or any league to this day, unfortunately, but they did find glory in the first-ever War Cup in June of 1940. West Ham played Blackburn Rovers at Wembley Stadium despite fearing a potential and very realistic invasion.
The match itself ended in a 1-0 West Ham victory with Sam Small scoring the lone goal and giving the Hammers the win. London and country for that matter were in chaos but at that moment for 90 plus minutes, all was right with the world.
Between the years of 1945 and 1947 both the Football League and the FA Cup were reinstated and are still in existence to this day. There has to be an undeniable truth that those matches kept the morale high and a country going because even now with just the thought of an EPL postponement or cancellation brings despair and oppression to many.
Next. Could West Ham Benefit From Matches Behind Closed Doors?. dark
Some 70 plus years later the Hammers and all of English Football find themselves in a similar reality. Not from war or invasion, but from infection and disease as the Coronavirus spreads across the world and although the current forecast is bleak, one must draw on the past to bring on resiliency. For now…stay safe, stay healthy, keep calm, carry on, and COME ON YOU IRONS!