GOODBYE E13, HELLO E20
Below: An early 1920s view of the second version of the
West Stand
With Tottenham, Arsenal, Clapton
Orient, Chelsea and Fulham already
members of the Football League,
West Ham finally joined the party in
1919/20, when the competition was
extended to 44 clubs. The Hammers
quickly made an impression in Division Two, winning promotion to Division One in 1922/23, and also participating in the famous 'White Horse'
FA Cup Final, which was the first to
be held at Wembley.
A ground more in keeping with their
newly acquired First Division status
was the next item on the agenda,
and in 1925 West Ham's directors authorised a rebuilding programme costing £45,000. A
towering double-decker grandstand rose up on the Green Street side of the ground, the
scale of which repreThe 19251925-vintage West Stand, seen here in the1950s
sented a coming of age
for the still callow Hammers. Though designed
by outside architects, the
stand was built in-house
by W J Cearns Ltd, a
building firm with a longstanding connection to
West Ham at boardroom
level. Seating 4,600, with
room for a similar number of standing spectators in the section below
the seating deck, the
stand was easily the rival
of any other stand in
London at the time. The
roof from the previous
grandstand was salvaged and redeployed at the southern end, providing additional covered accommodation for 'shilling' spectators,
A newsreel still of the North Bank in 1930
whose only form of shelter prior to then had
been provided by the stand on the east side
of the ground. Not inaccurately known as
the Chicken Run, this rudimentary stand
contained wooden terracing and had originally been open to the elements before a
simple roof was added. By the time all the
work was completed in 1925, the Boleyn
Ground's capacity had swollen from 32,000
to 45,000, with room for 25,000 under
cover.
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Groundtastic - The Football Grounds Magazine