A Pictorial History
FOOTBALL PROGRAMMES
WEST HAM UNITED
Steve Marsh & Stuart Allen
Copyright © 2021 All rights reserved
The War Years : 1939/40 - 1945/46
The 1939-1940 season was the 46th season of competitive football in England. The Football League season was only three matches old when everyone's worst fears were realised and the League programme was immediately abandoned and these games were deleted from the record books. Fearing immediate mass air-raids, the Government introduced measures to restrict large gatherings at cinemas, race-tracks and, inevitably, football grounds.
Eventually, the restrictions were relaxed and, after a short period of friendly matches, the League began in a regionalised format. Many footballers signed up to fight in the war and as a result many teams were depleted, and fielded guest players instead. Appearances in these tournaments do not count in players' official records.
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Acknowledgements:
The War Years pages have been written and illustrated from material gathered from fellow collectors. We would like to thank specialist programme collector and dealer Dennis Lamb for allowing us access to his vast collection, Nigel Turner and Simon Lord for providing some of the rare and harder-to-find issues missing from our own collection and John Northcutt from the West Ham United Statisticians Group for his help and support with team line-up's